In
orbit.
Need
a workhorse Windows laptop that is neither a blow to the eyes nor to
the pocket? We've been out and about testing such a machine, with
slightly mixed results. We review the Toshiba Satellite L50D-C-13G
laptop.
What
we have here is what some of you might consider a budget laptop,
weighing in as it does on your bank account at around £400 (at time
of press). The machine, which features a 15.6 inch screen, comes
preinstalled with Windows 8.1, meaning you'll have to (should you
wish) download and install Windows 10 yourself on start up.
Regardless of what operating system you decide on, the Toshiba
Satellite L50D-C-13G will run it with a respectable 8GBof RAM and
AMD's Carrizo-based A10-8700P APU.
First
up, we need to talk about the display. For a laptop of this size and
specs we found the screen to be a big disappointment. It isn't that
the 1366 x 768 resolution display was overly poor in any way, and
certainly everything we did on the laptop, from creating Word
documents to watching Netflix, looked okay. It's just that we
expected more from Toshiba, especially on a device as well powered as
this.
Still,
we think that is something that only some people will be bothered
about, as everything else about the running of the laptop was fine.
The 8GB RAM clearly works well in conjunction with the quad-core
processor, and the only indication that the machine was tackling the
heavy workload we threw at it, was the sound of the fan kicking in.
Online gaming, video steaming, multiple open web pages; all worked
well and without incident.
Whereas
the picture quality might have disappointed us slightly, the sound
quality certainly didn't. The Toshiba Satellite L50D-C-13G's speakers
have been tweaked by the people at Skullcandy, making them
surprisingly good despite their apparent small size. Laptop speakers
are never going to blow anyone away (there's a reason laptops come
with Bluetooth and headphone ports), but these were clear and rich,
providing good accompaniment to a video.
In
terms of physicality, the Toshiba Satellite L50D-C-13G is not the
lightest laptop at 2.2 kg, nor is it the thinnest with a closed-lid
height of 2.3cm. Still, the keyboard is nice and wide, with a numeric
keypad to the right and a trackpad centred below the letter keys. The
palm rest areas either side of the trackpad are smooth and flat,
although their edges are a little sharp, especially at the corners.
That said, typing for prolonged periods on the laptop is quite
comfortable once you get used to the relatively wide spacing of the
keys.
In
terms of connectivity, the Toshiba Satellite L50D-C-13G boasts two
USB 3.0 ports, as well as a standard USB 2.0 on the other side. There
is an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, and also a slot for a SD Card as
well as a headphone jack. Oh, and it has an optical drive. Yes, an
actual, physical optical drive that pops out of the right side of the
laptop. For CDs and DVDs. You remember those, right? The drive is
actually the most surprising thing about the Toshiba Satellite
L50D-C-13G, as we genuinely were not expecting that – not from a
laptop released in 2015.
It
was quite refreshing to have access to an optical drive for the first
time in a few years, if only to watch all that CD-ROM porn we burnt
in 2004. Joke. Still, if you do miss the days of whirling drives and
pop out disk trays, it seems they are (at least according to Toshiba)
back once more.
 |
| Look! It pops out, 90s style! |
If
you think £400 is a tad steep for a 15.4 inch machine with a 1366 x
768 display... well, it is. But despite that the Toshiba Satellite
L50D-C-13G is well powered and impressed us with a battery life that
approached six hours, even with medium use. The internal specs of the
laptop are fine, and if you're looking for something to handle a few
heavy jobs (without taking it very far from home) this could be your
new machine. Plus you know, CDs baby!
Around
£400