Conclusion: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

The Toshiba Qosmio line has always been kind of an anomaly in the marketplace. These notebooks were the biggest of the big, and plenty powerful to boot. With the X775 Toshiba has reevaluated some of their design points and the result is a leaner, meaner gaming machine. The Qosmio has gone from being a gloss-infested blinged-out curiosity into a real competitor, its price having dropped as much as its weight.

Taken on its own, the X775 is a perfectly reasonable option that I certainly wouldn't fault anyone for picking up. While the screen quality still leaves a lot to be desired and Toshiba still has some way to go to catch up with the rest of the market where aesthetics are concerned, all the performance is there, and I do like the evil red backlighting.

Toshiba's $1,449 MSRP for our review model is too high, but thankfully NewEgg is willing to sell it to you for a far more reasonable $1,299, and they even sell the souped up 3D model at $200 off of Toshiba's asking price. As far as gaming notebooks are concerned, that lower $1,299 price point helps take Alienware's superior M17x R3 out of contention with the X775. In fact, visiting NewEgg, our Qosmio ranks among the most affordable gaming notebooks and it's tough to really argue in favor of any of the like-priced alternatives. HP's Envy 17 sports a superior 1080p screen and arguably more attractive build, but the Radeon HD 6850M is going to be slower than the GTX 560M in the Qosmio and won't benefit from technology like Optimus. Likewise, out in retail ASUS is happy to sell you a G74 with a GTX 560M and 900p screen for $1,199, even bumping up the RAM to 8GB...but you'll sacrifice the Blu-ray drive and worse, ASUS hasn't enabled Optimus on the G74 series, negating one of the major benefits of the GTX 560M. The G74 is also nearly three pounds heavier.

Ultimately there are two major compromises you'll have to make with the Qosmio X775: you'll have to decide how you feel about the notebook's aesthetics, and you'll have to decide if you're willing to live with the mediocre 900p screen. If these are sacrifices you can make, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better deal on a 17.3" gaming notebook...just don't pay what Toshiba's asking.

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