Toshiba Qosmio X870 review: first look

Sasha Muller March 6, 2012

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Toshiba today unveiled its newly honed range of consumer laptops. But, in amongst the troop of affordable 13in, 15in and 17in models, there lay something far more exciting – its latest 17.3in gaming laptop, the Qosmio X870.

Even set against the multi-coloured bevy of Satellite laptops, the Qosmio X870 had no trouble seizing attention. Finished in a combination of dark greys, black and edged in a glossy blood-red, this 17.3in portable is relatively understated by gaming laptop standards. Fire it up, however, and a few touches help it to stand our from the crowd – with a keyboard backlit in striking red, and another gleaming red logo set adrift on the lid, the X870 is keen to differentiate itself from the average home laptop.

Load up one of the latest gaming titles, however, and there’ll be no doubt as to the X870’s gaming credentials. Toshiba swore us to secrecy as to the CPU and GPU thrumming away inside the X870, but with a release set for Q2 of this year, you can be sure it’ll be the latest and greatest hardware from Intel and Nvidia. Will that mean a high-end Ivy Bridge processor? Only time will tell.

Power isn’t likely to be lacking in Toshiba’s gaming prodigy, but the Qosmio X870 has squeezed in a whole host of gaming-friendly technology. Toshiba were keen to boast about the X870’s 17.3in Full-HD display. With a blazingly quick response time of only 5ms, this 120Hz panel is as capable of silky-smooth 2D gaming as it is wowing with Nvidia’s 3D Vision. We saw the X870 hooked up to a 42in Toshiba 3DTV (yes, HDMI 1.4 comes as standard), and Batman: Arkham City seemed to be barrelling along at a fluid framerate – even with the resolution pumped right up to 1,920 x 1,080.

Sound is impressive, too. Harman Kardon speakers are partnered with SRS’ sound-enhancing Premium Sound 3D technology, as well as Harman Kardon’s bass-boosting Slipstream concept, and they certainly reached a decent volume in our brief time with the X870.

Turn to less exciting details, and the Qosmio still ticks all the boxes. With four USB 3 ports scattered around the chassis, 802.11n wireless and Bluetooth 4, there’s no shortage of high-speed connectivity. Look beneath the red glow of the backlit keyboard, meanwhile, and the large buttonless touchpad provides accurate cursor control and gesture recognition.

There’s no doubt that the Qosmio X870 is packed to the gills with gaming-friendly specifications, but with a release slated for early in Q2 of this year, we’ll have to wait and see if this is the gaming laptop we’ve all been waiting for.