Toshiba Satellite U845: Ultrabooks Go Mainstream
by Vivek Gowri on October 8, 2012 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Intel
- Toshiba
- Ivy Bridge
- Ultrabook
Battery life is decent but by no means stellar given the rest of the Ultrabook class. The battery is a 54Wh 6-cell Li-ion (not lithium polymer, it should be noted) pack of the sealed-in, non-removable variety. Our battery life testing showed a hair over six hours in the internet benchmark and an idle life of close to eight hours. You can reliably expect at least 5.5-6 hours of runtime in light usage scenarios, about average for 14” Ultrabooks but well behind class leading 13”ers like the old Zenbook UX31E.
As I go through more Ultrabooks, I’m finding that the larger 14” and 15” models are not nearly as power efficient as the 13” Ultrabooks, so you find many more data points in the 4.5-6 hour range than in the 7-9 hour range that most of the 13”ers fall in. It makes sense, given the larger and more power-hungry display panels (which easily account for 30-40% of power consumption in our web-browsing test), but unfortunately, manufacturers aren’t putting in larger batteries to compensate. The U845’s battery is a meager 4Wh larger than the 13” Zenbook and Zenbook Prime. Also not helping here? The list of Toshiba services that drain even more power should you not disable or uninstall them first (I uninstalled Norton and ran the battery test with all unnecessary and easily killable processes disabled).
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chrnochime - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
Why bother coming to the comment section anyway if the product disappoints you so much?flashbacck - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
because we have the very slimmest of hopes that laptop designers will see the comment and consider for their next design?Probably not. But we can hope!
Galcobar - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
Count me in on the thin hope of a manufacturer reading the review and noticing the universal disdain for such a poor screen.I'll pay the extra $50 to get a decent screen. Workloads vary, but what makes for a good user interface really doesn't. I want thin and light, but I refuse to purchase a computer with a screen which will so greatly hamper my productivity.
Samus - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
Unfortunately, we AT readers are the 1%. 99% of people don't really care about screen quality.Infact 90% of them don't even know what screen resolution even is.
hybrid2d4x4 - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
I agree. This trend will never be mended unless the people that spec new laptops hear people's complaints about these things.howneat - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
1366x768 just doesn't cut it these days. If the low end ultrabooks had 1440x900 displays they'd be worth a look.KillerFry - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
Agreed!I too saw the resolution and moved along, nothing to see here.
Marburg U - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
I know it sounds boring, but i stopped at "768p".My Acer from 2004 came with a 1280x1024 screen, which is 1.25 times more than 95% of modern laptops displays.
The0ne - Monday, October 8, 2012 - link
The first thing I look for is the display spec. Nothing else matters as much to me anymore. It is a shame but what can one do.Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
My workplace has a Toshiba laptop floating around, screen size in the vicinity of 15", that has a resolution of 1600x1200. I'm happy with my 1600x900 14" laptop, but you look at what used to be out there and you're like, "WHAT HAPPENED!?"