Review – Toshiba QOSMIO F750

Behold the world’s first glasses-less 3D laptop!

And quite the sight she is. The QOSMIO F750 is one cool mother! In fact, hazard a single glance and your esteem might well buckle under the pressure,
‘How could I possibly be seen with a machine this funky?!’

But don’t think like that. Pick it up, open it, use it. You’ll be trendier by osmosis.

Daft rhetoric aside, Toshiba have a genuinely awesome product on their hands. The 3Kg heft is comfortably robust, the grooved, scarlet casing is stylish, the fan grill looks space age, the unusually course track-pad is a proper joy and the keyboard, no exaggeration, is the greatest thing in the world ever!

Alright, there might have been some exaggeration there. But it’s among the funkiest my digits have had the joy of hammering. Armed with an unusual font, familiar configuration and spacious, bulky keys, the F750’s keyboard takes full advantage of the unit’s 39cm width.

Fundamentally, the QOSMIO F750 reeks of funk. But not in a bad way, like when you explore the fridge on returning from a long holiday.

But like countless Hollywood Rom-Coms have taught us, true beauty is on the inside and Toshiba have taken this into account. Boasting a Quad Core Intel i7 processor @ 2.00Ghz, NVIDIA Geforce GT 540M graphics and memory in excess of six gigs, the F750 runs with impressive speed.

Speedy processing is a necessity, as the F750 is unashamedly an entertainment laptop. The gorgeous 15.6” display should have been your first clue. The thunderous keyboard-adjacent Harmon Kardon subwoofer your second and Blu-Ray drive third.
Hell, even if all these escaped your notice, the “Toshiba Easy Media” stickers peppering its frame do their bit hammering this angle home.

The F750 is for watching movies, playing games and, as a rule, overburdening your senses!

Though the lacklustre hard drive (580GB) is a disappointment, the presence of a writeable BRD alleviates this issue to some degree. Meanwhile miscellaneous ports, USB 2.0, Stereo, SD, VGA, HDMI and flavour of the month USB 3.0 convince that the F750 is serious about accommodating your every media whim.

For those underwhelmed by complex innards or snazzy keyboards, the F750’s primary feature is undoubtedly its glasses-less 3D, the apparent holy grail of video imagery made famous in 2011 by Nintendo’s 3DS.

To their credit, Toshiba are being entirely transparent in this regard. They advertise the fact their webcam tracks eye movements rendering and combining dual images, providing the illusion of depth via a conveniently placed mirror window.

And in answer to your most pressing question, no, the eyes in question needn’t be real or animate. They just have to look like they belong to a face. We know because we checked. Repeatedly.


Encased in Space Age armour, poor auld Masty couldn't appreciate the 3D effect :(

Unfortunately, this webcam method can only track one set of eyeballs. Thus the 3D is only viable for a single viewer at a time. Another pitfall comes from the fact 3D video can only be rendered at 720p, the weedy little brother for Full HD. The reason for this is obvious and appreciable at least, they do split the image after all. This flaw is omnipresent within the tech, so Toshiba can’t be blamed too much for this one.

Unfortunately there is no gaming or streaming 3D content as yet. Toshiba may want to knock something together in this regard! These are two huge markets, whose users probably wouldn’t decline the prospect of enjoying their hobbies in three glorious dimensions.

Still, the ability to watch films and files without snapping on a pair of dark, nose-pinching shades is always appreciated.

The battery, as ever, is the laptop’s Achilles heel. A full charge will see a few hours browsing and general dossing. However you can expect less than sixty minutes worth of 3D viewing for your troubles. Yikes!

Still, even without the 3D gimmick (because in fairness folks, that’s all 3D is. Admit it to yourselves, you’ll sleep better at night...) the F750 is an excellent laptop. Sure, being the first glasses-less 3D lappy earns it a place in history.

But having the foresight to combine ease of use, high-performance and wicked design also secures it a recommendation.