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Toshiba Satellite P750/0EM review: Toshiba Satellite P750/0EM

The Satellite P750/0EM is a powerful mid-range laptop. We'd opt for a version without the 3D, though, so as to avoid incredibly poor battery life, and to save AU$500.

Craig Simms Special to CNET News
Craig was sucked into the endless vortex of tech at an early age, only to be spat back out babbling things like "phase-locked-loop crystal oscillators!". Mostly this receives a pat on the head from the listener, followed closely by a question about what laptop they should buy.
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Craig Simms
5 min read

The P750 is a more traditional, heavy, mid-range laptop. It still gets modern trappings, like an island-style, backlit keyboard, although the lacquered silver finish with parallel lines won't be to everyone's taste.

6.5

Toshiba Satellite P750/0EM

The Good

Decent construction. Backlit keyboard. Good performance, as one would expect of the processor included.

The Bad

3D capability shoots price up AU$500 and dramatically lowers battery life. TV tuner is single only.

The Bottom Line

The Satellite P750/0EM is a powerful mid-range laptop. We'd opt for a version without the 3D, though, so as to avoid incredibly poor battery life, and to save AU$500.

Our particular review sample, the 0EM, comes with the mainstream stalwart graphics card, Nvidia's GeForce GT 540M. Interestingly though, it doesn't support Optimus, Nvidia's technology that seamlessly switches to Intel's integrated graphics to save on battery when the more powerful card isn't required.

This is because Nvidia's 3D tech isn't compatible with Optimus. In an Optimus set-up, the Nvidia card acts as a secondary graphics processor, the output piped through the Intel graphics card. For 3D, the Nvidia card needs direct connection to the monitor.

Consequently, this means two things: noticeably poorer battery life, but in return you get a 120Hz screen, which is something incredibly appealing for gamers. If only there was a more powerful GPU attached than the 540M.

We'll leave it up to you to decide whether active 3D is a good thing; we tend to find that it gives us headaches. Nonetheless, the shutter glasses are included in the package, should you decide to use them.

There's quite a bit of grunt here, though, in the other specs; a Core i7 2670QM at 2.2GHz, 8GB of RAM and a 750GB hard drive — sadly, running only at 5400RPM, rather than the faster 7200RPM.

Ports are standard for a laptop of this size; one USB 3.0 port, three USB 2.0, headphone and microphone jacks, an SD card reader, VGA and HDMI out. An aerial port sits at the back, attached to a single DVB-T/analog tuner. This means that when you record one show, you can't watch another, as the tuner is in use.

Application performance

Choose a benchmark: Handbrake | iTunes | Photoshop | Multimedia

Handbrake encoding (in seconds)

(Shorter bars indicate better performance)


With its hefty quad-core processor, the Toshiba was always going to do well in our application tests.

Gaming performance

Choose a benchmark: Metro 2033 | Batman: Arkham Asylum

Metro 2033 (in FPS)

  • Max FPS
  • Average FPS
  • Min FPS

(Longer bars indicate better performance)


The GeForce GT 540M has long been the mid-range king. It's not capable of hefty games, like Metro 2033, but Batman: Arkham Asylum runs perfectly fine, indicating that the card is likely to be able to cope with modern games at medium settings.

Battery life

Battery life (time)

  • Heavy battery test
  • Light battery test

(Longer bars indicate better performance)


It's here where it all falls apart, and the importance of having Intel-integrated graphics shines through. The first laptop we've seen for a while with no switchable graphics, the P750 suffers for it. It's important to note that there are other versions of the P750 that feature switchable graphics; this one only misses out due to Nvidia's 3D feature.

Conclusion

The Satellite P750/0EM is a powerful mid-range laptop. We'd opt for a version without the 3D, though, so as to avoid incredibly poor battery life, and to save AU$500 — with this kept in mind, it would score a lot higher.