2011 AMD/ATi 17"+ laptop recommendations?

Howdy all, looking to pick up a new notebook in the very near future, and was curious if any of you could recommend a few that fit into my list of demands?

I'm looking specifically for an AMD/ATi notebook, 17" plus, and an internal Blu-ray drive is a must (read or write, purchased separately is also OK if an option with the company). I enjoy mild gaming, so I'm willing to pony up the cash for the best I can get. I understand that Nvidia and Intel are the main focus right now, so I figure there are very few options for my 3 demands considering that I doubt there are any more than a small handful of 17" AMD/ATi notebooks with a Blu-Ray drive. If a Blu-ray drive is not available, I suppose I would consider another notebook if the CPU/GPU benefits were so obvious that I couldn't ignore them.


I'm Considering a Toshiba P770D-BT4N22 (AMD A6-3400M / Radeon HD 6520M) which meets those above demands, but I always feel it's wise to look before I leap and explore all options. The Toshiba has a 1600x900 native screen resolution, and a 1920x1080 would be ideal for me in the 17" form factor.

As always, any recommendations are greatly appreciated.
Edited by ResOGlas - 8/9/11 at 8:41pm

I guess I'll just wait it out, there has to be at least one single notebook coming out that's 17" 1920x1080 with both a blu-ray drive and in AMD/ATi flavor.
If such exists now, please do post about it for my sake.
If not, just the same old notebook waiting game.

To be honest, the choice is for political reasons. Both Intel, and mainly Nvidia's Mobile Exec have made huge financial contributions under the company's name to personally disagreeable social issues campaigns. Each to one's own, this forum is about notebooks and not politics, so we'll leave it at that.



Anyway, I purchased a prebuilt Toshiba 700 series notebook today at Wal-Mart. Mostly because the specs were very comparable to my custom build mentioned in the first post of this thread, and the price was MUCH cheaper than direct from Toshiba. Only difference was non-backlit keyboard, Blu-ray read-only instead of RE, and a 5400rpm HDD instead of 7200. I felt with the limitations of a Mobility Radeon 6520G, that it would probably be in my best interest to stick with the lower res.

Of course with my luck of things purchased at Wal-Mart, the HDD was defective out of the box and Toshiba tech support advised me to return it after reporting the error codes. I did attempt to reseat the HDD in hopes it was just a bad connection, but no go.

In the end, it was all for the best. I found the same model/same specs under a slightly different model number with just single digit difference (L775D-S7226 instead of L775D-S7206 from WM) from Office Depot for $100 less on a current promotion for HP and Toshiba Laptops.

From my experience with the DOA unit today, I can report that the build quality is average but not under par, and that the brushed aluminum panels are a nice touch but so thin that I was unsure it was real metal off the bat.
Since this isn't a gaming powerhouse, I'll post an accurate review upon my next unit's arrival.

I would be more than happy to write a review. My apologies that the first unit from wal-mart had a defective HDD, but you have to expect some hardcore mishandling from their truckers.

I notice that you're an admin, maybe you can send me a PM when PC Torque starts getting some AMD Clevos in stock in the coming 6 months.

I will be upgrading the memory and switching the HDD to SSD on arrival date, but I will give the PC a solid rundown of tests before the upgrades for the purpose of the review.
Take care.

I'm only 3 months junior to you on this site, how time flies. Of course I'm still a noob, just a consumer.
This notebook is to tide me over, I'd be ashamed to tout about benchmarks on it. Just shoot me a PM about desired format if needed. I'm honest, and will be reviewing the stock notebook specs for what they are.


I never posted any link in this thread because I thought it was against the best interest of PC-Torque. Have things changed?
Doesn't matter much to me, bought from PC Torque in the past and will in the future.

Well, I got excited and ordered from Office Depot because they reported it had the 6500M Series dedicated Graphics for only $599. I was very bummed that the wal-mart unit I purchased was defective, but felt that in the end it worked out for the best since I got a better model from Office Depot for a better price! Immediately Placed an order for an extra compatible QVL 4gb memory stick, and an SSD to have on arrival.

Mini review for the sake of this post:

CPU/APU: AMD A6 3400 APU
Memory: 6gb (4gb+2gb) DDR3 PC-10600 5-5-5-15 Samsung memory modules
HDD: Hitachi Travelstar 640Gb 5400rpm
GPU: AMD 6500M Series Radeon HD 6520M
Optical Drive: Matsushita BD-rom/DVD-RW
Display: 17.3" 1600x900 TFT
Wireless: 802.11b/g/n

Well the notebook arrived yesterday afternoon(Office Depot L775D-S7226). Out of the box I can report that it is cosmetically same as the wal-mart model (L775D-S7206) and that the Brushed dark blue aluminum finish is quite nice cosmetically and thermally cold to the touch. Some people might find the cold aluminum as a minus, but I enjoy it. Overall the finish attracts lots of fingerprints and dust, but that surely varies if you're in a dust-free environment. Also at 6.2lbs, the L775D-S7226 is quite light in weight for a 17" light gaming DTR.

The keyboard is full size, and and the keys are glossy black with white letters. The keyboard is not backlit, which would have been the perfect finishing touch if available.

The 17.3" TFT display has decent colors, but black level needs to be slightly increased to show calibrated shadow detail. The Viewing angles on this panel are unfortunately *poor* at best.

Build Quality - As I said the notebook is quite light, so as expected the chassis can't be that solid. The LCD panel has easy flex, however the keyboard doesn't and feels fairly solid which is a welcome feature on a low-priced notebook model.

Sound: Realtek ALC269 HD Audio. No-name speakers, but they function and do not sound gritty. Volume level is a little lower than I'd like, but most notebook speakers have low output. You could not enjoy a movie without first eliminating white noise from a close-by table fan etc.

CPU Performance - Things just keep going downhill. Under no instance even including stress tests, will the A6 kick up to 2.3Ghz Turbo mode. Seems like it's permanently locked at 1.4Ghz. This is probably a conflicting issue with all the Toshiba bloatware. Even at Quad-core, this machine seems as slow as my mother's netbook. Toshiba intertwines drivers into certain mandatory bloatware software, and I couldn't achieve desired advertised performance no matter how much I uninstalled.

Wireless: The built-n 802.11n wireless adapter performs well, as long as you only download one thing at a time. For some unknown reason, if two applications or even if you just have two active downloads occurring at once, You will be waiting at literally dial up speeds. I have never experienced this before on any notebook/netbook, regardless of being a/b/g or n.

Memory performance - The one bright side, the stock Samsung DDR3 PC3-10600 Samsung modules worked flawlessly, and benched sightly better at both read/write MB/s speeds than recommended QVL Kingston memory.

GPU performance - Absolute FAIL. The GPU is not in fact a 6250M. As a matter of fact, I have come to find no such 6500M model exists (Only 6530, 6550, & 6570). The GPU is just the basic integrated 6520G that all A6 3400s have. I would feel stupid about this, but there are other notebooks out with the A Series AMD APUs with integrated graphics that ALSO have additional dedicated M graphics, so I just believed that Office Depot advertised the product accurately. Not to mention I was also excited to Crossfire the Integrated with the dedicated, which you can in fact do.
There is no dedicated 6500M series GPU in the notebook despite advertised, just the lowly integrated 6520G that can barely come close to running 3 year old games at *almost* 30fps at lowest global and application settings. If you're a gamer, I assume that only light MMOs will play well.

Final summary:
At a discount price of $599, I am simply not pleased with this notebook for obvious reasons. The LCD panel doesn't perform well for modern standards,
the CPU won't run at full Turbo speed, and the physical GPU advertised was a lie and doesn't exist. I'd say this notebook runs like an OLD Dual-Core with a faulty wireless adapter.
The notebook handles 2D video performance for Blu-Ray playback fluidly with no skips or hiccups on a 17" display, and that's the ONLY reason to purchase it.
It's essentially just a stable 17" Blu-ray player at a sub-par 1600x900 native resolution with the added bonus of bad viewing angles.

Conclusion:
Unless you want a bad portable 17" Blu-ray player, Avoid like the plague.
Shame on you, Toshiba. Shame on you.
Edited by ResOGlas - 8/16/11 at 10:59pm

My next endeavor will be a gateway NV75S03H. It's a Canada-Only model at the moment, butwill hopefully hit US shores soon.
Priced at about $812US, has an A8 APU + Dedicated 6650M GPU that can be crossfired with the integrated A8 Radeon 6620G GPU. Also comes stock with 8gb ram, and a blu-ray drive as well.
Pretty much what this Toshiba almost should have been, minus the A9 upgrade and minus the still user-needed SSD upgrade.

Reviewed. Since I literally bought both the identical L775D-S7206 and the L775D-S7226 models, I applied the review to both.
Jeez, I guess notebook models are treated like bed mattress models these days. EXACT same item, slightly different model number for each retailer as to avoid the possibility of price matching.

I did attempt to purchase the above mentioned Canadian Gateway NV75S03H, but no seller will ship to the US. I have given up on my AMD/ATi dream and will be purchasing a new Auto-stereoscopic Toshiba F755 shortly. I'm a fan of this tech, and the surprisingly low MSRP for the US has been a push for my purchase. Currently, BestBuy is offering it for $100 less than all other sites FYI.

Since I currently have a legitimate bone to pick with Toshiba and not without merit, I'll see if ToshibaDirect can sweeten up the deal if I choose to go with them again.