Toshiba intros Qosmio X875 gaming laptop with Kepler GPU, fairly tame digs

In case it wasn’t clear, Toshiba’s overhauling its entire consumer lineup for the back-to-school season, and that includes its lone gaming rig. The 17.3-inch Qosmio X875 replaces last year’s X775, ushering in NVIDIA’s spankin’ new Kepler graphics and that same reined-in design we we’ve seen in recent photos. Though Toshiba’s remaining fairly mum on specs (we bet this has something to do with not wanting to steal Intel’s Ivy Bridge thunder), we can confirm it packs “third-generation” Intel Core processors, NVIDIA GTX 670M graphics with 3GB of video memory, dual hard drive bays, quad Harman Kardon speakers and four memory slots, with up to 16GB of RAM on board out of the box. The resolution can be either 1600 x 900 or 1080p, with that latter pixel count only available on the 3D model. As you can see in the photos, Toshiba’s moved to a subtler aluminum aesthetic it’s calling Black Widow, but what you can’t tell from that vantage point is that this guy is 25 percent thinner than its predecessor. In case you needed more proof this is an Ivy Bridge machine, note the release date: this beastly fellow won’t be available until June 24th. At that point, it’ll start at $1,299, though the highest-end configuration will set you back a cool $2,499. That’s more than two months away, of course, so for now you’ll have to content yourselves with our teaser shots below.

Toshiba Qosmio X875 hands-on

LG 3D Game Converter adds depth to regular 2D games

Spoiler alert! Instead of waiting to surprise people at IFA this week, LG has released details of its new 3D Game Converter for the Optimus 3D early. The software arrives as part of the October maintenance release, promising to take any OpenGL game that runs in landscape and convert it to 3D. Around 50 games will come with pre-optimized settings — the rest you tweak yourself. Open any game up in the app and it will try to split the foreground and background and recombine both in 3D. Feel your eyes crossing and a headache setting in just by thinking about playing this way? No worries, they’re all still playable in 2D as well. Mouse on past the break to find the press release, which LG rather thoughtlessly only released in 2D.

Akihabara News

LG

 

Acer brings HN274H and HS244HQ 3D monitors to the US, motorbikes not included

In case you’re looking for some more options in the 3D monitor market, Acer’s just announced a couple of new models for the US that might do the job. First up is the HN274H pictured above, which claims to be the first 27-inch LED-backlit monitor supporting both HDMI 3D and NVIDIA 3D Vision — Blu-ray or TV set-top box for the former, PC gaming for the latter (via the usual DVI-DL). Though limited at 1920 x 1080 resolution, this display boasts a 100,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio with 300cd/m2 brightness and 2ms response time, along with a built-in IR emitter for the included NVIDIA 3D glasses, as well as a handful of ports: VGA, DVI, and three HDMI. All this for $689.

If you prefer something smaller and more budget friendly, then there’s the 23.6-inch HS244HQ as well. For $449 you get the same HD resolution, brightness, and response time, though contrast ratio is lowered to 12,000,000:1. Most importantly, there’s no support for NVIDIA 3D Vision here (though you still get a pair of Acer 3D glasses), meaning gamers will have to consider other options. Press release after the break.