Toshiba Satellite L645D: Mobile AMD at 3GHz
by Dustin Sklavos on March 9, 2011 3:20 AM ESTConclusion: But it's $619
Reviewing the Toshiba L645D-S4106 has left me with decidedly mixed feelings. Cheap Arrandale-based notebooks are going to provide better processor performance than even AMD's fastest in the L645D, and they'll offer better battery life in the process. Likewise, I really wish Toshiba would just put glossy plastic out to pasture. I've griped about this before but it bears repeating: glossy plastic photographs reasonably well and that's about it, and using it on the keyboard is a horrendous idea.
But...the L645D is $619.
Taken in a vacuum the L645D might be underwhelming, but thankfully for Toshiba (and possibly you and Joe Sixpack), it's not in a vacuum. Toshiba attacks the budget market fairly aggressively, and the value proposition of this notebook is certainly strong. The processor may be competing with some of Arrandale's slowest, but Arrandale's architecture is really quite fast so there isn't much to complain about there. Toshiba may be shipping it with a slow hard drive, but that drive still packs 640GB of capacity. The Mobility Radeon HD 4250 may be on its last legs, but it still gets the job done in a pinch (and at very low settings). And hey, you get a Blu-ray drive standard and an HDMI output to use it with.
A quick visit to NewEgg proves that if you want the 14" form factor, you're going to have to spend a little more to get it. There aren't any cheaper 14" notebooks with the Blu-ray drive, and there are maybe one or two available that promise better CPU performance than the L645D does. If you're buying on a budget you need to accept that you'll have to make some trade-offs. In the case of the L645D, that means putting up with Toshiba's glossy finish (really only an authentic nuisance on the keyboard) and middling battery life in exchange for a decent processor, a Blu-ray drive, and mobility. For the college student strapped for cash the L645D may not be such a bad call, but because it's a budget notebook you're really going to have to decide what's important to you.
Under the circumstances we'd suggest taking the L645D (or a similarly built Toshiba notebook) for a test drive in retail before taking the plunge. The entire L640 line looks like it offers tremendous bang for the buck, with this one being king of the castle. It's tough to recommend any budget notebook because of all the trade-offs that are always involved, but if you need something portable and don't have a lot to spend the L645D is a good option. If you're in the above situation, though, losing Blu-ray and saving another $100 is probably an even better idea.
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kmmatney - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - link
Agreed. I have 4-year old 1930 x 1200 Dell, and had a look at a possible replacement. I couldn't find anything at Dell with more than 1080 pixels, and even that was hard to find and cost a lot. I have to give Apple credit for still using 1920 x 1200 resolution in their laptops. 1366 x 766 is total crap - especially with the extra vertical bloat in Windows 7.KiwiTT - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - link
and on the 768 height, once you add the toolbars etc. You may only have half the screen left.Don't manufacturers do real user usability testing? If they did, they'd soon come to light that 768 is abysmally small.
bhima - Wednesday, March 9, 2011 - link
Your colorful language throughout the article made it a blast to read. Kudos Dustin!Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Thanks, much appreciated. :)helboy - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
"It seems like manufacturers almost deliberately cripple AMD-based notebooks."Had been my doubt also for the past one year or so!! Almost all the notebooks that carry the "not enough battery life" label after reviews,the battery provided will be of inferior capacity.AND the reviewers mostly ignore this fact when highlighting poor backup.I wonder whether winning the anti-trust case is helping AMD much in the marketing war.
cdeeter - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
+1 Yeah what's the deal with giving AMD systems smaller batteries? They are using the same chassis so use the same battery!silverblue - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I can just imagine Intel realising they can't use one method to push AMD out of the market and then deciding to use another, albeit more subtle method. :P After all, battery life is king for a lot of people, so you need to prove those claims of long running times...And anyway, on an unrelated note, isn't it about time AMD got a stupid jingle for people to associate their products with? Everyone knows the Intel jingle.
jackylman - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
I picked up my new baby at a liquidation sale for the same price. It has the same CPU/GPU combo, but a 15.6" screen, webcam, gigabit LAN. On the downside, the hard disk is smaller (500GB) and no Blu-ray, but I'd rather have a bigger screen and a webcam.fumigator - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - link
Despite all the criticism, I like this laptop. Thanks for the great review.Only thing I would like to say is that I miss somehow the lack of nvidia chipsets on laptops.
I've owned an MSI VR630 that came with a geforce 9100 IGP and Turion X2 RM70 and I miss it all day. It was simply superb.
Later on the ATI 3200s and 4200s IGP started to pop up like maries and somewhat the 9100 started to look old. But even those MSI that came with Nforce 8200 and intel Core solutions were far better than any HD4500 based notebook. Lets say, MSI CR400, CR500, CR600 all came with Nforce 8200 and Intel something (Celeron dual core / Pentium dual core / Core 2 Duo etc, depending on submodel) Now they are all discontinued and nobody did serious reviews on them.
Moreover, i own an AM2+ motherboard with the Nforce chipset 8200 IGP as well, and I can't complain.
swaaye - Monday, March 14, 2011 - link
My mom wanted a notebook with a Bluray drive because she travels a lot for work and lives in a hotel for days at a time. So it's her mobile media center. I found a $600 Sony with a 2.0 GHz Core 2, 4GB and GMA 4500 something like 18 months ago.This Toshiba seems like the latest edition of that kind of thing. For what these are used for the performance might not even be tangibly different.