14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
great laptop with only a few flaws, October 10, 2010
This review is from: Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q885 TruBrite 18.4-Inch Laptop (Black/Red) (Personal Computers)
first the laptop review.....
i5 chip is great, found a pro review online on the chips, i3 is good, i5 is better, i7 is only around 5 percent better, the i5 is the best value for the money..
large screen, 17.3 would have been fine but could not find a toshiba i was happy with in that size, better to go larger then smaller anyway.
speakers are much better then the tinny sound of my sony viao vgnar150 model this is replacing, a deeper rich sounding speaker.
like the key board alot, still learning the buttons so its hard to comment on the red lights on the left, but either way no big deal, ill learn them soon enough.
gaming of course is great, had a toshiba laptop, got the sony after it became too slow for my needs, sony failed after 3 years, wanted another toshiba for they seem to last much longer..
love windows 7 gauges that tell you how hot your laptop gets, how much your fans are running, much better in terms of keeping track of how your computer is doing...
colors of the laptop is just sexy, fingerprints do suck,they show up everywhere on the black surface, buy the screen cleaning pads and clean your laptop once a week or so, otherwise don't bother me in the least..
4 usb ports,two on each side, none is the back, touch pad if you don't use it, can be turned off, real cool for i always use a cordless mouse and rarely use the touch pad, but it can magnify if you want it to, a great feature ill never use..
performs well of course for it does have a 2.4 processor speed with a boost up to 2.64 if i said that right, dual core is fine for me for i don't do that many different tasks at once, so did not need the i7 quad core chip, at least not until my next new one probably if this holds up at least 5 years from now...{knock on wood}..
i'm pretty sure it had the 12 cell battery and does last around 4 hours which is pretty good for a big laptop.
screen is very clear, some of the blues seem lighter colors on pogo where i play games alot, but overall colors are very good, and screen sharpness is good.can't complain about that.
seems like a well built laptop, the screen closes with some force to it, just a little, its not a real loose feel like my sony had, not sure how well i like that but no big deal either, it wont slam on you or anything, and i got used to it real fast....the color of black with red is great, best looking laptop by far i've ever owned or saw, fast processor also, for the price of other i5 chip computers out there i consider this one a bargain, the upgraded video card is also a plus if you play online games, which i may in the future..
one thing i dont like, is the button to open the optical drive, cd burner of course, it is right below the cd tray, and its tough to get used to finding, i liked having one on the keyboard better, but not a big deal enough to downgrade the rating...
the power cord is huge, and easy to plug in, but it is big and heavy, but cord length is very good, a long cord.
touch pad works as well as it should, no better or worse then any good laptop, the two touch pad buttons on the computer itself is sort of annoying for one reason, on my sony i could relax may hand and use the buttons from below the surface, on this toshiba you can't for there is a thin piece of metal on the front of the buttons, so you have to push on them from the top, best i can explain this, but also i use a mouse so this is not a big deal for me to downgrade the rating..
so to sum up, great laptop for the price, minor cons of showing fingerprints and opening cd tray and touch pad buttons are not enough cons to downgrade in my opinion, love the computer and will keep it for as long as possible, bought the squaretrade accident warranty just to be safe, for me its toshiba or dell, the rest just seem to break too much and i hate having my computer repaired, the only other option is apple and i just don't like their systems.....
overall a great value for a grand, i do not regret my choice and glad i took my time to make sure i got the right laptop for me, can't wait for when i get the time to make another home movie for the family, should be much easier on this laptop,
now quick as possible the story of the heck i went through to get this computer..
ordered another toshiba with the i5 chip, 3 weeks later amazon cancels the order, can't get the item, called amazon, first person told me to wait another week or so to see if amazon puts them back up for sale or pay another 90 bucks to get it from another amazon seller, no way, no how. not after having waited 3 weeks already..
second guy willing to help me, he met me half way on this qosmio model, the price difference was 140 dollars, he gave me 60 off and free two day shipping, thanks amazon
computer comes 5 days later because of the weekend, 3 hours of putting my stuff in the computer my problems start, the computer fan on the right side bottom is making a noise like plastic is hitting the fan when you pick up the computer while its on. message popping up on screen saying system is too hot and shut it down.
toshiba tech says possibly a bad hard drive, send it in for service, when i tell him its brand new, he said take it back, no problem.
called amazon, the lady says i'll send you a label to send it back, and sent me another one and also one day shipping, very nice solution, amazon rules for this is the first brand new product i had to send back.
amazon lady says to insure the defective computer for what i paid for it and ship it back, problem, ups says i can't insure an item going back to a return center or repair center for defective items, so i send it in anyway for amazon already shipped me a new one and felt they deserved to get the other back as soon as possible.
amazon lady calls me the next night, got upset when i told her what happened at ups, told me im responsible, sorry but i'm not that stupid, here is the tracking number and i sent the computer back exactly the way i got it, same box and packing materials, can't help what ups does, not my fault....
got mad and called amazon, a guy told me dont worry about it, as long as i sent the computer back following the instructions no problem, if it arrives with more damage then when i sent it then thats an issue between amazon and ups, and i agree....
the good guy notified me by email two days later saying they received the broken laptop, thank you, so i don't have to worry about fighting a charge of two laptops on my card, less headaches for me..
now another issue, got the second laptop, windows update for some reason after downloading 32 updates disconnected my optical drive, after an hour on the phone with toshiba a nice senior tech took over my computer and found the problem, windows update somehow put one lower filter and one higher filter deep in my system, tech found the problem and optical drive back, usually when this happens the easier fixes work but with my luck it took a harder path to fix, but has not happened again and all my stuff and printers and back up hard drives are now installed, and if it would happen again i know how to fix it, so the crap toshiba supports seems to take in the reviews i dont understand, the first guy of course could not fix the problem, the senior tech did, and stayed with me until it got fixed, then spent another 10 minutes to tell me the path to fix this if it happens again,for i asked him to do this, a search on the internet showed this happens sometimes with windows 7 and the same thing did happen to my sony xp system 5 years ago when it was new, but that was an easier fix ,but as far as this model have not seen anyone else this happened to, but all i did was set up my email with windows live email, norton account, and did download my arcsoft showbiz 2 i use to make videos, gotta have that,so don't know why windows update keeps picking on my new optical drive, but only seems to happen once and thats it, just wish i knew why, i am curious if any of you qosmio owners have had this happen to you also, but i still like windows 7 system..next operating system windows comes out with a good idea would be the optical drive cannot be disconnected by accident or updates, see, window 8 was my idea, hah hah hah come on, that was a little funny..
now on using older products on this laptop, my printers installed, epson r300 installed without a hitch, for i make dvd covers and love the printer for this reason, and was an easy install considering the printer is 4 or 5 years old and xp was the newest system for the printer.
my canon pixma ip4000 installed with a little bit of hassle, put the setup disc in and had to plug in the printer to get a compatable driver for it, works a little differently then on my old laptop but all the screens i need are there and now i can put off buying my wife the new canon photo printer until we use up our ink. for she loves her little canon for the 8 x 10 photos.
now my all in one epson rx620 was a hassle, could not get the printer to talk to the computer, downloaded the updates for the software for the scanner no problem from the epson site, a call to epson and the very helpful guy got me through the process to get the driver i needed, so thank you epson..stayed with me until we got all the utilities working, was impressed for it was my first call to epson with a printer out of warranty and they helped me and did not try to charge me, a welcome experience in these modern times.
now on to my lord of the rings, battle for middle earth game, 8 years old or so and never expected it to run on windows, and of course it did not, a search on the...
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