Toshiba Satellite U500-115
Specifications
Notebook: Toshiba Satellite U500-115 (Satellite U500 Series)Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo P8700
Graphics Adapter: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 512 MB
Display: 13.3 inch, 16:10, 1280x800 pixels, glossy: yes
Weight: 2.25kg
Price: 1000 euro
Average of 4 scores (from 3 reviews)
Reviews for the Toshiba Satellite U500-115
CULV? No thanks! Currently, an undaunted trend towards smaller notebooks can be observed. While the devices lose gram by gram, the performance, down to netbooks, constantly decreases as well - even though Nvidia steer in the opposite direction with their Ion platform. The U500 by Toshiba takes a further step here. Despite the compact 13.3" format, the laptop offers a powerful Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, and an independent middle-class graphics card by ATI.
Foreign Reviews
Source: mobile Zeit - 2/10
Single Review, , Length Unknown, Date: 04/01/2010
Rating: Total score: 73% price: 90%
Source: Notebookcheck
DE→ENSingle Review, online available, Long, Date: 10/21/2009
Rating: Total score: 81% performance: 82% display: 70% mobility: 74% workmanship: 88% ergonomy: 86% emissions: 79%
Source: Notebookjournal
DE→ENSingle Review, online available, Long, Date: 09/18/2009
Rating: Total score: 90% price: 80% performance: 80% features: 50% display: 30% mobility: 70% workmanship: 90% ergonomy: 90%
Comment
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570: Lower middle-class GPU that features a low shader count and a 64 Bit memory bus but a high clock speed. Similar to the desktop Radeon 4550. Supports Avivo HD and DirectX 10.1.
Non demanding games should be playable with these graphics cards.
» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List.
Intel Core 2 Duo: This is the Core Duo and Core Solo successor with a longer pipeline and 5-20% more speed without more power consumption. As an addition to the Core Duo design there exists a fourth decoder, an amplified SSE-unit and an additional arithmetical logical unit (ALU).
The Core 2 Duo for laptops is identical to the desktop Core 2 Duo processors but the notebook-processors work with lower voltages (0.95 to 1188 Volt) and a lower Frontside bus clock (1066 vs 667 MHz). The performance of equally clocked notebooks is 20-25% lower than Desktop PCs because of the lower Frontside bus clock and the slower hard disks.
P8700:
Mid-range dual core processor with 3 MB level 3 cache and a TDP of 25 Watt.
» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.
13.3": This is a common display format for subnotebooks. Netbooks, UMPC and some subnotebooks have tinier displays. Nevertheless, the majority of standard laptops has a higher format. The advantage of a small display is, that the subnotebook can be small dimensioned and can be carried easily. Further the small display needs few energy, which improves the battery runtime and in consequence the mobility. The disadvantage is that the reading of texts is a bit exhausting for the eyes, especially with high resolutions.» To find out how fine a display is, see our DPI List.
2.25 kg: These sub-notebooks weight less than the average of all notebooks, but represent a heavier class of weight among the sub-notebooks. 13 inch displays are normal for this class of weight.
Toshiba: Toshiba Corporation is a multinational conglomerate manufacturing company, headquartered in Japan. The company's main business is in Infrastructure, Consumer Products, and Electronic devices and components. Toshiba-made Semiconductors are among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders. Toshiba is one of the biggest international notebook-manufacturer. There exist many reviews for Toshiba models.
81.25%: This rating should be considered to be average. This is because the proportion of notebooks which have a higher rating is approximately equal to the proportion which have a lower rating.
» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.
