Toshiba Satellite Pro L830-10G review
Toshiba sets out to prove business laptops don’t have to be expensive, with this £400 Satellite Pro. Mike Jennings takes a look at whether this 13.3in model is able to provide the performance to match the budget price.
On the inside
To keep the cost down, Toshiba has had to use basic components on the inside too. Intel's budget Core i3 range has just been refreshed with the 22nm Ivy Bridge architecture, but those chips are only turned up in high-end Ultrabooks.
Instead, Toshiba has fitted a Core i3-2367M, which is based on the older Sandy Bridge architecture. It's one of Intel's more potent low-power processors, but its specification offers little hope for high-end performance. An application benchmark score of 0.38 means the Toshiba won't be able to handle much more than basic applications indeed, it felt occasionally sluggish when we were navigating Windows.
Key Specifications
Processor:1.4GHz Intel Core i3-2367MRAM: 2GB DDR3Storage: 500GB HDDScreen: 13.3 in 1,366 x 768Ports: 2 x USB 3, 1 x USB 2, HDMI, D-SUB, SD card reader, 2 x audio
The Toshiba's results of 0.23 and 0.2 in our video and 3D rendering tests means the Satellite Pro is particularly poor when it comes to graphical applications too. This is the fault of the Intel HD Graphics 3000 core. It's the more powerful of Intel's last-generation integrated cores, but it's still little use for anything beyond Windows: it scored just 14fps in our 1,366 x 768 Low quality Crysis benchmark.
The rest of the specification is suitably low-end. Two gigabytes of RAM is half the amount we're used to seeing in even mid-range laptops, but there is a DVD writer and 500GB hard disk. Connectivity comes from Gigabit Ethernet and there's only single-band 802.11n wireless. The Toshiba is also lacking in the business features we're used to seeing on corporate machines, with no sign of Intel vPro or TPM, for instance.
For a small machine, the battery life is middling. A result of 5hrs 21mins in our light use benchmark means the Toshiba won't be able to last a full day away from the mains, and in our heavy use test this figure dropped to just under two hours.
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