Toshiba Qosmio X775: Toshiba's Gamer Grows Up

Battery, Noise, and Heat

The major update with the Toshiba Qosmio X775, beyond just being in a smaller chassis than its monster predecessor, is the GeForce GTX 560M. NVIDIA's 500M series supports Optimus graphics-switching technology top to bottom, and even though Toshiba only ships the Qosmio with a pitiful 48Wh battery, the 560M should let it eke out a decent running time off the mains.

Now that's what I'm talking about. This is the future, folks, and is probably a good reason why NVIDIA's 500M series has seen as many OEM wins as it has. Even being able to switch the graphics in the M17x R3 using the Radeon HD 6970M, NVIDIA's much cleaner Optimus approach runs wild over the competition. The battery Toshiba equips the Qosmio X775 with is embarassingly small, yet it still provides nearly four hours of running time, heretofore unheard of in a gaming notebook.

That said, we did run into a little bit of trouble with Optimus. While the technology generally runs well, for our 720p playback test we had to specify the IGP be used instead of the 560M. If the 560M provided a substantially better experience, that might be a good idea, but Intel's HD 3000 generally does a good job at decoding H.264 content and thus the default ought to be doing that work on the IGP.

In terms of heat and noise the Qosmio X775 was a surprisingly well-behaved guest, but at least some of that is going to be due to the battery design. The battery actually sticks out of the bottom (despite not being extended), tilting the notebook upward and allowing air to flow through. I generally prefer a tilted notebook, and you really shouldn't be running a gaming notebook on your lap if you can avoid it, but I can see where some users are going to take issue with it.

The CPU runs a bit toasty, but mercifully none of the major heat issues really translate to the end user's experience. The hottest point on the surface under load is the left side of the keyboard, but it's not uncomfortable, and the palm rests thankfully don't get too warm. Meanwhile, fan noise is a low whoosh under load, easily ignored given the system's performance.