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Toshiba's Satellite M500 (PSMKCA-009007) isn't a run-of-the-mill 14in notebook. It straddles the line between business notebook and home entertainment machine, offering plenty of features for everyone -- but it could be better. It's a little on the heavy side, its touchpad is poor and its battery life is short. On the plus side, it has good speed and pretty much every type of feature you would want to have built into a notebook of this type.
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 03/02/2010
Rating: Total score: 70%

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NVIDIA GeForce G210M: The GeForce G210M is the successor of the G110M and also possesses 16 shader cores. Because of the 40nm process, the chip is clocked much higher but is still staying in the same power envelope.

Only some 3D games with very low demands are playable with these 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.

T6600: Entry level Core 2 Duo dual core processor with a small 2MB level 2 cache and without virtualization functions.» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.

14.00":

There are hardly any tablets in this display size range anymore. For subnotebooks, on the other hand, it is the standard format.

The advantage of subnotebooks is that the entire laptop can be small and therefore easily portable. The smaller display also has the advantage of requiring less power, which further improves battery life and thus mobility. The disadvantage is that reading texts is more strenuous on the eyes. High resolutions are more likely to be found in standard laptops.

» To find out how fine a display is, see our DPI List.

Toshiba: Toshiba Corporation is a Japanese conglomerate or technology group. The company was established in 1939 and in 1978 Toshiba became the official company name. The company's products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors, hard drives, printers, batteries, lighting, logistics and information technology. Toshiba was one of the largest manufacturers of personal computers, consumer electronics, home appliances and medical equipment.

70%: This rating is poor. More than three quarters of the models are rated better. That is rather not a purchase recommendation. Even if verbal ratings in this area do not sound that bad ("sufficient" or "satisfactory"), they are usually euphemisms that disguise a classification as a below-average laptop.

» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.

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