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List price as of Sep 23, 2008:
S$4099
S$4099
Product Summary
Excellent
The good: Good graphics and audio performance; cool fiery design; dual harddisk bays; sleep-and-charge USB and eSATA/USB combo ports. 8.3
out of 10View score
The bad: Glossy keyboard picks up fingerprints; no TV tuner; lacks Blu-ray optical drive; display not full-HD.
The bottom line: Doing more than just putting in a high-end graphics card, the Qosmio X300 adds an excellent sound system and other features to the mix.
Read full review of the Toshiba Qosmio X300 »
Average User Rating
CNET Asia Review
It is a common misconception that all a gaming laptop needs are a high-end graphics card and blazing processor. Though these form the foundation for a good playing experience, it takes much more to gain recognition as an excellent gaming platform. The Toshiba Qosmio series has always had top-end components to target the entertainment crowd. However, the latest X300 is the first Qosmio to pave the way into the gaming segment for the Japanese maker.
In Asia, the current laptop selection for hardcore gamers is very limited, consisting of only Dell's XPS M1730 and the Asus G series. Even so, the Qosmio X300 is not going to have an easy time competing, considering that the XPS is currently the only machine in this region to offer a dual graphics setup, while the Asus G2S comes with a pimped-up look.
Design
When Toshiba designed the Qosmio X300, it was obvious what the company intended the laptop to be. This machine is not meant to be used for gentle (read wimpy) social titles like The Sims or Wall-E the Video Game. Hell no. When one whips out the Qosmio X300, Toshiba wants you to know it means business. The shiny fiery-red motif was made to stoke the flames of glory and strike fear in the hearts of opponents.At least that was the original plan. What really happens is that this effect occurs only in dimly lit environments where the flickering lights give the machine a fearsome effect. However, under strong office lights we felt the laptop gives off a plasticky impression which does little for its appeal. Fortunately, most hardcore gamers will probably play in low-light conditions and, in any case, aesthetics is a personal choice.
But what is not subjective is that this laptop is both huge and heavy. Occupying a space of 412 x 306 x 62.5mm with a 4.3kg heft, this is not a portable you want to commute with on a daily basis, especially if you take public transport. To be fair, even this proportion is dwarfed by the XPS M1730 which needs extra space and power to support the two internal graphics cards.
Like most desktop replacements, there is a separate numeric keypad next to the keyboard. Unfortunately, the keyboard is coated with a glossy layer which does wonders for its look, provided you never ever use it for typing. In our opinion, fingerprints get picked up too easily for comfort and this is something we could do without.
Features
Coming in at over S$4,000 (US$2,823.86), we expected and got an excellent feature set with the Qosmio X300, save one. To date, no Toshiba laptop has incorporated a Blu-ray drive and the X300 is no exception. Even in machine which cost half as much, Blu-ray combo drives are becoming commonplace. The optical drive reads and writes to almost every DVD and CD standards available, though Toshiba went with its proprietary LabelFlash labeling technology instead of the more common LightScribe format.Another gripe is with the screen. Though a Blu-ray drive isn't present, there is no excuse not to bump up the resolution to full-HD. The 17-inch widescreen's native resolution of 1,680 x 1,050 may be sharp enough for most games, but falls short when rendering high-definition videos. There is also a trend for desktop replacements moving to new 16:9 aspect ratio LCDs with 16.4- or 18.4-inch sizes. 16.4-inch machines like the Sony Vaio VGN-FW12G offer almost the same screen estate but keeps to a midsized form factor, while the 18.4-inch HP HDX18 give much more viewing area with a relatively small increase in dimensions.
The LCD is powered by an Nvidia GeForce 9700M GTS with 512MB of dedicated video memory (which can be bumped up to 1,791MB by sharing with the system RAM). As we will see later, this graphics card (GPU) provides excellent gaming performance. We tested the system with Crysis and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and had no issues running at an acceptable frame rate with high settings. External displays can be hooked up to the VGA or Regza-Link HDMI ports.
Tags: Toshiba Qosmio, Laptop Computer, Video Card, Keyboard, video
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User Discussion
suraj:
It's cool man i want to get it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
jietjiang:
wow, so hot red color computer, i think this is just for my birthday gifts:)so beautifull:)
Okey, i leave one ...
mokkimhong:
in US, similar model cost less than 2000 US.
what makes this more than 4000 sg dollars?
its rediculious!
