Toshiba’s Satellite laptop line, the U505-S2940 also has some excellent design features that will please. Toshiba Satellite U505-S2940 offers just enough sap for multitasking without feeling cramped. On the other hand, at 5.6 pounds, it’s a bit heavier than other notebooks with a 13.3-inch screen.
The glossy screen can make for tricky viewing in some lighting conditions, but the machine’s powerful brightness, contrast, and color controls offset such issues. Overall, it’s a good-looking and easy-to-read screen at its resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels. The color settings were excellent to begin with, but with a few necessary adjustments, videophiles can get the right color balance. For external video output, the U505 has both a VGA port and an HDMI video-audio output for hi-def graphics.
The darker side is U505’s design. It’s the 8500-mAh lithium ion battery juts out from the bottom of the chassis and adds awkward bulk. It does, however, tilt the keyboard and screen toward you when using the laptop on a table or desk, and the space provides a good deal of ventilation. It’s a tradeoff, but if you want a slim laptop that packs neatly in a cramped briefcase, you might want to pass on this model. The brighter side, you get stellar battery life: the U505 ran for at least 6 hours.
While you’ll have plenty of time before running out of battery power, raw computing power is another matter. Sporting a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 processor backed by 4GB of 800MHz DDR2 memory, the U505 managed a Worldbench 6 score of only 80, falling below the category average of 86. And don’t expect to play the latest action games:The Intel GM45 video chipset uses main system memory, so you’ll get pokey performance at best with 3D applications. Even so, the U505 has more than enough power to do what it’s designed for. You’ll have no problems with general office computing, movies, music, and light video editing.
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