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Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Toshiba Satellite P745-S4250 Notebook Review

With its Core i5 - complemented with large internal storage and memory - announced the new Satellite P745-S4250 specific promotions designed to appeal to price and performance-conscious users. In addition, features such as Harmon / Kardon speakers laptop brand clearly trying to define the "P" in the name of the satellite model as "premium". Satellite P745-S4250 is a purchase or stay on earth? Read on to find out.

Specifications Toshiba Satellite P745-S4250 :
  • Processor : Intel Core i5 2410M 2.3 GHz
  • Mainboard : Intel HM65
  • Memory : 6052 MB, DDR3 1333Mhz (max 8GB)
  • Graphics adapter : Intel HD Graphics 3000 - 64-1696 MB
  • Display : 14 inch 16:9, 1366x768 pixel
  • Harddisk : Toshiba MK7575GSX, 750GB 7200rpm
  • Soundcard ; Realtek High Definition Audio
  • Connections : 2 USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.0, 1 VGA, 1 HDMI, 1 Kensington Lock, Audio Connections: headphone, Line-In, Card Reader: SD, MS, XD, 1 SmartCard
  • Networking : Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller (10/100MBit), Intel WiFi Link 1000 BGN (bgn)
  • Optical drive : TSSTcorp CDDVDW TS-L633F
  • Size : height x width x depth (in mm): 27.9 x 340.36 x 228.9
  • Weight : 2.4493 kg Power Supply: 0.2494 kg
  • Battery : 48Wh Wh Lithium-Ion
  • Price : 542.63 Euro
  • Operating System : Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit
  • Additional features : Webcam: 0.3, 12 Months Warranty
 Case
Physics, Satellite P745-S4250 offers a few surprises. At 2.44 kg, it falls near the middle of the pack in comparison with the integrated 14-inch Dell Latitude E6420 as (2.67 kg) and Sony Vaio PCV-CA1S1E (2.31 kg). As for dimensions, the laptop also similar unnoticed. At about 28 mm to 36 mm thick - depending on whether or not the laptop screen is closed - it is not impossible to achieve in a backpack or bag, but none are likely to taken to a MacBook Air any time soon.

The laptop is black and gray tones offers the same industrial system and visual chic that is common in most consumer-level laptop, but we are not excited about the dependence of Toshiba's large plastic used on the laptop complete.

Although the satellite end brushed aluminum pseudo-keyboard on the deck and show the sharpness adds some aesthetic plastic simply does not offer much support when it comes to sustainability. The laptop had significant amounts of flex at several points on the laptop screen and body when light to moderate pressure was applied.

In addition, the Satellite P745-S4250 is compared with other similarly priced notebooks, Toshiba's decision to go all-plastic body seems particularly confused. For example, 14-inch HP ProBook 4430s touts bridge brushed aluminum keyboard and screen, but the i5 Core-based version is still watches $ 50 USD price tag less than the P745-S420 is the United States.

Besides, Satellite P745-S4250 good design is consistent and above all fixed. Fortunately, the laptop lock prevents the screen, making it easy to open and close. The weight of the display also holds down against the deck of the keyboard - we have not seen any significant bottlenecks magnetized on the screen, but it is safe enough to guard against accidentally be opened.

However, the small difference between the display and keyboard deck is large enough to potentially have lost corner of the screen open objects. If you carry your laptop in a backpack with many other objects, we would certainly spring for a protective bag or store it with your back up.

In addition, several sheets of rubber along the side of the screen of the laptop screen to prevent it from hitting the deck of the keyboard - these black plugs easy to fall into the laptop screen and is difficult to notice.

The satellite is also present in the screwdriver, removable covers that allow access to the memory of the laptop and hard drive bays of the place. Both areas are fairly easy to identify, even if we had to be careful when removing the covers. They are connected to a laptop through a series of hooks in plastic and secured so well that the removal of the tug in the wrong can easily break.

Connectivity
Satellite P745-S4250, while the characteristics of the standard set of ports, and industry standards found in laptop computers consumer-centric, not without a few omissions surprising.

First of all, what is included: the standard VGA, HDMI and headphone jack, including a laptop is also one of the USB 3.0 ports on the right side. What brings investment, there are no major problems - a method of port selection is not particularly developed, but a lot of space along the three sides of the laptop makes it unlikely the clutter of cables. Memory card reader on the front panel P745-S4250 also supports Memory Stick, SD and xD-Picture cards.

Internet and Bluetooth
With standard Ethernet and Intel 802.11 b / g / n Wi-Fi, satellite beaters also support for Intel Wireless Display, which allows users to wirelessly using a compatible display as a secondary display.

Unexplained P745-S4250 does not have support for Bluetooth out of the box. Users with a Bluetooth accessory will turn to solutions of the third or first party and for the latter, it probably does not work cheap. At Toshiba's online store, a USB Bluetooth 2.1 will be an additional cost of $ 29.99. It is certainly reasonable to argue that most of the Bluetooth add-ons are the same USB-based counterparts, but at that price, seems to leave out features like Bluetooth connectivity needlessly stingy.

Software
Toshiba Sleep-and-Music and Sleep-and-Charge both offer great multitasking capabilities for fans of music and gadget users. Sleep-and-Music lets you use the speakers of the P745-S4250 sound system as a backup by connecting an MP3 player with line portable Jack, even when the satellite is off.

Or as a speaker, 14-inch satellite is certainly not the most practical solution - smartphone speaker was actually harder than him, when it was connected to a laptop - but it is a nice addition to the design as more confirmation is needed .

Sleep-and-Charge also allows you to double the Satellite laptop charger with any USB devices, even when the computer is in standby or turned off. Both functions are controlled by an easy application in Windows.

The satellite is expected with the number of third-party demos and the first third-party software. Except for the trial versions of applications such as Microsoft Office 2010 and Norton Internet Security 2011, Toshiba is also its software package, which covers the functionality of the system ranging from maintenance to energy consumption. The amount of use you get from these programs will likely depend on if you are already rely on a secondary requirement.

For example, Toshiba is the Place book store its own eBook - a nice feature, integration with Windows-based computers and tablets Android, as well as an amazing variety of current books. Some of the titles for sale by Kathryn Stockett "Help" and "Flash and Bones" by Kathy Reichs.

Instead, we can not imagine that users will get a lot of use out of applications, such as Toshiba's Place App. Like Apple's App Store, computers, applications App Location Features available for purchase, but the relatively small catalog users might be better to go directly to the developer's website.

We also fans of Toshiba's approach to promote its application Application set - when we were testing P745-S4250, perform comparative analysis was interrupted by a pop-up to the App Place. To be honest, we were able to remove the pop-up will take place in a real application for the ad - even if the new pop-up online backup Toshiba appeared in a few days later - but having to do with The laptop, which is apparently directed towards the budget for outside users to feel useless and annoying.

Accessories
The P745-S4250 does not have much beyond the ordinary when it comes to accessories. In addition to the included AC adapter and packed six-cell battery, Toshiba also sells a host unit and a USB-based high-capacity 12-cell battery. But the big battery protrudes from the portable frame and increases the angle of the keyboard.

What's 0.3 megapixel camera, the visual quality is expected. Video and image fidelity is mediocre, but it is sufficient basic video conferencing.

Warranty
Toshiba offers a one-year warranty on the international standard P745-S4250. Parts and labor - with the laptop battery - is also covered by a second year.

Input Devices
Touchpad
Satellite 8.25 cm x 5.1 cm trackpad offers decent amounts of physical properties from research or other functions. Support for multi-touch is that most of them manually on the control panel. The fingers were also some problems with the click or move next to the touchpad on a smooth matte - the touchpad with two keys were very fast, and has responded well to the press.

Keyboard
Terms of performance, P745-S4250 offers the keyboard brush some major surprises. Individual keys, on their ability to react and all were both very nice. In addition, the handset has also managed to squeeze "at home", "Page Down", "Page Up" and "Clear" and "Finish" button on the right side of the end of the keyboard cover.

Thanks in part to the limits of size 14-inch laptop, the keyboard does not do a lot of use the "Fn" key - without the 'F1' through the key 'F12', all secondary to the possibility of volume for the keypad whole is integrated into the keyboard.

Even if additional functions are always welcome, we are divided, in part because of aesthetic excess noise is added to the secondary functions of the keyboard (one of the main is doing triple duty "I", "5" key and left arrow , for example).

Similarly, we prefer to take a backlit keyboard for more than heavy amounts of Tron-like lighting the touch surface, Satellite logo and managing a bar, although it is easy to remove with a simple touch of a button. Plus, with lights gradually fade away, when there is a nice added touch.

Display
The satellite shows - with LED backlight and resolution 1366 x 768 pixels - runs close to the center of the group when it comes to visual fidelity. You can view the front, light performance is solid, an average of 244.0 cd/m2, all nine districts of the screen. However, not spectacular, and the black contrast ratio is higher than ideal, other performance indicators are less impressive.

When analyzing the P745-S4250 cover color space, we see this in action. Cons sRGB, large amounts of spectrum are left uncovered. However, compared to laptops of the same built as the Lenovo ThinkPad and Dell Vostro 3450 L420, satellite fair better with large amounts of coverage.

If you plan to work outdoors, satellite does not offer decent amount of resistance to sunlight. Brightness maximized within Windows, we managed to get a reasonable view out of the screen. As the pictures show, however, bright screen that has a couple of favors when outdoors - Sheen has made it almost unusable in different points of view in relation to sunlight. Others, the visibility was average, mediocre.

For comparison, the rate of display viewing angle much better. While the visual distortion was easy to take when the display was presented on a 45 degree angle, it can only been seen at certain viewing positions when the screen is mounted at a right angle. When the screen was raised about 45 degrees inward, so we just characters on screen questions.

Performance
Bluetooth webcam Hyppige eller blive Brugère National tilgivet tales snydt f signal, P745-S4250, men naar Kommer det till performance, Toshiba skære nogle hjørner. Ud over sin-Core i5-2410M processor, OGSA Satellite funktioner 6 GB of DDR3 RAM 750GB 5400RPM hard drive og en som standard.

Activities, although the overall picture is rather confused. Inside, PCMark Vantage, SAT scores 5960 points, which was slightly below the average for the class of 6393.7 points between the i5-2410M-based. In PCMark 7, 2110 is a laptop down to only score a number of other laptops share i5-2410M or Intel Graphics HD 3000 GPU.

Surprisingly, P745-S4250 has managed to pull out a score higher than the corresponding built in laptops such as Lenovo L420 (1961 points) and the Toshiba Satellite L755-14P (2090 points). Against notebook as Toshiba R830-11C (2936 points) and the Dell V131 (2359 points), although, P745-S4250 has fallen well behind, despite sharing the same GPU and CPU.

Cinebench Cinebench 11.5 Inden 10 og, vi Meget fandt mother in leadership præstation fra satellitten Kunnas. Cinebench 10, I-og Enkelt flertrådede representation tests CPU, P745-S4250 gennemsnit blæste af herbaceous betydelige Kategorie carnivores Margene.

AF point snesevis Med i 9732 og 4629 og flertrådede individual events, team bærbare BLEVE henholdsvis UNTAET den den loft pA to Bryde præstation baserede af tidligere er nedsat system i5-2410M. Cinebench results than 10 skygge final spektakulær var mindre, klare VAERS takket flaskehalse performance eng Intel Graphics HD 3000 GPU.

Other i5 2410M-based notebooks like the Dell XPS 15 L502x (5600 points) and the Sony Vaio PCV-CA1S1E (6472 points) scored much better, thanks to the dedicated GPU. Competitors such as Fujitsu Lifebook LH531 (5388 points) - which shares the same GPU / CPU combo - almost equivalent performance.

11.5 Cinebench results were also consistent. P745-S4250 The CPU score of 2.6 points on the center-2410M i5 systems. Similarly, the score of the OpenGL 8.8 laptop fell from the lower end systems share a Core i5-2410M graphics and Intel HD 3000 GPU.

Of course, competitors like Dell Vostro 3450 (7269 points) and Lenovo ThinkPad E420 Edge (6432 points) - P745-S4250 exceeded by substantial margins - all based on two separate GPU.

3DMark Vantage score was largely a non-factor - to 1864 points, they managed satellite beating competitors such as Lenovo IdeaPad M5657GE-Z370 (1704 points) and ProBook 6360b (1575 points). But the poor graphics performance to easily restrict the laptop for most graphics-intensive tasks.

The performance we've seen from the satellite 750 GB hard drive 5400 rpm was not particularly spectacular. With most of the SSD-based notebooks sporting the consumer or 7200 RPM hard drives, results of analysis were a little slower HDTune recording and crystal field 3.0.

Thank you for the satellite used for the integrated graphics and generous amounts of RAM, they reference the result of the AU Sein were a respectable 3DMark Vantage 3DMark06, so little Spectacular. Surprisingly, the 3DMark06 score of the P745-S4250 to 4471 points on the beat other notebook of Sami built as the Dell Latitude E5420 (3330 points) a Fujitsu LifeBook LH531 (4069 points).

Emissions

Noise emissions
Thanks for your laptop form factor of the medium and the limited use of the fan noise is not a big problem. Lone satellite hole fans - it takes about a third of a laptop on the right side - the cycles out of the large volumes of air that is to pull the bottom of the computer. Even if it is under load, however, the amount of noise produced by the P745-S4250 will never be openly visible.

Temperature
However, this minimalist approach for ventilation probably plays an important role in heat retention capacity satellite. As with all laptops revised P745-S4250 we have a stress test at a time when Prime95 and Furmark were carried out simultaneously. After this, temperatures on the keyboard cover has increased almost five degrees Celsius in many areas, but never became too hot.

The laptop can not see below the temperature increases more radical - the area below the exhaust fan Satellite jumped more than nine degrees and the air is pumped was almost as hot as a conventional radiator. Needless to say, if you plan to make large amounts of intensive work, we recommend to keep the satellite on a desk.

Speakers
Given the low value of the notebook manufacturers place more for the sound, we are particularly thrilled that Toshiba has played a lot more than sending a satellite. The handset is equipped with two Harmon / kandon speakers mounted on the edge of the keyboard deck, and both provide phenomenal sound quality.

Distortion, the midrange came through well and songs like The Black Keys, "Howlin 'For You", while songs like the LCD Soundsystem "Us V. Them" has shown us that it is possible to deep bass and a portable speaker.

Of course, the sonic range of the speakers' had its limits -. Heavy bass tracks much like Vampire Weekend "Cousins", the disc was too easy to take a combination of both, however, in view of the majority of laptop owners are now a poor, low-fidelity sound data, we just hope that the satellite speakers has become the norm.

Battery Life
Most of the results of our tests the battery voltage in line with results from Toshiba. All our tests used the shares of six 48Wh battery. Subtests BatterEater disc - where the laptop is made to move through a block of text without Wi-Fi and a minimum brightness - the laptop lasted six hours and six minutes. In the MobileMark 2007 productivity, the Toshiba battery life rated up to five hours and 58 minutes.

Through normal use - we did a combination of paper, reading, video streaming and web browsing - Satellite lasted three hours and 55 minutes. When you continue to watch the episodes on the NBC show "community" DVD, Wi-Fi off, he earned four hours and 38 minutes of battery life from your computer.

And, as expected, the heavier stress test can easily eat through the battery. Less BatteryEater classic test - if the battery is made by removing the OpenGL at the same time, most of the computers to save battery - the laptop barely managed to last just over an hour.

Verdict
Finally, the Satellite P745-S4250 feels like an exercise in uneasy compromise. The laptop is capable of producing some of the best analysis of results, we have seen from a i5-2410M-base, with excellent performance and visual fidelity sound decent. On the strength of solid specifications, the satellite is ideal for consumers who want a player no laptop that can address both multimedia applications and resources.

Meanwhile, these forces significantly lower by train shortcuts Toshiba also on the characteristics and price. We understand that consumer-level laptops can not cover everything if they are to maintain a competitive price, but it is also confusing when cheaper laptops have better features, like the case of metal or multiple connectivity options .

And really, it's the most disappointing Satellite: There is certainly a good laptop buried somewhere in the P745-S4250, but everything about satellite, it is difficult to recommend.