Toshiba X305-Q725: Quad-Core Gaming Notebook
by Jarred Walton on March 11, 2009 1:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Design and Appearance
While we have looked at plenty of 17" notebooks, many of them tend to look similar - in part because quite a few companies use the same base ODM design. The Toshiba X305 is certainly not the same as other 17" notebooks, which as you probably can guess is good in some areas and not so great in others. The gallery includes high resolution photos of the X305 from various angles for those that would like a closer look.
This notebook is clearly intended to stand out from the boring laptops and make a statement of power. The X305 comes in a bright red "flaming" design that is sure to turn heads, and perhaps it's also meant to convey just how "hot" this system can be. In some areas, this is without doubt the fastest laptop we've tested, but that has more to do with the quad-core CPU than anything. Other laptops also support high-end quad-core processors, and you will find that any laptop with similar components is going to offer about the same performance. Of course, finding a laptop with similar specs isn't necessarily easy, as there aren't a lot of high-end DTR systems that support mobile quad-core Penryn chips.
The optical drive is moved to the front of the X305, which may or may not please you. We don't use optical drives all that much, so it's really not a concern or selling point - it merely is what it is. Toshiba didn't bother with a Blu-ray drive, which is a little surprising considering the target market and price point; upgrading to a Blu-ray reader would have added less than $100, and that would arguably be a better choice of where to spend money than some other included options. Then again, if you don't plan to watch Blu-ray movies, it's not an issue - and you can always add a BD-ROM/BD-R in the future should you choose.
We already discussed most of the port options. A few interesting items we didn't mention yet of the volume knob on the right side. This is a pseudo-analog dial, which can be a bit more convenient when you want to adjust the volume quickly. However, you need to reach a certain threshold in terms of how fast you spin the dial to get the system to recognize that you are adjusting the volume, so fine-grained tweaks can be a bit tricky. The only other item to mention is the WiFi on/off switch on the front of the laptop.
The keyboard is one area we really feel can make or break a laptop, particularly in a DTR system where presumably you will do most of your typing. It is possible to adapt to any keyboard layout, certainly, or you could use an external keyboard, but most people will use what comes as part of the laptop and they'll want it to "feel" right. We like the keyboard layout, including the number keypad, as it provides access to all the commonly used keys. Our only concern is the more ethereal "touch" aspect, which can vary greatly between individuals. It's not bad, but the keys do feel a little soft, and personally I like a keyboard with a bit more texture. The glossy/smooth keys work fine, but I'd still rate the keyboard in the Dell XPS M1730 as being better - plus it includes LED backlighting as an added bonus. One nice feature that the keyboard includes are shortcut "zoom" keys (Fn+1 and Fn+2), which quickly switch between resolutions. We would like to see this functionality on more laptops in the future - especially laptops with higher DPI LCDs. It's not perfect, but it's better than going through the display settings dialogs under Vista just to switch resolution for a while. (Now if Microsoft could just figure out a good way to not rearrange all your desktop icons when you change resolutions….)
Overall, the design is pretty much what you would expect from a 17" notebook with support for dual GPUs and quad-core processors. It's large, heavy, and can be extremely fast. The power brick is huge, adding a couple more pounds to the total carrying weight - and if you ever go on the road, you will definitely want to bring along the power brick, as battery life struggles to break the one hour mark. There are quite a few different X305 models, with the main difference being the selected components - note that the X305-Q725 we're looking at only includes a single GPU, while the X305-Q708 includes dual 9800M GTS and a QX9300 CPU - and costs $1700 more. We'd like to see the option for a 1920x1200 LCD - preferably one that can provide color accuracy and a color gamut to match the rest of the top-end components - but that's one of our few complaints with the design. We would also really like to have an integrated GPU with the option to shut off the power-hungry 9800M GTX, but so far few manufacturers have offered such an option with high-end mobile GPUs, which is truly a shame.
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Morelian - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I've had 2 of the Gateway FX series of notebooks, the first one was the 3mb Vista 32 version with a slower dual core, but it seemed to run games "ok"-WoW, TF2, AoC. Sadly the monitor got stepped on, so now this one is beside the TV functioning as the home media server and does a fine job of that. The first Gateway cost around 1300, then last one was 1050 but they are going for 1150 in Bestbuy now. The newer Gateway has the 2.6 mhz cpu, 4 gb ddr3 and a nicer screen and I find it handles whatever games I throw at it reasonably well. Battery life is about 2 hours, and the large keyboard lets you get work done efficiently.I think I'll wait until Gateway comes out with their quadcore system, both of mine have been really stable, offer nice performance, and aside from the size and weight of the 17 form factor I can't really knock them.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
The Gateway FX P-7808u is now shipping, though the price is higher than the last FX "mainstream" model at around $1700 right now. You can http://www.jr.com/gateway/pe/GTW_P7808U/">buy it here if you're interested, or wait another week or two for my review. Short summary looking at the specs is that they've upgraded the CPU substantially (Q9000), but the LCD is back to the 1440x900 of the P-6831. That does make gaming at the native resolution more viable with the single 9800M GTS, though.Pessimism - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I stopped reading as soon as I read NVIDIA. Three years of defective GPUs that disintegrate under heat and a manufacturer chooses them for a high performance (high temperature) premium gaming notebook.Exar3342 - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
The instability of the machine seems a very big issue to me. I definitely wouldn't spend $2000+ on a machine that hard boots when you try playing a number of different games! Considering that is what this designed for (mobile gaming) that is a serious issue for me and would definitely make this a "non-buy".jabber - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
Cant help but think what $2000 of desktop PC components would give me rather then this....thing?I've known several folks that have bought such monster laptops and all have regretted it later.
Filed under "Seemed like a good idea at the time!"
Dakkota - Sunday, March 15, 2009 - link
These type of computers are made for people like me, I travel the world for work and have been a gamer since the 70's and pong. I don't own this particular one, I have a Clevo M571TU, ( can be bought as SagerNotebook.com and some others) but I was looking to see what the competition has, if you go to the Clevo site, you'll see what awesome machines these are. Yes, the brick and all the that stuff travel around with me, and I play games like Crysis, Far Cry, Fear 2, WOW, all sorts, these machines are great. This is my second Clevo I'm on now, after 3 years with the old one, I wanted to update the technology, people in my family were clamoring to get the old one, these are very stought machines, yes, costly, especially completely decked out like I get them, but worth every penny for the gaming road warrior, and believe me, I've met quite a few.Nfarce - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
Uhm, yeah, that would be me. My $1,800 Dell E1705 Inspiron went from being a pretty decent portable DX8/9 gaming system and DVD movie player in 2006 to basically a websurfer today that sits in the living room next to the remote for when I want to surf and watch TV simultaneously. Damn if only I could have that money back - playing HL2 and other games while traveling for work (that I already played at home on a real gaming bo anyway). It just wasn't worth it in the long run. But I was happy in the beginning - sounds like all my former relationships too, LOL.GaryJohnson - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I think a lot of people who want portable gaming PCs would be better served with SFF desktops.crimson117 - Friday, March 13, 2009 - link
And little portable LCD monitors?JarredWalton - Friday, March 13, 2009 - link
I guess I look at it this way. For a gaming notebook you need to take the following if you want to play games on the road:1) Notebook
2) Power brick
3) Mouse
For an SFF, you need:
1) Main SFF box (plus cords)
2) LCD display (plus cords)
3) Mouse
4) Keyboard
5) Headphones
Now, I won't dispute that an SFF (well, uATX system - SFFs have their own set of problems) is a more cost-effective solution for gaming, offers better performance, and is expandable. However, it is a far cry from being transportable like a DTR setup. Throw in the fact that many proprietary SFFs are not particularly cheap (Shuttle) and quality control on those same SFFs is poor in my experience, and I'd say if you really want to game on the road the DTR market is worth a serious look. You still might go with an SFF, but only if you don't actually travel+game all that much.