Article about 5
Toshiba Satellite L455-S5975 – Dirt cheap notebook
Sum and Substance:
Thumbs Up:
Very cheap, has a large screen.
Thumbs Down:
Small battery life, no Webcam, slow CPU
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Toshiba Satellite L455-S5975 is powered by Intel Celeron 900 Joules / 2.2 GHz, it has data bus speed of 800 MHz, chipset type is Mobile Intel GL40 Express, it has L2 cache of 1 MB. The system has 2 GB DDR2 SD RAM of 800 MHz which can be expanded to 8 GB. For storing data, there is a 250 GB SATA hard drive of 5400 rpm.
DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM – Integrated optical drive has read speed of 24x for CD and 8x for DVD. Write speed is 24x for CD, 8x for DVD±R, 6x for DVD±R DL. Rewrite speed is 24x for CD, 6x for DVD-RW, 8x for DVD+RW and 5x for DVD-RAM. The optical drive is equipped with Labelflash Technology.
Card reader on the laptop can read cards like SDHC Memory Card, Memory Stick Pro, xD-Picture Card, SD Memory Card, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick. The display of the notebook is 15.6 inches big and gives a resolution of 1366×768 pixels, graphics card is Intel GMA 4500M Dynamic Video Memory Technology 5.0 has 128 MB. Interfaces include 1 x Network – Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-TX – RJ-45, 3 x Hi-Speed USB – 4 pin USB Type A, 1 x Headphones – Output – Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm, 1 x Microphone – Input – Mini-phone 3.5 mm, 1 x Display / video – VGA – 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15).
The 4000 mAh, six-cell Lithium ion battery gives a life of 2.8 hours. The laptop comes preinstalled with Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium. Other software includes Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition (60 days trial), Norton Internet Security 2009 (30 days subscription), Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0, Toshiba Recovery Media Creator, Sun Java 2 Runtime Environment, Microsoft Windows Media Player, WildTangent Orb Games Console, QuickBooks Financial Center, Toshiba Bluetooth Stack, Toshiba HDD recovery, Toshiba Disc Creator, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Works 9.0, Toshiba DVD Player, Toshiba ConfigFree, Google Toolbar, Skype. ‘
The manufacturer gives a one year warranty for this laptop.
Razzle Dazzle:
Toshiba Satellite L455-S5965 is 1.5 inches thick which is larger than standard multimedia notebooks. The chassis is plastic, gray-silver and matte which makes it look like a ten year old notebook. On the bright side, the screen isn’t glossy and finger print prone.
Inside Dope:
You can’t hate a laptop when it is priced at dirt cheap $330 and comes pre-installed with Windows 7. At this price, we think the Toshiba L455-S5975 is a steal. It cheaper as compared to Netbooks and comes with a 15.6 inch screen. The downsides of this system are that the looks are retro and it is powered by a Celeron processor which gives sluggish performance. But for people who are on stiff budgets and who computer just for basic tasks. The L455 has a large 250 GB hard disk, 15.6 inch screen and comes with Windows 7 Premium.
The presence of a Celeron processor won’t let you run heavy multimedia or multitasking on this computer. But you can use the Toshiba L455-S5975 for basic applications like music-playing, media viewing and e-mail apps. We were a bit skeptical if this processor would be able to take Windows 7, but it did the job well.
You might think that you’d be better of with a Netbook. But you won’t get a big screen and spacious keyboards on Netbooks. Their screen sizes max out at 11 inches and as a result you get a tiny keyboard. If the keys too are tiny then it is a nightmare for people who type long e-mails. Netbooks are better when it comes to portability and the new Nvidia Ion chips make sure you can play light games in your leisure time as well. Netbooks are trying to get larger but they still have to stay within a limit in order to be called a “Netbook”. During the days of Vista, laptops had an advantage because Netbooks couldn’t handle the resource hogger Vista OS. But now Windows 7 is here which runs equally well on both Netbooks and Notebooks.
The keyboard of the Toshiba Satellite L455-S5965 is spacious with tapered keys. Above keyboard is the power button. You don’t get dedicated media control keys, they are combined with the function buttons. The touch pad too is good, the two mouse buttons below are clunky.
Before buying this laptop, we would ask you to think – what do you need a notebook for? There is a large variety of laptops which cater to different needs unlike a Netbook which are made only for basic purposes.
The screen of the Toshiba Satellite L455-S5965 is 15.6 inches long and has a resolution of 1366×768 pixels. The screen of this notebook is 16×9. Playing games and videos was a good experience but colors looked a bit washed.
Port features are scarce; all you get is an SD card slot, VGA port and three USB 2.0 ports. Toshiba swapped the SD card slot for an ExpressCard. You don’t get a Webcam but this is not unexpected in such a low cost notebook.
The Toshiba Satellite L455-S5965 is powered by Celeron 900 processor which is disappointing, sluggish and not good for mainstream tasks. Multitasking will bring the notebook down to its heels, make it good only for basic applications like media browsing or e-mail applications. This notebook was slower than L305-S5955, Toshiba’s previous offering. The speed is a bit better than a Netbook but the difference isn’t huge. When tested for basic tasks, this notebook did fine. We also tried streaming 480p videos from Hulu in window mode, they stuttered a bit. Videos from the hard disk played smoothly.
Battery life of the Toshiba Satellite L455-S5965 was a big bummer; it ran only for 1 hour and 48 minutes in our test. Our tests are quite challenging, you can get more out of the battery with light use but still this battery life is disappointing especially when other competitors are working hard to give us better battery life. L305 gave us a better battery with the same processor. If you are going to stay away for a along time away from a power plug, this notebook is not for you.
Toshiba Satellite L455-S5965 comes with a one year warranty from the manufacturer. You also get 24-7 toll free support over the phone, there is a online knowledge database on the Website. You can also download drivers from the site. Toshiba gives you an option for extended warranty but we don’t recommend them because they are quite costly.
Nitty Gritty:
Costing at $330, we think this is a dirt cheap laptop but style conscious people might get turned off at the old looks. The laptop is cheap and the slow processors lets you do just basic applications. If this is fine by you, get this notebook.
