Toshiba Satellite Series Laptops- Qosmio Review

Starting At: $999.99

As Tested: $1849.99

Toshiba builds exceptional electronics. Their Satellite Series laptops are among the most popular PCs on the market but when you think of Toshiba you don’t think of sheer computing power. Well, think again.

Toshiba has a less well known line of laptops under the name of Qosmio. These laptops are geared towards serious PC junkies that demand unrivaled performance in work, media and of course, gaming. With a massive 17.3 inch, full 1080 3d hd screen and a starting weight of 7.5 pounds, it isn’t the most portable laptop on the market but its size is justified by its specs.

As tested, the Qosmio comes with a whopping 2 terabytes (2048 gigabytes) of hard drive space,in the form of 2, 1 terabyte hard disk drives- so you can easily swap one out for a solid state drive. The processor is a state of the art Intel Core  i7 which is programmed to dynamically overclock up to 3.7 gigahertz. An Nvidia 670M with 3 gigabytes of dedicated RAM powers the graphics. And let’s not forget the generous 16 gigabytes of DDR3 RAM.

Externally there are 4 USB 3.0 ports (2 of which are equipped with sleep and charge), an HDMI and VGA port (which cannot be used simultaneously), Blueray/DVD/CD tray and an SD card slot.

With a full, red LED backlit keyboard including a 10 digit number pad, it also features an expansive multi-touch clickpad that makes navigating the huge screen a breeze. It only comes in the signature “Black Widow” red and dark gray color scheme which makes it look aggressive, sophisticated and refined.

The Qosmio was able to handle Skyrim, Battleild 3, Tribes Ascen and pretty much everything else I could throw at it. In the process, the frames that I was getting per second never once fell under 40. Granted, I could only play them on very high settings and not full settings, but the fact that all of that power is packed into a laptop made it no less impressive.

On the more work oriented front, I tested the full Adobe suite including After Effects, Premiere, and of course Photoshop. The experience was silky smooth with hardly any downtime for rendering and previewing.

If you are in the market for a true gaming laptop, a portable workhorse that can handle everything you ask from it, or a laptop capable of totally replacing the need for a desktop, the 2013 Toshiba Qosmio is the perfect balance between power, style and price.

Toshiba Website