Toshiba Satellite P755-3DV20 Review: Affordable 3D Fun

The Toshiba Satellite P755 is part of the P750 series and is designed to strike a balance between a budget 15-inch laptop and a powerful multimedia PC. Is it possible to deliver a great 3D entertainment PC for an affordable price? Keep reading to find out.

Build and Design
There is little to separate the design of the Satellite P755-3DV20 from other Toshiba Satellite notebooks … for better or worse. The entire machine is constructed of relatively thick plastics with rounded edges and corners. The screen lid and top half of the chassis use glossy plastics covered in the Toshiba “Fusion X2 Platinum” finish; essentially a faux metal paint job. Like most Satellite notebooks, the glossy surfaces act like a magnet for fingerprints and dust so your new laptop won’t look clean for very long. Even the keyboard keys are glossy … probably to help CSI figure out which keys you press most frequently.

The notebook also comes with a set of Nvidia 3D Vision glasses so you can watch 3D movies and still photos directly on the screen or a 3D Vision compatible HDTV when connected via HDMI. More on that later.

Build quality of the P755 is reasonably good for a budget 15-inch laptop but this particular model comes with well-equipped hardware and a more expensive price tag. While the supporting chassis structure resists twisting, most of exterior plastics show visible flex when you press down on them. Again, that is normal for a budget laptop but notebooks in the $800+ price range should feel more durable.

The display has a strong backing which prevents any distortion from showing on the screen when pressure is applied to the lid, but the lid plastics do flex inward when you press down. The screen hinges provide adequate resistance although we did notice that the hinges and screen assembly move slightly from side-to-side if you jostle the screen.

Like the Satellite L755 that we previously reviewed, the P755 is simple to upgrade thanks to two access panels on the bottom of the chassis. You can replace the RAM or the hard drive with little effort.

Ports and Features
The P755 includes a reasonable number of ports for a modern multimedia machine. This notebook includes a single USB 3.0 SuperSpeed port, three additional USB 2.0 ports, HDMI and a memory card reader. Although an ExpressCard expansion slot would have been a welcome addition, fewer 15-inch notebooks include them today. The optical drive in this configuration of the P755 is a Blu-ray player and DVD burner that is, of course, also compatible with 3D Blu-ray movies. All picture descriptions are left to right.

Front: Card reader, status lights	Back: Battery pack
Left: Cooling exhaust vent, VGA-out, Ethernet, HDMI, 1x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0