Is this a good deal from best buy?

Hey guys, I have like $500 to spend at Best Buy and was wondering if this laptop is good for the price?

Laptop:
Toshiba Qosmio X775-Q7170
Toshiba - Qosmio Laptop - Red Horizon - X775-Q7170

What my Needs Are:
- Good for School ( I go to a University)
- Aesthetically Pleasing and Decent Build Quality
- Plays Starcraft II on near high settings, maybe some streaming too
- Plays 720p + Movies
- Good Sound Quality
- Heavy/Big isn't a huge problem for me as I'm a big guy and like big things
- Will be doing some computational statistics so not sure if I need a better CPU than the Qosmio
- I plan to make it a Desktop Replacment.
- Good screen
- Not a fingerprint magnet
- Aything better than my Dell Studio XPS from 3 years ago.
- Budget is close to $1100

I was looking at other but nothing at best buy seems to be good for the price and with a GTX 560M.

Should I buy it since I have $500 store credit?

 

Toshiba - Qosmio Laptop / Intel® Core™ i5 Processor / 17.3" Display / 6GB Memory - Red Horizon - X775Q7380

 

The Qosmio will be able to do all those things you mentioned. Only thing it can't do (which you didn't mention) is have a long battery life; ie will need to be plugged in most of the time.

For that price it's a pretty good deal for a laptop with a GTX 560m

You should be aware that some have had throttling problems with the Qosmio [games slow down at higher temperatures; CPU and GPU are cutting back to lower temps].
You have 2 options to consider to correct the throttling: upgrading to the newly released 1.60 BIOS, which users have so far given positive feedback about; or downgrading to the 1.10 BIOS, which will completely get rid of any throttling.

Also, it seems the x775 Qosmios that come standard with 1 Harddrive [others come with 2 harddrives; more expensive] do not have the connectors for the second harddrive bay [meaning a 2nd harddrive cannot be added].

Here's some alternatives:
Alienware - M14X Laptop / Intel® Core™ i7 Processor / 14" Display / 8GB Memory / 750GB Hard Drive - Stealth Black - AM14X-5305SBK
Alienware has GT 555m which is subpar to GTX 560m
HP - ENVY Laptop - Nero Black/Natural Silver - nv17-3070nr
ENVY has AMD 7690m which is about the same as a GT 555m
Asus - G74SX-DH73-3D 17.3" LED 3D Notebook - Intel Core i7 i7-2670QM 2.20 GHz - Black - G74SX-DH73-3D
Asus - G53SX-DH71 15.6" LED Notebook - Intel Core i7 i7-2670QM 2.20 GHz - Black - G53SX-DH71
Both of the ASUS laptops say soldout online, but your Local BestBuy store should at least have the 17" model in stock.


Good luck