The Toshiba Qosmio F755-3D290 ($1,699.99 direct) sounds like the stuff of science fiction, with its integrated stereoscopic 3D technology that lets you watch video in 3D without glasses. Unfortunately, this new twist on display technology comes off as gimmicky and pulls down the overall quality of an otherwise well-equipped?if pricey?desktop replacement laptop. While gadget lovers and 3D aficionados may want to snap this up, most will wisely pass in favor of more mainstream alternatives.
Design and Features
The Qosmio F755-3D290 features Toshiba's Fusion 3D Finish, a textured metallic red plastic across the lid, with a glossy black finish covering the palm rest and interior. The glossy finish attracts plenty of fingerprints, but the patterned design disguises them fairly well. Measuring 1.5 by 15.3 by 10.5 inches (HWD), the Qosmio F755-3D290 is far from being the slimmest laptop in the desktop replacement category. Part of its girth can be attributed its thick lid and screen?needed in order to accommodate the additional hardware for the glasses-free 3D. This extra hardware contributes to the Qosmio's weight, tipping the scales at 7.5 pounds. Compared with the 5.5-pound Dell XPS 15z (Microsoft) ($999 direct, 4 stars), it's no featherweight, and it weighs just as much as the HP Envy 17 3D ($1,599.99 direct, 3.5 stars), which has a larger 17-inch screen.
The most distinguishing feature on the Qosmio F755-3D290 is its ability to display 3D content without the need of glasses. Rather, Toshiba's "Active Lens" technology creates a double parallax display that allows two separate images to be displayed at once, and directed to each eye independently. While displaying 2D content, the 15.6-inch display offers 1,920-by-1,080 resolution, with a widescreen format. When displaying 3D content, the resolution drops to 1,024 by 768, the same resolution you would see on a budget laptop, albeit in stereoscopic 3D. The display also has faint diagonal lines running across the screen, which diminishes the visual appeal of the 1080p display.
Through the Qosmio F755-3D290's built-in webcam and Toshiba's FaceTracking technology, it determines the position of your eyes and adjusts the angle of the two images to accommodate every turn and shift of your head. Admittedly, it's an exciting concept, but in practice it falls short of expectations. To hear Toshiba tell it, you'd think that watching a movie with the glasses-free 3D enabled would be a movie-lover's dream, with added depth and not even the barrier of a pair of glasses separating the viewer from immersing themselves in cinematic splendor. In practice, the effect is difficult to watch for more than a few minutes. Though the FaceTracking technology adjusts the picture for your head movement, it lags so badly that the effect is more problematic than the issue it's purportedly solving. And if you already find yourself woozy when watching 3D, the new display makes it worse as it constantly warps and shifts to match your vantage point. While the concept of glasses-free 3D is enticing, this is clearly a technology that needs a few more kinks worked out.
The keyboard's keys are square, but aren't separated in the usual chiclet-style as they are on keyboards like the Sony VAIO VPC-F215FX/BI ($1,799 direct, 4 stars). Unlike the sculpted keys of the Editors' Choice Dell XPS 15z, the Qosmio F755-3D290 has flat-surfaced keys with a slightly raised square keycaps, mimicking the feel of a chiclet-style keyboard. There's also a 10-key numeric keypad for number entry or gaming. A capacitive-touch control strip above the keyboard lets you control functions (like volume, 3D, Wi-Fi, etc.) with just a touch. Just below the keyboard is a multitouch trackpad molded into the surface of the palm rest. The trackpad surface is distinguished by a light texture and glowing strip across the top. Below the touchpad are two shiny right and left mouse buttons, polished like a chrome bumper. They click easily, but don't offer the same softness as the mouse buttons on the Dell XPS 15z.
The built-in Harman/Kardon stereo speakers are paired with Dolby Advanced Audio and Waves MaxxAudio 3 audio enhancement software. The resulting audio quality is quite good, but it can't offer the same sort of bass heard from the HP Envy 17 3D, which has a built-in subwoofer and is equipped with Beats audio.
The Toshiba Qosmio F755-3D290's feature set is pretty well fleshed out. The three USB 2.0 ports are equipped with Toshiba's Sleep N' Charge utility, which lets you charge your phone or MP3 player while the laptop is powered down, and one USB 3.0 port for connecting faster hard drives. The headphone and microphone jacks are juiced up, thanks to Toshiba's Sleep N' Music, which lets you listen to your MP3 player through the F755-3D290's speakers while the laptop is asleep.In terms of connectivity, this laptop has Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11n Wi-Fi, as well as Bluetooth 3.0 and a media card reader (SD, MMC, MS/Pro, xD). A VGA port will let you connect to an external monitor or projector, and an HDMI-CEC port lets you display high-definition content on any HDTV. Unlike standard HDMI ports, HDMI-CEC also allows control of CEC-compatible TVs and set-top boxes through the laptop, reducing the need to juggle multiple remotes when streaming media from the laptop.
The Blu-ray drive supports 3D and has the ability to not only read, but burn Blu-ray discs as well as DVDs and CDs. It also offers LabelFlash software for burning labels directly onto compatible DVDs. The Qosmio F755-3D290 is equipped with a 750GB, 5400rpm hard drive. While this drive is a larger capacity than any of the units we compared it to, like the 640GB drive in the Sony VPC-F215FX/BI, it's also slower, as the Sony VPC-F215FX/BI and HP Envy 17 3D have faster 7,200rpm drives.
There is some bloatware, but not so much that you'll have to dedicate an afternoon to remove it all. Some users may welcome added programs like Microsoft Office Starter 2010 and Google Chrome web browser. Other programs are just taking up space, like a short 30-day trial of Norton Internet Security, Skype, several sample games from WildTangent, a dedicated desktop link to Amazon's website, and Toshiba-branded stores for Apps and eBooks. Toshiba also covers the Qosmio F755-3D290 with a one-year warranty on parts and labor, and covers the battery as well with its own one-year warranty.
Performance
There's a lot of graphics horsepower behind the Qosmio F755-3D290 's 3D display, provided by an Nvidia GeForce GT 540M graphics card with 1GB of dedicated video memory. With the glasses-free voodoo turned off, the laptop produced strong scores in all of our graphics and gaming tests. In 3DMark 06, the F755-3D290 scored 9,941 points at 1,024-by-768 resolution. When cranked up to 1080p, the laptop scored 5,147 points. In actual gaming tests the Qosmio F755-3D290 produced strong results, pumping out 57.1 frames per second (fps) in Crysis and 39.8 fps in Lost Planet 2 at 1,024-by-768 resolution and medium quality settings. But frame rates dropped to unplayable levels when detail settings were increased and the resolution taken up to 1,920 by 1,080. All in all, the gaming performance topped that of both the Sony VPC-F215FX/BI and Dell XPS 15z, but was narrowly edged out by the HP Envy 17 3D.
High-end components and fancy display technology require a lot of power, and battery-life suffers as a result. On MobileMark 2007 battery life tests the Qosmio F755-3D290 lasted 2 hours 57 minutes using a 6-cell 48Wh battery. Though short-lived, it lasted longer between charges than other 3D capable laptops can manage, edging out the Sony VAIO VPC-F215FX/BI, which lasted 2:36 with a larger 54Wh battery, and more than an hour longer than the 1:45 time that the HP Envy 17 3D produced with a 62Wh battery. When compared with a standard 15-inch desktop replacement, however, this 3-hour battery life is quite meager: the Dell XPS 15z (Microsoft) lasted 6:22 with a 64Wh battery, more than double what the Qosmio F755-3D290 offers.
While the promise of glasses-free 3D may be enough to reel in some early-adopters and 3D enthusiasts, that gee-whiz appeal isn't enough to satisfy careful shoppers. While its price tag may not be unusual for a 3D-equipped laptop, it has a smaller, and lower-resolution display than competitors like the similarly-priced Sony VAIO VPC-F215FX/BI. It's also a good deal more expensive than any number of 15-inch laptops like the Dell XPS 15z (Microsoft), our Editors' Choice for the desktop replacement category.
BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:
COMPARISON TABLE
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