Toshiba Satellite L645D: Mobile AMD at 3GHz
by Dustin Sklavos on March 9, 2011 3:20 AM ESTMostly Portable
A point where AMD-based notebooks have traditionally suffered (with the notable exceptions of both Sony's EE34 and pretty much anything Fusion-based) is battery running time. Toshiba equips the L645D with a mediocre six-cell, 48Wh battery that may somewhat dampen the mobility of a notebook that's otherwise fairly portable.
The relative battery life of the L645D isn't completely dire, but the Sony EE34's 25-watt processor runs roughshod over it. In practice, though, the L645D is still able to achieve three hours of useful running time surfing the internet. This is something Jarred's mentioned before and we've discussed at length: if you look at the running times of the Intel-based notebooks, you'll notice they're all equipped with much larger batteries. It seems like manufacturers almost deliberately cripple AMD-based notebooks.
We're not suggesting the L645D would offer battery life on par with an equivalent Intel machine, but it's still hamstrung by a middling battery. It's also clear there are power optimizations left on the table, as the Sony EE34 posts better battery life in two of the three tests despite having a smaller battery; the H.264 playback test is closer to what we'd expect, but the Internet test in particular has Sony leading by over 50% in relative battery life.
Heat and Noise
Given the smaller chassis of the L645D compared to some of the larger notebooks we've reviewed, it isn't unreasonable to expect it's going to have a tougher time dealing with the thermals of the Phenom II N660. We were pleasantly surprised.
The processor temperatures are going to seem a little alarming, but they're not too far from where we've seen Arrandale-based notebooks hit. It may be better to look at the hard drive's temperature, which remains constant under both idle and load: 40C is perfectly reasonable. The L645D isn't in danger of overheating.
Idle and load surface temperatures are a little hotter than some of the other notebooks we've reviewed recently, but still nothing to complain about. Palmrests remain comfortably cool, as does the bottom of the notebook, with the center of the keyboard getting the hottest under sustained load. The central hot spot's 36.8C equates to roughly 100F, which is by no means cool but also not swelteringly hot either.
The L645D actually handles heat pretty well, and though the fan can definitely spin up noticeably under load, it's not aggravatingly loud and certainly not any louder than competing notebooks tend to be.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
61 Comments
View All Comments
Taft12 - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - link
Starcraft II has higher requirements than the rest of this list, but it is the most popular PC game on the market by a mile. Please include it (low settings of course)JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - link
This is the list of *old* games I'm testing. Anything on the current list will also be tested. You can already see those results in the HP dm1z review:http://www.anandtech.com/show/4187/hp-dm1z-taking-...
Dustin Sklavos - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - link
We already have low settings SC2 numbers for every low-powered notebook we test, SC2 is in our suite.LeftSide - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - link
COD4 or COD5. My Dell studio 14 with nvidia 9400m can play cod4 at 1366x768 with low settings. World at War is too much too handle.JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - link
Hmmm... I've got so many FPS titles in there already. I suppose I can try COD4, which is a slightly newer take on Quake 4 engine IIRC.UNHchabo - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - link
I have two suggestions:1) Killing Floor or Red Orchestra. As far as I know, you don't have any UT2.5 games on your list, and some lower-end graphics chips can still struggle on it.
2) At least one racing game: maybe Need For Speed: Undercover, or Trackmania Nations.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - link
I figure if Unreal Tournament 3 can run okay, anything on the UT2.5 engine should be okay as well.The racing genre is pretty unrepresented, true. I suppose one of the NFS games will do; I'm trying to remember what the last one I purchase is. NFS: Carbon I think. I remember playing Underground 1 or 2 and then Carbon, and felt like the series had lost me. What about NFS: World? Is that too demanding, or have they made it work well with slower systems?
Also, I forgot that League of Legends is supposed to be in the above list as well. I suck at it, but I can at least play against the computer. :-)
cdeeter - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
How about one of the older Need for Speed games like Most Wanted or Underground? That way you would have a racing game in the mix.HHCosmin - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - link
this is so stupid what this companies do. i think they deserve a little suing. they give you crap autonomy because they are too lazy to care about integration. for some time i thought that amd cpus were not that great as power usage goes. well... not anymore. sony proved that you can get good runtime with even a small battery with an amd platform. toshiba, asus, dell etc care crap about optimizing the platform (and think this is the case for intel to some degree). these machines are for mobile use so runtime is more important than raw power! do you hear me dear integrators?! they also make life harder for users by feeding crapware and opting out of programs that would assure good quality for drivers and would not cost them anything.... the platform is as good as the software is so use you brainz so good, uptodate drivers we need. do not really see much use for optical drives especially in small laptops and mostly in general. why is gbit lan missing? why all this obsession for gloss? i have some hard time what kind of person makes such decisions? do they know anything about IT in general? if they do it really does not show. i believe these companies really deserve some protests. my protest is simple... right now i believe has some dumb people around that make dumb selections of hardware.HHCosmin - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - link
fully agree with Dustin. why have a expensive blueray drive in a budget machine? why not bigger battery? why not gbit lan? why not bluetooth? there are some decisions that make this look like some people at toshiba are very confused. this laptop could have been a lot better and cheaper but some toshiba dorks screw around. this really pisses me off.