Toshiba Satellite L645D: Mobile AMD at 3GHz

At Least 720p Makes Sense Here

More and more on 15.6" notebooks, the 720p resolution feels almost idiotically low. The LCD industry must be thankful Windows XP isn't in heavy rotation anymore: between the look of Luna and the gigantic taskbar on a 15.6", 720p screen, every notebook would feel like it was shipped from Fisher Price's laptop division. At least on the L645D's 14" screen, 720p makes more sense. Keep in mind that this notebook retails for $619 when you look at our test results, though. You get what you pay for; asking for DreamColor at that price is dreaming at best—foolhardy at worst.

The L645D's display isn't great but it's not completely awful either, offering decent brightness and color gamut. What is troubling is a trend I'm noticing on more and more of these budget systems: the screen lattice and poor dithering on these cheap 720p TN panels seems to be getting more and more apparent, and it's a problem not easily captured in photos. It was most egregious on Gateway's ID49C (still our champion worst notebook screen), but has been present on both this notebook and the Sony EE34.

Viewing angles aren't great either, with massive washout at low angles and some trouble finding the "sweet spot." That problem has historically been extremely common in 14" notebooks, though, to the point where you might as well ask for a GeForce GTX 485M for how often you find a large sweet spot in this form factor.