Toshiba Satellite Click 2 L30W Convertible Review

With its brushed aluminum display lid finish and attractive silver palmrest, the Click 2 is a fairly good-looking device. Sure, it lacks the svelte flair of a high-end Ultrabook, but the clean styling of the machine is appreciated and helps to separate it from other budget models. Unfortunately, the devil’s in the details, and beyond the initial impressions, the Click 2’s design suffers from a number of fundamental drawbacks.

For starters, the case has barely improved in terms of its portability. Many leading detachable convertibles manage a total weight just above the 1 kg mark with their bases attached: take, for instance, the Microsoft Surface Pro 3, with a total weight of 1.108 kg, or the Dell Venue 11 Pro 5130 with just an 11-inch screen, but which also includes a secondary battery in the keyboard base—and yet still weighs just 1.436 kg. By comparison, the Click 2, with its 13.3-inch display and bulky 23 x 331 x 246 mm (H x W x D) case, slogs onto the scene with an unwieldy weight of 2.11 kg—nearly double that of the Surface Pro 3 and far above many conventional Ultrabooks, such as the Dell XPS 13 (1.374 kg) and Asus Zenbook UX32LA (1.45 kg). Considering that the tablet half alone weighs 1.122 kg (nearly 30% more than the already quite large Surface Pro 3), it’s difficult to identify the benefits of choosing Toshiba’s detachable model over that of conventional Ultrabooks—pricing differences notwithstanding, of course—as improved portability is certainly not among them.

Another side effect of the tablet’s proportion of the total weight is that the keyboard dock isn’t ideally sturdy. Nevermind that the plastic bottom exhibits flex when pressure is applied (with the bottom corners most easily warped); this probably isn’t a major issue in terms of durability while in transit since the unit is meant to be carried with the base attached anyway. Instead, the underlying implications in terms of weight render it a victim of the same balance complications as many of its competitors: that is, that the screen is heavier than the base. As a result, even in spite of the design changes which have brought the tablet (along with its center of gravity) closer to the front of the base, the Click 2 still feels somewhat unstable on one’s lap while in use, and it’s also not possible to open the unit one-handed.

The tablet mates with the base via two metal prongs surrounding a central metal docking connector, all located along a large, sturdy central piece which spans the width of the base between the hinges. The procedure to connect and disconnect the tablet is unnecessarily challenging at times, however, thanks to the lack of any sort of supplementary guides or magnets along the bottom of the tablet and a rather rudimentary ejection mechanism that requires the user to yank the tablet off the base to separate them (ideally using two hands). Finally, the hinges fail to dispel the vibrations associated with tapping and typing, which results in a wobbly screen with irritating reflections throughout.

On the subject of maintenance, the Toshiba Click 2 isn’t meant to be serviced by the end user, but it’s possible with a bit of care and some fingernails. On the other hand, there’s not a whole lot that you can do once you’re in there anyway: just a hard drive (7 mm height) and a battery that are relatively easy to replace.

Keyboard

The Click 2’s Chiclet keyboard also left us thoroughly unimpressed. With hardly any travel whatsoever, it’s difficult to discern whether you’ve even depressed a key—even given the good actuation force it requires to operate. The smaller keys, such as the arrow keys and the function/ESC/DEL row, are hampered by a mushy stop that feels inconsistent with that of the primary keys and makes them even harder to operate by touch. The spacing and organization is familiar to that of other Toshiba keyboards, and with practice, users can adjust to it. Overall, however, the entire affair feels like a serious low-budget afterthought.

Touchpad

Thankfully, the touchpad is better. It’s a Synaptics model, and though we’ve yet to prefer integrated buttons to separate physical ones, these are inoffensive and relatively easy to adjust to. Two-finger scrolling works without problems as well, and the surface of the pad is comfortable with a slightly rough texture that promotes easy finger gliding. The full array of typical other Synaptics options are available in the driver as well, ranging from pinch to zoom to three- and four-finger gestures. Our only complaint is that movement seems subject to an ever-so-slight delay of perhaps 50 ms that is imperceptible on the best touchpads.

Touchscreen

The Click 2’s capacitive touchscreen supports 10 finger input simultaneously. We encountered no problems with it throughout our testing period and, as usual, found that it registered input from all fingers accurately and quickly.

Speaking of which, the Click 2’s storage device is a Hitachi Z5K500 conventional mechanical hard drive (7 mm height)—a cheap solution to facilitate greater storage capacity for sure, but also a costly one in the way of performance. This is far from the fastest hard drive on the market, and furthermore, its inclusion in a tablet means that—in spite of efforts to detect sudden drops and bumps by way of an accelerometer—it’s far more prone to reliability issues. Considering the abundance of increasingly cheaper solid-state storage solutions available today, it’s unlucky that we’re forced to deal with such a handicap in an otherwise relatively capably-equipped tablet.

The effects are undeniable; PCMark 8 reports a Storage score of only 1688, whereas HD Tune recorded a Transfer Rate Average of just 77.4 MB/s. Even the Dell Venue 11 Pro’s slow eMMC solution manages 104.3 MB/s in this same metric, and as usual, the Click 2’s CrystalDiskMark 3.0 4K QD32 read/write speeds of 0.317 and 0.7 MB/s respectively are a distant cry from the Venue 11 Pro’s 29.58 and 13.6 MB/s. This is why the device feels so slow; even when its CPU can keep up with the task at hand, the hard drive is among the slowest of those available in any mainstream unit today.

For what it’s worth, although it’s a little bit tricky for those not familiar with computer repair and upgrades, exchanging this drive for a 2.5-inch solid-state drive is entirely possible. Doing so should vastly improve the overall performance of the Click 2.

Although the device does warm up notably under load, the Click 2’s aluminum rear casing does a good job of spreading and dispersing the heat, resulting in an overall high temperature just 45.4 °C in the center top of the screen of the tablet and averages of just 37 °C and 34 °C on top and bottom, respectively.

While idle, the machine keeps its cool, at just 34 °C / 33 °C (average top/bottom). The hottest point under these conditions is beneath the touchpad, which reached a slightly warm 36.2 °C during our testing.

For our stress testing, we utilize Prime95 (for CPU stress) and FurMark (for GPU stress). We rarely expect low-power devices like the Toshiba Click 2 to excel in these trials, but it is nonetheless helpful to gauge their level of tolerance to heavy workloads to obtain an idea of how versatile the device really is.

During our full CPU stress test, the Click 2 first managed full burst frequencies (2.58 GHz) across all cores before eventually toggling back and forth between its base frequency (2.16 GHz) and burst frequency for the duration of the test. This toggling began around ten minutes into the stress period.

As for GPU stress, the Click 2 first manages to maintain full burst frequencies of 860 MHz consistently, before eventually (after around that same period of time) toggling between 620 MHz and 860 MHz. Temperatures at this point are around the 70 °C mark.

Lastly, full system stress (CPU and GPU) quickly brings the system to its knees, though the initial performance is respectable for a tablet. Although GPU clock rates appear to remain steady at above the 620 MHz mark, the CPU in return throttles all the way down to the 500 MHz mark before stair-stepping its way back up to 1.8 GHz. The system remains in a permanent throttle state with CPU clock rates below 2.0 GHz at all times. This is hardly surprising given the fanless design of the tablet.

The Click 2’s speakers are loud enough, but the shape of their sound is heavily weighted toward the higher frequencies, crushing the lows into an often unintelligible mass of midrange approximations. Realtek provides equalization functionality with lots of presets in their driver software, but none of it rescues the sound to the point where it’s consistently pleasant. The problem is exacerbated by the positioning of the speakers: they’re located on the back of the tablet lid at the crest of the curved outer portion of the sides. This works fine when the tablet is resting on a flat surface, which helps to reproject the sound back toward the user. But when the tablet is being held, or when it’s docked on the keyboard base, the speakers are either at risk of being covered or firing directly away from the user. It’s a strange design.

Everyone wants on the detachable convertible/multi-mode bandwagon, and Toshiba hopes that their revised Click 2 series will earn them a spot. Sure, it’s attractive, functional, and quiet—not to mention relatively cool under load. The screen’s also relatively bright with good contrast and reasonable color accuracy for a budget machine—albeit still flat in appearance thanks to narrow coverage of the sRGB gamut.

But sadly, that’s where the positives end. After spending some time with the device, its inadequacies swiftly overshadow its strengths. To start with, although over six hours of battery life in general use is acceptable in a practical sense, it’s comparatively subpar when viewed alongside most competitors’ offerings. This is in spite of a weak application performance showing primarily thanks to a very slow 5400 RPM mechanical hard drive—an odd choice for a tablet to be sure. The device struggles to be appealing even under basic use thanks to a poor keyboard which feels like a cheap afterthought—not to mention the cumbersome docking routine and bouncy hinges. Topping it all off, it’s just plain big and bulky compared to modern tablets and ultraportables, packing a total weight which is 30–50% more than nearly every close competitor.

This laundry list of negatives might still be partially forgivable if the price was right—but even taking into account the $70 discount off MSRP that is currently being offered, the cost is still $629—hardly cheap by today’s standards, though everything about the Click 2 screams budget PC. By contrast, for a couple hundred bucks more, you can pick up a Dell XPS 12, and a couple hundred bucks more than that will score you a Microsoft Surface Pro 3—both of which are excellent options depending on your intended use. For a passively-cooled alternative, the Venue 11 Pro is also only marginally more expensive, and yet it features far better battery life, superior design, and a more manageable weight. Put another way, while they’re pricier, none of those options carries the massive compromises that define the Click 2.

If the cost is just too much, you’re simply probably better off stepping down to a conventional touchscreen notebook (if touch is a requirement), or—perhaps better yet—springing for a traditional budget PC without touch, a category where the prices are low and the options are endless. Money can’t buy you happiness, but in the category of convertible PCs, you just won’t find a great option without a good bit of it.