Toshiba Satellite P775-S7215

The Toshiba Satellite P775-S7215 ($974.99 list at Best Buy) is a 17.3-inch media center laptop that specializes in providing consumers with a well-rounded multimedia experience. Between the Blu-ray player and powerful Core i7 processor, you'll be ready to tackle online videos and then some. Its trouble spots? No True 1080p HD, and a lid with some flexing.

Design
Toshiba has spiced up the P775-S7215's plastic enclosure by adding raised lines going across the lid and palm rest, creating a more dynamic look. The laptop weighs 6.32 pounds, which is relatively light compared with other 17-inch laptops like the 7.04-pound HP Pavilion dv7-6143cl ($999.99 list, 4 stars), 7-pound Pavilion dv7-4283cl ($999.99 list, 4 stars), and 6.7-pound Dell Inspiron 17R-2950MRB ($949.99 list, 4 stars). The discrepancy is because of the P775-S7215's smaller 6-cell 48Wh battery.

The 17.3-inch screen has a 1,600-by-900 (720p) resolution. Videophiles who are looking for True 1080p HD can utilize the HDMI or Wireless Display (WiDi 2.0) feature to stream video content wired or wirelessly (provided you have a Netgear Push2TV ($99 list, 4 stars) receiver). If you want mobile HD at your fingertips, however, you'll have to pay for something more along the lines of the Dell XPS 15z ($1,534 direct, 4 stars). I did notice some flexing in the lid when I closed it. The full sized keyboard and adjacent numeric keypad, are in the chiclet style and provides a solid typing experience. The multi-touchpad supports pinch-zoom functions and one-finger touch to click. The two mouse buttons were easy enough to click. Above the keyboard is a strip of touch buttons that turn the Wi-Fi on and off, turn the lighting on the touchpad and touch strip on and off, play/pause media, mute, and control volume.

Features
Connection options abound in this laptop: An SD card slot, 3 USB 2.0 ports, audio jacks, VGA, Ethernet, and a USB 3.0 port with a feature called "Sleep and Charge" that allows you to power-up your devices while your computer is turned off, provided the PC is plugged in. There's also a Blu-ray player, so you can watch HD movies. Aside from the Ethernet jack, there are two other ways you can tap into the interwebs on this laptop: via the 802.11 Wi-Fi and WiMAX, which is a subscription-based service that allows you to log onto the Web via a 4G wireless connection that can compete with some home DSL packages in terms of broadband speeds. Towers, to provide this service, have been erected in major metropolitan areas, in over 54 cities.

The hard drive is a sizable 750GB, and spins at a fast 7,200rpm?fast considering most other laptops at this size and price point, like the HP dv7-6143cl's 750GB drive spins at a slower 5,400rpm. Also when the Satellite is jostled, Toshiba initiates a hard drive protection program to prevent possible damage from vibrations.

Best Buy has an extended warranty program, which offers customers an extra year of protection beyond the one-year warranty of most system manufacturers. There are two plans in this extended warranty program. The standard plan ($119.99) covers the system against normal wear and tear, power surge damage, and includes a "No Lemon" guarantee in which Best Buy will simply replace the computer if it requires more than 4 repairs during the coverage period. Best Buy's advanced plan ($219.99) offers all this, and also covers the laptop against accidental damage from drops and spills. Other special offers can be found online or in stores, like discounts on printers, software, and tech support plans which are available with any new consumer PC purchased through Best Buy.

Performance
The Satellite P775-S7215 comes equipped with a 2GHz second-generation Intel Core i7-2630QM quad-core processor and 6GB of memory. These internal components helped it garner high scores in our PCMark 7 test (2,199) for overall computing power. The Editors' Choice HP dv7-6143cl scored only 103 points higher, which isn't enough to deem one superior to the other. In more multimedia-oriented tests, the P775-S7215 and HP dv7-6143cl scored the same times on our Photoshop CS5 image filtering test (3 minute 52 seconds) and Handbrake video encoding test (1:37).

The P775-S7215's lack of a discrete graphics chip doesn't mean you can't do some 3D gaming. You will be restricted to older games like Team Fortress 2, or light 3D games like World of Warcraft. Just be sure to check out the system requirements before you buy. If you're looking for something with a little more oomph to play games, the HP dv7-6143cl is equipped with an AMD Radeon HD 6770M graphics chip.

The 48Wh 6-cell battery of the P775-S7215's helped it manage 4 hours 10 minutes on our MobileMark 2007 battery test. Other laptops in this category are usually equipped with 90Wh or 100Wh batteries like the Dell Inspiron 17R (N7110) ($1,039.98 direct, 4 stars) and HP dv7-6143cl, which garnered times of 7:51 and 9:13, respectively.

The Toshiba Satellite P775-S7215 is a great multimedia laptop with a lot of connectivity options, like WiDi 2.0 and WiMAX. Even its inclusion of Blu-ray will delight video enthusiast. It would have been nice, however, if Toshiba had included a bigger battery with the laptop. It may not be able to overthrow the HP dv7-6143cl as Editors' Choice, but if you're looking for a laptop with Blu-ray and you're not a huge gamer, then the P775-S 7215 can provide.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE
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