[karinakyo12]

Which laptop should I buy? Should I get the 13in Mac pro (2.8 GHz) or the Toshiba Qosmio X775-3DV82?
I am struggling, I don't know which laptop to get! PLEASE HELP ME
The Macbook Pro is: 13 inches, dual core Intel Core i7, 4GB 1333MHz , 750GB 5400-rpm, Intel HD Graphics 3000 , Built-in battery (7 hours)2
The Toshiba Qosmio x775-3DV82 is a 17.3” diagonal widescreen TruBrite TFT LCD display at 1920 x 1080 (HD), 8GB DDR3 1333MHz (max 8GB) , 1.0TB: 500GB (7200rpm, Serial ATA) + 500GB (7200rpm, Serial ATA), Mobile Intel HM65 Express Chipset ,NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M (3D Vision) featuring 1.5GB of GDDR5 discrete graphics memory.
However it only gets about 2 hours, while the Mac Pro gets 7 hours.
Mac Pro: Positive: beautfiful, light, amazing battery life, backlit keyboard, 2.8 GHz
cons: no blu ray, no USB 3.0, no 3D, bad graphics card, not the best speakers, no HD screen, not a lot of memory
Toshiba Qosmio x775-3DV82: positive: beautiful 17.3 HD screen, amazing Harmon Kardon speakers & subwoofer, backlit keyboard, beautiful design, 3D capable, NVIDIA Geforce GTX 560M, blu-ray burner/dvd, 1 TB of memory, 7200 rpm!
cons: 7.5 pounds, about 2 hours of battery life, there are 3d glitches, and sometimes games lag if you don't do all the updates.

If its helps to say, I never owned a mac before, I am a PC person and the purpose is to use it for school but I also want a media powerhouse, is there a better choice not just these two for a good quality laptop?
in case here are the websites
http://us.toshiba.co...770/X775-3DV82/
http://www.apple.com.../notebooks.html

[coastie65]

Hi and welcome to the forums. From where I sit, it would seem that you get a lot of bang for the buck with the Toshiba. Just maintain your updates and you should be fine. As for 3D, it is still new so you can expect a few hiccups with that. Battery usuage would depend on Settings and what knid of application your are using. Granted games would take a bit more, so would be best to be on the adaptor when playing them. The Graphics package is definitely better on the Toshiba.

This post has been edited by coastie65: 03 February 2012 - 12:30 PM

[waldojim]

Ok, I am going to be honest and say I am little bit confused.

You have two machines at two very extreme ends of the spectrum here.

First, you have a (relatively) tiny mac pro, with middle of the road specs good for general use, not much in the way of gaming though.

Then you have the Toshiba. A monster by any other name. It is massive, with pure gaming intentions. The real question here is what are you looking for? Are you looking for a smaller, lighter machine that can watch movies for hours at a time, or a gaming powerhouse? Noting that generally speaking those two are mutually exclusive.

If you want something small, for movies, etc. Then the Mac Pro is a great option. ALSO I would consider the Mac Book Air, the Lenovo X220 series with the ips display, and possibly the Sony SA/SB. I am not happy with Sony service department, but that is another story.

If you are looking for a gaming machine, then the Mac Pro 15, Alienware M15x or M17x, or the Toshiba you listed would be great.

I realize this is the opposite of helping for the moment, but I would suggest narrowing down your usage scenario first, then trying to find a machine that fits your needs.

Also, for the sake of mentioning it, the Lenovo W520 has a 15" display, choice of dual or quad core i7, and a 1080P display that is flat out amazing. The video card is so-so for gaming, great for movies. And the battery life is around 6 hours with mixed usage, about 4 hours watching SD video, 2~3 hours HD.

[Dellinsp531]

From the two choices you gave, I would go with Toshiba. Mac are more expensive than PC. Plus MAC lack some of the specs that a cheaper PC might have.

I would stay away from Alienware and MAC if possible.

I would either go with Sager NP5160 or NP5165. Another choice would be Lenovo Y570.

[orlbuckeye]

karinakyo12, on 21 December 2011 - 02:11 PM, said:

Which laptop should I buy? Should I get the 13in Mac pro (2.8 GHz) or the Toshiba Qosmio X775-3DV82?
I am struggling, I don't know which laptop to get! PLEASE HELP ME
The Macbook Pro is: 13 inches, dual core Intel Core i7, 4GB 1333MHz , 750GB 5400-rpm, Intel HD Graphics 3000 , Built-in battery (7 hours)2
The Toshiba Qosmio x775-3DV82 is a 17.3” diagonal widescreen TruBrite TFT LCD display at 1920 x 1080 (HD), 8GB DDR3 1333MHz (max 8GB) , 1.0TB: 500GB (7200rpm, Serial ATA) + 500GB (7200rpm, Serial ATA), Mobile Intel HM65 Express Chipset ,NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M (3D Vision) featuring 1.5GB of GDDR5 discrete graphics memory.
However it only gets about 2 hours, while the Mac Pro gets 7 hours.
Mac Pro: Positive: beautfiful, light, amazing battery life, backlit keyboard, 2.8 GHz
cons: no blu ray, no USB 3.0, no 3D, bad graphics card, not the best speakers, no HD screen, not a lot of memory
Toshiba Qosmio x775-3DV82: positive: beautiful 17.3 HD screen, amazing Harmon Kardon speakers & subwoofer, backlit keyboard, beautiful design, 3D capable, NVIDIA Geforce GTX 560M, blu-ray burner/dvd, 1 TB of memory, 7200 rpm!
cons: 7.5 pounds, about 2 hours of battery life, there are 3d glitches, and sometimes games lag if you don't do all the updates.

If its helps to say, I never owned a mac before, I am a PC person and the purpose is to use it for school but I also want a media powerhouse, is there a better choice not just these two for a good quality laptop?
in case here are the websites
http://us.toshiba.co...770/X775-3DV82/
http://www.apple.com.../notebooks.html

You need to decide do you want power or do you want portability (long battery life). Typically battery life in laptops means how powerfull the components they have to power. The Apple uses integrated Graphics card with a smaller screen. The toshiba has a discrete graphics card and a big screen. That mean it takes more power just to write to the screen. So I think you should decide if you want battery life and portability or power and then compare laptops that fit the selected type system your looking at. I myself prefer power as I haven't had a laptop with less then 17 inches in almost 10 years. I've purchased a 17", 2 - 17.3", a 20.1" and a 18.4" in the last 5 laptops i've purchased.

[smax013]

karinakyo12, on 21 December 2011 - 02:11 PM, said:

Which laptop should I buy? Should I get the 13in Mac pro (2.8 GHz) or the Toshiba Qosmio X775-3DV82?
I am struggling, I don't know which laptop to get! PLEASE HELP ME
The Macbook Pro is: 13 inches, dual core Intel Core i7, 4GB 1333MHz , 750GB 5400-rpm, Intel HD Graphics 3000 , Built-in battery (7 hours)2
The Toshiba Qosmio x775-3DV82 is a 17.3” diagonal widescreen TruBrite TFT LCD display at 1920 x 1080 (HD), 8GB DDR3 1333MHz (max 8GB) , 1.0TB: 500GB (7200rpm, Serial ATA) + 500GB (7200rpm, Serial ATA), Mobile Intel HM65 Express Chipset ,NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M (3D Vision) featuring 1.5GB of GDDR5 discrete graphics memory.
However it only gets about 2 hours, while the Mac Pro gets 7 hours.
Mac Pro: Positive: beautfiful, light, amazing battery life, backlit keyboard, 2.8 GHz
cons: no blu ray, no USB 3.0, no 3D, bad graphics card, not the best speakers, no HD screen, not a lot of memory
Toshiba Qosmio x775-3DV82: positive: beautiful 17.3 HD screen, amazing Harmon Kardon speakers & subwoofer, backlit keyboard, beautiful design, 3D capable, NVIDIA Geforce GTX 560M, blu-ray burner/dvd, 1 TB of memory, 7200 rpm!
cons: 7.5 pounds, about 2 hours of battery life, there are 3d glitches, and sometimes games lag if you don't do all the updates.

If its helps to say, I never owned a mac before, I am a PC person and the purpose is to use it for school but I also want a media powerhouse, is there a better choice not just these two for a good quality laptop?
in case here are the websites
http://us.toshiba.co...770/X775-3DV82/
http://www.apple.com.../notebooks.html

waldojim, on 21 December 2011 - 03:33 PM, said:

Ok, I am going to be honest and say I am little bit confused.

You have two machines at two very extreme ends of the spectrum here.

First, you have a (relatively) tiny mac pro, with middle of the road specs good for general use, not much in the way of gaming though.

Then you have the Toshiba. A monster by any other name. It is massive, with pure gaming intentions. The real question here is what are you looking for? Are you looking for a smaller, lighter machine that can watch movies for hours at a time, or a gaming powerhouse? Noting that generally speaking those two are mutually exclusive.

If you want something small, for movies, etc. Then the Mac Pro is a great option. ALSO I would consider the Mac Book Air, the Lenovo X220 series with the ips display, and possibly the Sony SA/SB. I am not happy with Sony service department, but that is another story.

If you are looking for a gaming machine, then the Mac Pro 15, Alienware M15x or M17x, or the Toshiba you listed would be great.

I realize this is the opposite of helping for the moment, but I would suggest narrowing down your usage scenario first, then trying to find a machine that fits your needs.

Also, for the sake of mentioning it, the Lenovo W520 has a 15" display, choice of dual or quad core i7, and a 1080P display that is flat out amazing. The video card is so-so for gaming, great for movies. And the battery life is around 6 hours with mixed usage, about 4 hours watching SD video, 2~3 hours HD.

I agree. You need to first tell us what you want to do with the laptop. What you asked is kind of like asking us whether you should get a mid-sized car (pick your brand/model) vs. a large SUV (pick your brand/model). As waldojim stated, you are asking about two laptops that serve two entirely different "types of use".

For example, if you are not going to be doing gaming and caring it around a lot and using it away from electrical plugs, then the Mac (or some other Windows laptop that is more similar to the Mac you listed) would be the much better choice.

OTOH, if you want to do some reasonably serious gaming on it and will predominately use it plugged into a wall, then the Toshiba is the better choice.

At the end, you do mention that you will be using it for school, but also want a "media powerhouse". What do you mean by "media powerhouse"? Do you mean gaming? Or are you talking just playing movies and music? If it is the later, then either computer should work fine with the exception of if you really want/need to play BluRay movies. If it is the former (i.e. gaming), then the Mac is not really that good of a choice.

BTW...You also mentioned that the Mac had "not a lot of memory"...I will note that unless you are using a program like Photoshop or Parallels running a VM that needs a lot of RAM or maybe something like AutoCAD, 4 GB of RAM on a Mac is likely going to be WAY more than enough RAM. You would have to be running an AWFUL lot of programs at the same time to run into problems. I will frequently run 5 to 6 programs at once (with at least one being a browsers with at least a half dozen or so windows open) on my MacBook Air with 4 GB of RAM with no problems what so ever. And in reality, the same is true for a Windows laptop...4 GB will be fine for the vast majority of people.

[mjd420nova]

Comparing those two is like matching a Corvette against a Prius. The Toshiba is a real fast and capable machine. I have one and it has been an exceptional laptop. It also has the option to add a second hard drive below the original one. The large screen and fast processor, along with a GPU matched to the CPU to render superb graphics. Heavy?? Yes, just a bit but with its abilities no external devices are needed.