While some laptops in this price range, such as the Dell Studio 1440-022B, Dell Studio XPS 1340-024B, and the HP TouchSmart tx2-1275dx, feature dedicated graphics, the E105 relies on Intel's integrated chip that borrows resources from the main system memory. Gamers searching for a bargain should keep looking, but for general mainstream use, the Satellite E105-S1602 offers competitive performance for a mainstream laptop. It didn't take top honors on any of CNET Labs' application benchmarks, but--to borrow a line from the just-completed Tour de France--it finished with the peloton on each test (and none of our tests featured a breakaway group).Lengthy battery life is a key point in the Blue Label program, and Toshiba outfits the Satellite E105 with an eight-cell battery, which can hold on longer than a standard six-cell battery. It topped the 4-hour mark on our demanding video playback battery drain test. The 13-inch HP Pavilion dv3-2155mx uses a nine-cell battery and was able to last for more than 5 hours on the same test, while the 14-inch HP Pavilion dv4-1465dx hit the 5.5-hour mark, thanks to a 12-cell battery (it also weighs nearly a pound more than the Satellite E105).
Nearly every consumer laptop sold today is backed by a one-year warranty, but Best Buy customers said they wanted something more, and the Blue Label program doubles down on the length of the warranty. The Toshiba Satellite E105-S1602 is backed by a two-year term. You'll find user forums, driver downloads, and a toll-free support phone number on Toshiba's Web site.What a difference a hundred dollars makes in the world of budget laptops. For $550, there's the 18-inch Toshiba Satellite P505D-S8930 that doesn't have much going for it beyond its large screen and nice looks. Come up with another $100 and you can get the Toshiba Satellite A505-S6960. Its screen isn't as big at 16 inches, but the design is nearly the same and the performance and battery life noticeably better. It's not perfect, but it's certainly worth the extra money.
Toshiba used its Fusion Finish on the A505 with its sonic pattern in black onyx. It's a stylish look with a light-gray wavy pin-stripe pattern on a glossy black background on the lid, palmrests, and speaker surround above the keyboard. The speakers sound great, by the way, far above the laptop's budget price tag. The keyboard is comfortably large with a full number pad on the right end. The keys are flat like a chiclet-style keyboard, but they're set above the tray instead of the tray coming up and separating the keys. The keys are also somewhat slick, making it slightly unpleasant to type on, and due to the glossy nature of everything, the laptop collects a lot of fingerprints. A row of touch-sensitive media controls above the keyboard and a Webcam and mic above the screen round out the package. In all, it's a nice design despite our nit-picking.
It has a thick chassis made thicker by the extended-life battery that comes with this system. The battery adds weight and bulk compared to a standard six-cell pack and lifts the back of the keyboard off your lap or work surface. This provides better airflow under the notebook as well as an improved typing angle, but will make it a tighter squeeze into some laptop bags.
The 16-inch wide-screen LCD offers a 1,366x768 native resolution, which is typical for its size. As we've come to expect from Toshiba's laptops, it's a quality display with good color, contrast, and brightness. And of course the wide screen is great for doing side-by-side work between two apps or documents or whatever.
The I/O, port, and jack connections are what we expect from a laptop in this price range, though we were happy to find Toshiba's sleep-and-charge eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port and an HDMI out in attendance. Unfortunately, most of the connectors are crammed into the front half of the left side. If you plug in peripherals at a desk, there's a good chance you'll have all manner of cables snaking from that area. The only thing we really found lacking is built-in Bluetooth, but at this price it's not a shocker.
The Toshiba Satellite Toshiba Satellite A505-S6960 is a retail-only fixed configuration. However, the memory and hard-drive compartments are easily accessed through the bottom of the case should you want to do a post-purchase upgrades. For example, this model comes with 4GB of memory but can be expanded to 8GB total.The budget section of our Back-to-School roundup (laptops priced $500 to $699) consists of three Toshiba systems, including the A505, and an HP. Two of the systems--the Toshiba Satellite P505D-S8930 and HP G60-445DX--are powered by AMD dual-core processors that didn't offer much in the way of performance, even for their budget prices. However, both the A505-S6960 and Toshiba Satellite M505-S4945 run on a 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 processor. These two are more expensive, but there was a clear across-the-board performance advantage to the Intel chips in our tests.
It's hard to believe that it's possible to get a laptop with an 18-inch screen for less than $550 and have it be worth buying, too. But here's the Toshiba Satellite P505D-S8930: a massive notebook with a large, wide-screen display, AMD dual-core processor, plenty of memory, and a decently large hard drive, wrapped up in a fairly good-looking chassis. Too bad the performance and reasonable battery life are so lacking.Instead of just a flat solid color, Toshiba used its Fusion Finish on the P505D with its sonic pattern in black onyx. It's a light pinstripe pattern on a glossy black background on the lid, with palmrests, and speaker surround above the keyboard. The speakers sound great by the way, far above the laptop's budget price tag. The keyboard is large and comfortable with a full number pad on the right end. The keys are flat like a chiclet-style keyboard, but they float above the tray so you'll have to watch your cookie crumbs. They're also somewhat slick, making it slightly unpleasant to type on. Due to the glossy nature of everything, the laptop collects a lot of fingerprints. Overall, the P505D is a nice-looking package and is certainly what a majority of its cost went to.
To the right of the keyboard is a set of backlit touch-sensitive media controls, the power button, and an Eco mode key. This mode significantly cuts back on power usage by cutting back on display brightness and other nonessential features. It also shows a line graph to prove the power savings.The 18.4-inch wide-screen LCD display offers a 1,680x945native resolution, which is not standard for a screen this size. In fact, we've never tested a system with this size screen carrying such a low resolution. More standard for this size are resolutions of 1,920x1,080 or 1,900x1,200. Despite the lower resolution, the screen is good for just about anything you'll do on it, with decent color performance, brightness, and dynamic range. If those are two things you're interested in, you'll want to search out a P500-series laptop that actually has them.
Ports for the most part are what we expect to find on a system in this price range. Only the eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port is an anomaly, but it's a good one and has Toshiba's sleep-and-charge feature for charging devices even when the computer's sleeping. Also, though there are spots for HDMI and DisplayPort connections on the left side, they have been plugged up. If those are two things you're interested in, you'll want to check out another version of the P500 series that actually has them.
The Toshiba Satellite P505D-S8930 is a retail-only fixed configuration, so what you get is what you get. However, the memory and hard-drive compartments are easily accessed through the bottom of the case. This model comes with 4GB of memory, but can be expanded to 8GB total.Performance from the P505D-S8930 is a bit depressing. The budget section of our Back-to-School roundup (laptops priced $500 to $699) consists of three Toshiba systems, including the P505D, and an HP. The other two Toshiba laptops are more expensive, but they performed noticeably better on all of our tests. We're chalking it up to the middling AMD dual-core processor, another of which can be found in the similarly pitiful HP G60-445DX. In the end, though, you're not going to find an 18-inch laptop with better specs at this price. If you need the large screen, the performance of the P505D-S8930 will suffice for general productivity tasks, Web surfing, e-mail, mild multimedia enjoyment, and even some very light gaming. Just don't expect a lot of power simply because it's large.
So far, Dell's netbooks have been hit and miss. We liked the cute Inspiron Mini 9, but were less enamoured with the under-powered Inspiron Mini 12, so we were keen to see how the Inspiron Mini 10 shapes up. Our review sample was the latest, high-specification model, featuring a high-resolution screen and a speedy Intel Atom Z530 processor. As a result, it retails at the higher price point of ¡ê390 (other versions cost between ¡ê200 and ¡ê300). You can enter the code 'NRM1001' to see the full specification of this netbook on Dell's Web site.The Mini 10 has a black lid by default, but, for ¡ê25 extra, you can choose a red, green, pink, blue or white version. Alternatively, for ¡ê40 extra, you can get a model with a design from graphic artist Tristan Eaton. While these designs are certainly eye-catching, they're not really to our taste.The Mini 10 isn't as slim as some rivals, such as the Acer Aspire One 751, and matters are made worse by the fact that the large six-cell battery supplied with our sample protrudes downwards from the case by about 2cm. It would have looked less ungainly if it had simply protruded out the back of the chassis, as with most other netbooks.
Things improve when you get to the screen, partly because it's got a higher resolution that other 10-inch netbook displays we've seen. Rather than the usual 10-inch screen resolution of 1,024x600 pixels, the Mini 10's display sports a significantly higher resolution of 1,366x768 pixels. The extra resolution is a big help, especially when using the Web browser or working on Word documents, as it means you won't find yourself having to constantly scroll down to see more of the page, as you do on some other netbooks.
The screen is also very bright and has good colour fidelity, so photos and videos look excellent. Like most netbooks on the market at the moment, the Mini 10 has a small 1.3-megpaixel webcam above the display, which is handy for video calling on services like Skype.The screen is surrounded by a rather large bezel -- it's about 20mm thick. That makes us think that this netbook was either originally designed with a larger screen in mind or that Dell has intentionally gone for a larger form factor so it can squeeze in a bigger keyboard. Whatever the truth, thanks to its relatively big keys, the keyboard feels much more like one you'd find on a standard laptop. This is helped by the fact that Dell has opted for standard keys, rather than the calculator-style ones used on rivals like the Samsung N310.
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