The excellent: An reasonably priced Toshiba Satellite C655D S5130 Mainframe 15-inch mainframe with a long array life.
The terrible: The AMD Fusion E-240 processor underperforms compared to also priced alternatives; chassis feels cheap; upset pad is less vital than average; no Bluetooth or HDMI; underfeatured for its size.
The underside line: Even as the Toshiba Satellite C655D S5130 Mainframe cracks the $400 barrier for an reasonably priced 15-inch mainframe, this particular AMD Fusion-powered mainframe underperforms and underdelivers.
Toshiba Satellite C655D S5130 Mainframe
There’s a ordinary conception in mainframe purchasing that the best values to be had on the underside end tend to lie in the “doorbuster” 15-incher. We’ve seen these laptops advertised all through holiday shopping seasons and in store circulars–they’re huge, cheap, and they usuallymap severely underpowered processors.
The Toshiba Satellite C655D S5130 Mainframe is notable because the processor it carries is one of the new AMD Fusion APUs (AMD’s term for a combo CPU/GPU), a platform we’ve earlier only seen on 11.6-inch ultraportables such as the HP Tent dm1 and the Lenovo ThinkPad x120e. The C-series is Toshiba’s ultrabudget line, a generic black-box-type mainframe with sometimes-clad specs. Priced at $398, the Toshiba Satellite C655D S5130 Mainframe seems at first glance like an fascinating new bargain. And yet Toshiba Satellite C655D S5130 Mainframe isn’t: that AMD processor isn’t an E-350 like we saw on persons 11-inchers; instead, it’s a decrease-powered E-240.
We reviewed the Toshiba Satellite C655D S5130 Mainframe in last year’s summer retail around-up of laptops, toting a Celeron 900 CPU for only $349. That configuration had 1GB less RAM than this AMD Fusion variant, but it outperformed the Toshiba Satellite C655D S5130 Mainframe in our benchmark tests, even with being less high-priced over half a year ago. This configuration’s upgraded AMD graphics add a modest more to the equation, but even they underperform. They’re not apposite for gaming, and even underwhelm a modest when running Sparkle-based streaming record.
Yes, this is a bargain-basement machine–but you get what you pay for. This Toshiba Satellite is, at best, a lateral go from persons cheapie models you’ve seen advertised in circulars for being. Not much more, and in a few instances, even a modest bit less.
| Price as reviewed | $398 |
| Processor | 1.5 GHz AMD Fusion E-240 Dual Core |
| Reminiscence | 3GB, 667MHz DDR3 RAM |
| Hard drive | 250GB 5,400rpm |
| Chipset | ID1510 + SB800 |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon HD 6310 |
| In commission logic | Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) |
| Dimensions (WD) | 15 x 9.8 inches |
| Height | 1.1-1.5 inches |
| Cover size (diagonal) | 15.6 inches |
| Logic weight / Weight with AC adapter | 5.1 / 5.8 pounds |
| Category | Mainstream |
The Toshiba Satellite C-series is a fiscal statement mainframe, but even compelling into account that, it’s remarkably pedestrian and generic-looking from a design standpoint. The all-not glossy-black peripheral and interior, molded in a patterned grid feel, just feels cheap compared to Toshiba’s privileged-end models. Plain black lecturer grilles privileged than the flat keyboard, a thick overall case design, and a distressing amount of flex on the sides and at the seams along the front edge of the palmrest make this mainframe uninspiring to consider.
The near edge-to-edge keyboard and full digit pad do make the most of the unfilled interval, but the flat keyboard’s maudlin keys ruin what if not may possibly have been a best encounter. Even with the ample room, the not glossy inset multitouch upset pad is tiny, and isn’t even as wide as the thick, around dual buttons not more than it. The multitouch Elan software installedon our C655D-S5130 lacks the same diverse gesture vocabulary of privileged-end Synaptics upset pads, and the go up area is too tiny to easily plot with average adult-size fingers.
The generous, bright 15.6-inch inset glossy LCD cover is what probably brought you to consider the C655D-S5130 in the first house over less vital laptops. The cover is simple on the eyes, but at 1,366×768-pixel native resolution, images and text can get a modest pixelated up accurate. At the same time, most 15-inch laptops have the same resolution, especially at this price. Videos were very watchable on the C665′s spectacle, but viewing angles were restricted before the depiction feature promptly diminished.
Stereo speakers obscure behind grilles privileged than the keyboard place forward volume justly bracing enough for surveillance movies or playing sports meeting, but they didn’t attain a very high volume for a mainframe this size. The ordinary Webcam offers middle-of-the-road depiction feature for basic Web chat, but don’t guess wonders.
| Toshiba Satellite C655D-S5130 | Average for category [Mainstream] | |
|---|---|---|
| Record | VGA | VGA plus HDMI or DisplayPort |
| Audio | Stereo speakers, earphone/microphone jacks | Stereo speakers, earphone/microphone jacks |
| Data | 2 USB 2.0, SD card booklover | 4 USB 2.0, SD card booklover, eSATA |
| Additional room | None | ExpressCard/54 |
| Networking | Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi | Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional mobile broadband |
| Optical drive | DVD burner | DVD burner |
Toshiba Satellite C655D S5130 Mainframe
You shouldn’t guess any bells and whistles on the entry-level config in a fiscal statement mainframe line, and needless to say, this mainframe has none. No Bluetooth, not even HDMI. This is near as bare-bones as laptops get in the modern era.
Toshiba’s Satellite C650 series of laptops spans a wide gamut of configurations on the Toshiba Web site, ranging in price from our unit’s $398 to nearly $600. Processors contain a rogue’sgallery of fiscal statement CPUs from AMD and Intel in all colors and flavors. There are AMD Fusion processors–both the E-240 and E-350–plus Intel Celerons, Pentiums, Core i3, AMD Phenoms, and more. If you’re compelling into account the Satellite C650, you’d be well advised to browse all the unfilled configurations on Toshiba’s Web site–when we checked at the time of this assess, there were a whopping 32 varieties.
Deciding which fiscal statement processor to top out on a mainframe, when so many options present themselves, becomes a disheartening task. We house of protection’t tested all the CPU configurations on the C650 line, but we can at least report that the AMD E-240, the processor in this C655D-S5130, doesn’t live up to the look excellent we probable.
The E-250 is part of the AMD Fusion family of processors, which facial appearance semidiscrete graphics onboard. We’ve seen the deceptively also named E-350 in a diversity of 11-inch fiscal statement ultraportables and have been pleasantly bowled over with how well it performed. This E-240-equipped C650 isn’t the same report. In benchmark tests, the Toshiba Satellite C655D S5130 Mainframe was patently slower than its tiny 11-inch E-350 brethren in both release apps and multitasking. The Toshiba Satellite C655D S5130 Mainframe, even with its better size, is an inferior notebook. It’s even significantly slower than the Intel Celeron 900 processor in the last C650 we reviewed, the C655-5049. (Before I forget, Celeron 900-toting C650 models are still unfilled on Toshiba’s Web site, at prices early nearly $449.)
We house of protection’t tested the E-350-equipped Satellite C650, but it should come closer to the performance seen on laptops such as the HP Tent dm1. We can’t know for sure, even if, at this top. If you’re compelling into account a Satellite C-series mainframe, even if, we’d strongly recommend you pony up a few more dollars and consider, at least, the Toshiba Satellite C655D S5130 Mainframe, which includes the improved AMD E-350 processor for $449.
The AMD 6130 HD graphics on the E-240′s APU are technically the same as persons on the E-350, but because of the decrease-powered CPU they resulted in decrease graphical performance in our gaming benchmarks. Reproduction Tournament III ran at a paltry 21.4 frames per second in native 1,366×768-pixel resolution. That’s an ancient game. If you want another perspective, consider this: Bejeweled 3, by its ordinary 3D graphics equipment, caused fantastic brake and stuttering on the Toshiba Satellite C655D S5130 Mainframe. This just isn’t a mainframe that can handle any sort of 3D gaming. Depending on the streaming record fund, it can’t even handle that well, either: Netflix and ABC.com videos looked fine in full-cover, but Hulu got choppy.
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