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
Woe is me. Seriously. I dare someone to ship a worse display. Actually, wait, Samsung already did that with the Series 5, never mind (black levels of 2.501; please shoot me now). And because I’m fed up with writing this over and over again, I’m going to copy the next paragraph from Dustin’s review of the XPS 13.
Stop me if you've heard this one before. AnandTech receives a notebook for review from a vendor not named Sony or Apple (or sometimes ASUS now), and that notebook features a cut rate 1366x768 TN panel with poor viewing angles, poor color, poor contrast, and just poor quality all around.
The U845 specifially has a relatively woeful contrast ratio, somewhat low brightness (not that you ever really need more than 250nits unless you spend a lot of time outdoors), midpack color accuracy, and a very narrow color gamut. I've actually never tested a notebook with a display that covers less than 40% of Adobe's RGB1998 test gamut (in my memory at least— if somebody wants to prove me wrong, I'm all ears). And to make matters worse, the display panel itself is basically chromed out. Toshiba likes to ship super glossy displays for some reason, as you can see in the photo above. I really can't understand why.
Seriously, these are *Ultrabooks*. Even budget Ultrabooks, based on premium name and reputation alone, should have higher quality display panels. The minimum entry price for an Ultrabook with a good display should not be $1000. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few very high quality Ultrabook displays—the Samsung Series 9 Ultras (starting at $1300), the Zenbook Primes (starting at $1050), the Vizio CT15 (starting at $1000), and I guess the HP Envy Spectre 14 ($1399) display is good enough to count here too.
If ASUS can ship an IPS panel with an 850:1 contrast ratio in a $199 tablet, laptop vendors can find it within themselves to put decent panels into their midrange $800 Ultrabooks. And for a company like Toshiba who already has a lot of experience shipping high quality display panels in low cost devices through three generations of tablet devices, it’s quite disappointing to see the lack of emphasis on notebook display quality. Let's hope Windows 8 changes that.
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Calista - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
I sometimes wonder what ever happened to the Thinkpad T50.We had the T20, T30, T40 and the T60. But no T50..?
I must say the current naming convention make sense although, TXY0 where x equals screen size and Y equals generation. It doesn't tell the whole story, but it quickly gives an idea of generation and performance.
Netscorer - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
I looked at this portable briefly two weeks ago when it first started to appear at $600 price point. Ultimately, I chose Visio Thin and Light CT14-A0 14-Inch Ultrabook which is now available at the same price and is a definite upgrade to the Toshiba Satellite.Gorgeous IPS 1600x900 screen, 128Gb SSD Drive (ironically from Toshiba) and sleek unibody aluminium design, weighting 1/2lb less then Toshiba. Visio is not known to release laptops in the past but if they will be judged by this first attempt, they have great future. Design is a monkey copy of Samsung Ultrabook series, just more stylish. It looses few ports comparing to other portables but they are not essential. Ethernet, for example is not the port used often in ultrabooks whose primary goal is to go unhinged by any cords. With Dual Band 811.n Wi-Fi onboard I don't miss it at all. And if you have to have it, buy a cheapo USB to Ethernet adapter and you are in business. SD Card reader may be more important to me but I already have 3 or 4 USB-based mega readers, so if I need to toss one in a bag with me, I am fine with that too.
The Core i3 ULV CPU may be the only thing that limits this Visio. Comparing to i5 in Toshiba it runs at the same (actually slightly higher) frequency but can not handle high-CPU loads, where i5 can boost it's performance significantly in these cases. Oh, and I am disappointed in battery life. It just does not last much longer then 4.5 hours for me before it needs to be recharged. I am still trying to understand if this is because of the hungry screen or design sloppiness by Visio or some bad drivers running in the background, but it is not acceptable.
bji - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
Pathetic.elitistlinuxuser - Saturday, October 13, 2012 - link
Why note just get an acer Aspire v5-171 if you want an ultrabook that is affordable. Even if it isn't technically ultrabookThegonagle - Sunday, October 14, 2012 - link
Lost me at 768. (As has every single other notebook/laptop that only has 768 lines.)marvdmartian - Monday, October 15, 2012 - link
Something is making the Office Depot link turn into gibberish, for their product search. Direct link (without the "detonator dynamite" garbage:http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/337660/Toshi...
raok7 - Thursday, September 5, 2013 - link
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