1.73GHz Intel Core i7-740QM
6GB DDR3
64GB solid-state drive; 500GB hard drive
Blu-ray/DVD combo drive
18.4 inches (1,920x1,080 native resolution)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M (1.5GB)
10.1 pounds
1.8x17.4x11.6 inches
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
6GB DDR3
64GB solid-state drive; 500GB hard drive
Blu-ray/DVD combo drive
18.4 inches (1,920x1,080 native resolution)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M (1.5GB)
10.1 pounds
1.8x17.4x11.6 inches
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Welcome back, stranger. We haven't looked at an update of Toshiba's now-venerable line of Qosmio desktop-replacement machines in some time, so we were excited to check out a freshly minted Core i7 version of one of these big machines.
And it did not disappoint, in our formal tests or our hands-on trials. Loaded with high-end components, Toshiba’s Qosmio X505-Q898 propels to the top of the early-2011 class of entertainment notebooks. In addition to the Core i7 CPU power, it features Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M graphics and a feature set that will satisfy the most demanding multimedia enthusiast. At a $1,999 list price, it isn’t exactly what you’d call an impulse buy, but if you’re in the market for a notebook that can handle serious media crunching and viewing, strenuous productivity-app workouts, and some serious gaming demands, the Qosmio is hard to beat.
Design
Like most big-screen notebooks, the Qosmio X505 is huge and heavy. It weighs 10.1 pounds and measures 1.8x17.4x11.6 inches (HWD). When you factor in its sizable 1.6-pound power brick, there’s a high probability that it won’t see a whole lot of travel time. The chassis sports Toshiba’s so-called "Omega Black" glossy finish, infused with a subtle checkered pattern, and bright metallic-red trim surrounds the lid and keyboard deck. The obligatory Toshiba logo, also in red, is smack in the middle of the lid. You’ll see a fair amount of fingerprint smudging with the shiny finish, but the red-on-black color scheme is sharp-looking when clean.
This model is loaded with connectivity ports, many of which are located along the left side of the chassis. Here you’ll find Ethernet, HDMI, and FireWire ports, as well as an eSATA/USB combo port, a single USB port, an ExpressCard/54 slot, and the tray eject for the Blu-ray reader/DVD writer. Over on the right are two additional USB ports, a pair of audio jacks (headphone and microphone), and a VGA video-out connection. We were surprised that all of the USB ports are of the 2.0 variety rather than the faster 3.0 ports that are beginning to show up on some newer notebooks.
Five red status indicators line the front edge of the keyboard deck, along with a six-format flash-card reader and a Wi-Fi on/off switch. The card reader works with the SD, SDHC, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, xD-PictureCard, and MultiMediaCard formats.
Features
The Qosmio X505’s 18.4-inch screen is, in a word, stunning. With a 1,920x1,080 resolution and 16-to-9 aspect ratio, it displays movies, photos, and other streaming content in full 1080p HD—and does it well. Scenes from our test Blu-ray movie, Avatar, were very bright, with sharp color reproduction, and the inky blacks provided excellent shadow detail. Motion blur was nonexistent both during the movie and while playing Assassin’s Creed II, a fast-paced action/adventure game that looked very striking on the big screen. Viewing angles from the sides were wide, but when viewed from the bottom, the picture darkens considerably. That is not uncommon for a notebook panel, however.
The keyboard deck sports the same glossy-black finish used on the lid, and as such is susceptible to fingerprint smudges. The black keys are illuminated by white LED backlighting and are well-spaced and responsive. The keyboard allows for a bit of flex while typing but is far from mushy. A numeric keypad sits off to the right, and there’s a touch-sensitive control panel with red backlighting to the left of the keyboard. This panel contains the power switch, volume and mute controls, media-transport controls (play/pause and forward/reverse), a DVD-player launch button, and a button that launches Toshiba’s power-conservation Eco utility. (The utility lets you enable and disable the notebook’s power-saving mode, monitor real-time power usage, and track power use over a period of time.) At the leading edge of the keyboard deck, the touch pad is flush with the deck and slightly textured, giving you a bit of friction for precise cursor control. The metallic red mouse buttons are nice and big, and emit a slight click when pressed.
At the top of the deck is a pair of powerful Harman Kardon speakers that will have no trouble filling a small room with crisp, distortion-free sound. With the help of Dolby Home Theater technology, the X505 offers better-than-average bass response without the need for a subwoofer. Storage comes by way of a 64GB solid-state primary drive and a 500GB secondary hard drive that spins at 7,200rpm. Wireless features include 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth networking, and there’s a 1.3-megapixel Webcam embedded in the screen’s upper bezel. The X505 also has a hard drive impact sensor that parks the drive heads when it detects a sudden movement or falling motion.
Performance
Powered by Intel’s 1.73GHz Core i7-740QM processor and 6GB of DDR3 RAM, the Qosmio X505 notched some very impressive scores on our benchmark tests. On the 64-bit PCMark Vantage test, which measures overall system performance, its score of 10,458 was more than 3,000 points higher than the average score for a desktop-replacement notebook we've tested. By way of comparison, the $1,599 Acer Aspire 8943G and $1,699 HP Envy 17, both also built around Intel Core i7 processors, turned in scores of 6,076 and 6,324, respectively, showing that the processor is only part of the overall performance equation. Scores were far more similar on Cinebench 10, which taxes all the available cores on the CPU (and focuses on the CPU more specifically): Here, the X505 scored 11,045 points, while the Envy 17 scored a close 10,250 and the Acer scored 10,206.
Performance at crunching media files was also quite good. On our Windows Media Encoder test (in which we convert a standard 3-minute video clip to DVD-quality format), the Qosmio's score of 3 minutes and 38 seconds was above the category average, though 28 seconds slower than the HP Envy 17. The results on our iTunes Conversion Test were similar. In this test, we convert 11 standard MP3 files to AAC format, and the X505 completed the task in 3 minutes and 12 seconds. Again, that score is above average, though the Envy edged it out by 13 seconds.
Gamers will appreciate the Qosmio X505’s graphics prowess. (In that regard, this machine is no slouch, fueled by Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 460M graphics processor with 1.5GB of its own video memory.) The X505's score of 10,672 on our 3DMark06 gaming benchmark test (running at its native resolution of 1,920x1,080, under DirectX 9) was more than 3,000 points higher than that of the Acer Aspire 8943G. (That machine, by comparison, gets its graphics pep from an ATI Radeon HD 5850 processor with 2GB of memory.) On this test, the X505 also beat the HP Envy 17, which uses a 1GB Radeon HD 5850, by more than 1,200 points.
