High-end 'larger laptop' lines up against the ultrabooks
The laptop landscape is dominated by sleek Ultrabooks, but we're
pleased to see machines such as the Toshiba Satellite P70-A-109 emerge -
it's a larger laptop that has more versatility and power than any
ultraportable notebook can hope to match.
It's built around a
high-end Haswell processor, and the rest of the specification is
suitably impressive: a discrete Nvidia graphics core, two hard disks,
16GB of RAM and a Blu-ray writer. The 17-inch screen has a Full HD
resolution, too.
The £1,199 Toshiba Satellite P70 needs to impress, though, because it's up against some heavyweight competition. The Samsung Series 7 Chronos
- now known in some circles as the Ativ Book 8 - includes a powerful
processor and a superb 15.6-inch screen in a sleek chassis, and the HP Spectre XT TouchSmart arrives with a swish all-aluminium build.
Scores
The 15.6-inch Asus Zenbook U500
mixes power with the reassuringly expensive stylings only found in
Ultrabooks, and the final contender comes from Gigabyte. Its chunky P2742G has plenty of power, a 17-inch display, and reasonable battery life.
The
Toshiba doesn't get off to a great start. Brushed aluminium is used for
the base and the lid, and it looks good, but much of this machine is
made from plastic - something that similarly priced rivals such as the
Samsung and HP machines manage to avoid.
We don't like the look
of the visible seals around the edges, either - it looks cheap in an age
where unibody laptops are becoming more popular.
Build quality is
only average, too - we pressed the base and the wrist-rest and there
was a little too much flex for our liking. It's not as if the Satellite
P70 is a lightweight laptop, either: its 34.1mm girth and 3kg weight
make it bulkier than the 2.5kg Series 7 Chronos and the 2.25kg Spectre
XT TouchSmart, and it's not far off the 3.2kg P2742G.
So
it's not good-looking or light - but the Toshiba makes up for this with
practical additions elsewhere. The keyboard has a firm base and a
snappy, fast typing action, and the sheer size of this machine means
there's room for a full-size number pad and no dodgy layout options - so
you get large Return and Space keys.
The Satellite P70 allows
for more internal access than we're used to seeing from more stylish
unibody machines. A single large panel can be lifted away from the base,
and it grants access to two RAM slots, the pair of hard disk bays and
the wireless card.
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