Llano in the Wild: Toshiba's Satellite L775D-S7206
by Dustin Sklavos on August 12, 2011 12:45 AM ESTConclusion: Price Above All Else
I won't lie, I was looking forward to doing this review as an opportunity to weigh in with my peers on Llano, and that's largely because I do think we've been a bit unfair to it and I see the value in it. Jarred's concern regarding AMD's Fusion APUs is a fair one: released right now they're alright, but they're really a year or two late. It's true, but I'm not convinced it's entirely fair. I'm a huge fan of Brazos because to me it soundly and squarely beats and replaces Atom, at least in the form of the E-350, and this is something we've needed for a long time.
Llano is a bit different. First, as I said before, it doesn't belong on the desktop. It just doesn't. For the price of a decent Llano chip and accompanying motherboard, you can get a comparable Athlon II X4, motherboard, and strong dedicated GPU. As a builder there are just too many alternatives, and worse, there are still no Mini-ITX motherboards for it to at least consider shining in. Hybrid CrossFire is also severely handicapped with it's lack of DX9 support, almost to the point where I wonder why AMD even bothered. Jarred did receive a BIOS update to the original Llano laptop that addressed most of the corruption issues experienced in our not-for-release hardware, but with Llano already having more GPU than CPU power, Hybrid CrossFire merely puts an even greater load on the anemic Stars CPU. We're running some additional testing of Hybrid CrossFire and will discuss the results in the near future, but let's just say it's not quite worthy of the praises some are singing.
Despite some flaws and the weak processor core, however, Llano carves out its own niche in the mobile space, a space where AMD has desperately needed a winner. It's not the winner we were looking for, but it does something else entirely. On a budget but still want something portable you can play Left 4 Dead 2 on? Now we're talking. Llano helps democratize PC gaming and lowers the price of entry. When I was stuck in a godawful lecture at school I'd've killed for a Llano-equipped notebook that could run something like Guild Wars on the battery with good performance. There is a market for this, and while I think prices could stand to be a little lower and industry support for AMD products could always be better, you're just not going to beat the value proposition. Llano is a great alternative south of $700, and absolutely thrives south of $600.
Where the Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7206 comes in is simple: there is a cross-section of needs that get met by this product. I know a lot of people aren't fans of notebooks this big, but since travelling to CES I've been able to recognize their value: I used a big, comfortable desktop replacement in the hotel room, and I took my ThinkPad X100e with me on the show floor. I don't like Toshiba's styling, and I don't like the corners cut (10/100 ethernet and no USB 3.0? Seriously?), but I do like seeing a 17" Blu-ray equipped notebook with a spacious hard drive that can still game for under $700.
Office Depot has the similar L775D-S7226 on instant rebate for $599 right now, with the only difference between the S7226 and S7206 being the lack of Bluetooth support on the former. There's something of a price premium with this form factor, and a visit to NewEgg proves you'd be hard-pressed to find a good alternative to what Toshiba offers with this notebook. The price is right, and the performance is exactly adequate. While the Stars cores in the A6-3400M are hopelessly long in the tooth, they still offer enough oomph to handle most tasks, and the A6 can even play less demanding games at the notebook's native 900p. On top of that, it's quiet, cool, and offers decent battery life.
Is the L775D-S7206 a homerun? No. But if you're part of the niche that can take advantage of its combination of features, and you know who you are, it's going to be tough to do much better than this.
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Crazymech - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
Gotta agree with Dustin here.Tho I would like to add that I'm begining to think the problem is that the UI elements of windows aren't really being designed with this resolution in mind. I think Microsoft should start setting a 1920x1xx0 baseline resolution for designing the next UI, so that things wont be too small at our current standard.
This would allow us to enjoy the higher PPI without straining our eyes to see the tiny details. Like iPhones 4's screen for example. Icon size just the same, just more PPI - lovely to look at.
kmmatney - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
I have crappy eyes, and a 17" laptop with 1920 x 1200 resolution. I normally run the screen at 1440 x 900, which looks great. I like the fact that I can go to 1920 x 1200 when I really need the extra real-estate, but i can't handle that resolution very long. it nice to have the option, though.seapeople - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
I have really crappy eyes too, but I went to this thing they call an eye doctor (i.e. Walmart) and now while wearing these special lens type things I can actually see far away things just like I could when I was younger. I didn't realize this was an uncommon thing?Dustin Sklavos - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
The sarcasm is amusing but not entirely appropriate. Some of us with eye problems have a harder time getting them corrected as exactly. Despite my horrifically strong scrip and regular visits to the eye doctor, I still have trouble focusing sometimes.frozentundra123456 - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - link
Good comment Dustin. I still have decent vision, but I have had some problems that are not correctable that have decreased my vision somewhat. Believe me, it is really frightening to think that you might be losing vision in one or both eyes. Fortunately, the problem was not as serious as I first thought.However, I do know others that have very serious vision problems that are not totally fixable after many thousands of dollars of expensive surgery, much less a trip to Walmart. So I agree that seapeople's comment, intentionally or not, was not appropriate and is offensive to those who have serious vision problems.
joe_dude - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
IMHO, the NV75 is much better deal than the Toshiba. It comes with A8-3500m + dGPU. In Canada, it's $700 fully loaded with Blu-Ray.I think the A6 is better for low-end 13" to 15" laptops, where Intel + dGPU has a tendency to overheat (e.g. Acer TimelineX) or sounds like a jet engine in games.
Also, the productivity benchmarks are very misleading. On the NV75 (and I assume the Toshiba as well), the system is very responsive for day-to-day use. The CPU is definitely NOT a bottleneck.
Dustin Sklavos - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
The Gateway NV75, at least the models I've seen, does not include a dGPU. Any Radeon HD with the letter "G" at the end of the model number refers to the graphics built into the Llano APU. That said, you're right, the NV75 does look like a better deal.joe_dude - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
The Canadian model has a 6650m with 1 GB of VRAM.http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/gateway-gat...
The smallest AMD A6 laptop I can find so far is the 14" HP G4. Wanna review that one too? :>
charliek45 - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
Hi Dustin,Would you be able to expand on the heat and noise section of this review? I own an old Asus laptop and it gets very hot and noisy while playing games, sometimes to the point of shutting down, so this is one of the most important criteria for me when selecting a laptop. Can you please compare the heat and noise under load to other laptops? In particular, I am interested to know whether Llano is able to run cooler than Intel + dedicated graphics cards when playing games and if so, how much cooler.
MrCromulent - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
10/100 Ethernet... are you serious, Toshiba?Even for low-end machines that's unacceptable in this day and age.