Friday, October 25, 2013

Toshiba Satellite A500 review

With budget laptops offering more and more for ever-diminishing prices, mid-priced models are having to work pretty hard to justify their existence. After all, when you can get a perfectly capable portable for under £400 exc VAT, then there seems little reason to spend more on the likes of the new Toshiba Satellite A500.
Skim through the A500's specifications and, at first, such cynicism would seem to be well-placed. With an Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 processor, 4GB of memory and a 500GB hard disk, there's precious little to set it above the morass of budget-priced portables. Look closer, however, and there is one crucial difference: this Toshiba boasts one of the more capable mobile graphics chipsets around - the ATI Radeon HD 4570.
Indeed, gaming is where budget laptops so often stumble and, if you like nothing better than kicking back with a game at the end of the day, you'll find Toshiba has put the extra budget at its disposal to good use. It's still no match for the likes of the Asus G60Vx, but fire up Crysis and it puts up a valiant fight. Our medium Crysis test runs through a test level at a resolution of 1,280 x 1,024 and medium detail - a challenge which saw the A500 manage a very reasonable average frame rate of 19fps.
Design and build
It's not just games that look good, though, as Toshiba has gone right back to the drawing board with the A500. There's something unmistakably familiar about the rounded edges and the combination of glossy black with silver trim and pinstripes. In fact, it's almost as if Toshiba has been taking some fashion tips from the excellent HP Pavilion DV6. That's no bad thing, though; it marks a definite improvement on its somewhat frumpy predecessors.
Toshiba Satellite A500 rear
Meanwhile, it may not be the lightest laptop - weighing in at 2.94kg (3.48kg with the power adapter) - but the A500 feels strong and sturdy in all the right places. The base, for example, is impressively rigid, and while the lid and hinge feel a touch more flexible, it feels like a laptop built to last.
Unfortunately, that's not the case when it comes to battery life. It's unlikely that anyone will want to carry around a 3kg laptop on a regular basis, but light use battery life of just 2hrs 23mins puts paid to all but the briefest of jaunts away from the mains. Even the HP Pavilion dv6 outlasts the Toshiba, stretching to a more reasonable three hours.
And, once you get over the excitement generated by the ATI graphics, the Toshiba doesn't have a great deal to shout about. Performance is pretty modest - the Core 2 Duo and 4GB memory managing a middle-of-the-road 1.01 in our benchmarks - and the rest of the specification is simply par for the course.
Impressive visuals
Sometimes, however, just looking at the raw numbers isn't enough to give you the true measure of a laptop. Fire up a DVD or a game, for example, and the Toshiba relishes the challenge. A superb pair of harman/kardon speakers quickly get the foot tapping, and the 16in display raises the heart rate just a little higher.

Details
Part CodePSAM3E-03U018EN
Review Date17 Sep 2009
Price ex VAT£565
Price inc VAT£650
Overall rating4 stars out of 6
Features & Design4 stars out of 6
Value for Money5 stars out of 6
Performance4 stars out of 6
Warranty
Warranty1 yr return to base
Physical specifications
Dimensions384 x 260 x 44mm (WDH)
Weight2.940kg
Travelling weight3.5kg
Processor and memory
ProcessorIntel Core 2 Duo T6500
Motherboard chipsetIntel GM45/GM47
RAM capacity4.00GB
Memory typeDDR2
SODIMM sockets free0
SODIMM sockets total2
Screen and video
Screen size16.0in
Resolution screen horizontal1,366
Resolution screen vertical768
Resolution1366 x 768
Graphics chipsetATi Mobility Radeon HD 4570
Graphics card RAM512MB
VGA (D-SUB) outputs1
HDMI outputs1
S-Video outputs0
DVI-I outputs0
DVI-D outputs0
DisplayPort outputs0
Drives
Capacity500GB
Hard disk usable capacity466GB
Spindle speed5,400RPM
Internal disk interfaceSATA/300
Hard diskToshiba MK5055GSX
Optical disc technologyDVD writer
Optical driveMatshita UJ880AS
Battery capacity4,000mAh
Replacement battery price inc VAT£0
Networking
Wired adapter speed1,000Mbits/sec
802.11a supportno
802.11b supportyes
802.11g supportyes
802.11 draft-n supportyes
Integrated 3G adapterno
Other Features
Wireless hardware on/off switchyes
Wireless key-combination switchyes
Modemno
ExpressCard34 slots0
ExpressCard54 slots1
PC Card slots0
USB ports (downstream)4
eSATA ports1
PS/2 mouse portno
9-pin serial ports0
Parallel ports0
Optical S/PDIF audio output ports0
Electrical S/PDIF audio ports0
3.5mm audio jacks2
SD card readeryes
Memory Stick readeryes
MMC (multimedia card) readerno
Smart Media readerno
Compact Flash readerno
xD-card readeryes
Pointing device typeTouchpad
Audio chipsetRealtek HD Audio
Speaker locationAbove keyboard
Hardware volume control?no
Integrated microphone?yes
Integrated webcam?yes
Camera megapixel rating1.3mp
TPMno
Fingerprint readerno
Smartcard readerno
Carry caseno
Operating system and software
Operating systemWindows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
OS familyWindows Vista
Recovery methodRecovery partition, burn own recovery discs
Battery and performance tests
Battery life, light use2hr 23min
Battery life, heavy use1hr 5min
Overall application benchmark score1.01
Office application benchmark score1.02
2D graphics application benchmark score1.21
Encoding application benchmark score0.94
Multitasking application benchmark score0.88



Read more: Toshiba Satellite A500 review | PC Pro http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/laptops/351643/toshiba-satellite-a500#ixzz2iirfp8yb

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