Toshiba Satellite U845: Ultrabooks Go Mainstream
by Vivek Gowri on October 8, 2012 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Intel
- Toshiba
- Ivy Bridge
- Ultrabook
Battery life is decent but by no means stellar given the rest of the Ultrabook class. The battery is a 54Wh 6-cell Li-ion (not lithium polymer, it should be noted) pack of the sealed-in, non-removable variety. Our battery life testing showed a hair over six hours in the internet benchmark and an idle life of close to eight hours. You can reliably expect at least 5.5-6 hours of runtime in light usage scenarios, about average for 14” Ultrabooks but well behind class leading 13”ers like the old Zenbook UX31E.
As I go through more Ultrabooks, I’m finding that the larger 14” and 15” models are not nearly as power efficient as the 13” Ultrabooks, so you find many more data points in the 4.5-6 hour range than in the 7-9 hour range that most of the 13”ers fall in. It makes sense, given the larger and more power-hungry display panels (which easily account for 30-40% of power consumption in our web-browsing test), but unfortunately, manufacturers aren’t putting in larger batteries to compensate. The U845’s battery is a meager 4Wh larger than the 13” Zenbook and Zenbook Prime. Also not helping here? The list of Toshiba services that drain even more power should you not disable or uninstall them first (I uninstalled Norton and ran the battery test with all unnecessary and easily killable processes disabled).
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Bull Dog - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
While I understand where some of the other commenters are coming from with regards to seeing a 1366x768 display and not bothering to read further, I am disappointed by the apparent lack of appreciation for Vivek's hard work in actually reviewing the product.I too, abhor low-rez, low-quality panels as much as the next guy. These low quality LCD screens need to die, three years ago. And this notebook in particular is even worse than "normal'.
That all being said, I still enjoy reading through the review in it's entirety. My thanks to all the hard work that the Anandtech crew does to make these reviews happen.
KaarlisK - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
Basically, the idea is to replace the mSATA SSD with a 128/256gb SSD, disable SRT, and use it as a laptop with two drives. Is this possible (does the bios/Intel RST driver allow this option?)?nbgambler - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
I second this... This, and a reasonably priced mSATA drive, would go a long way to un-mass market a lot of these laptops!StrangerGuy - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
We need to slap designers repeatedly in the face until they get the message of:NOBODY WANTS GLOSSY SURFACES OTHER THAN THE SCREEN...GET IT?
hybrid2d4x4 - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
That should say "NOBODY WANTS GLOSSY SURFACES." (emphasis on the period)Belard - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
Only the power light can be glossy.Calista - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
You guys seem to have such short memory, it was only a few years ago that glossy plastic was all the rage while dull matte plastics was considered low-end. And yes, I'm sure you bought those products as well, support the very same design you now moan at.Hrel - Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - link
I agree with others. The whole idea of the "ultrabook" brand is to guarantee consumes a higher level of quality and refinement than most are used to; ie those cheap 300-500 dollar notebooks. Intel places requirements on ultrabooks, to use that brand, I cannot fathom why one of those requirements isn't AT LEAST a 1600x900 screen with a brightness of AT LEAST 300cd/2 and a contrast of at least 300:1, preferably 500:1.I don't really want to pay for an SSD. But use a Seagate Hybride 500GB or 750GB drive. They'll probably have a hybrid 1TB 2.5" drive out soon too. I have the 500GB one in my gaming laptop right now. Let me tell you, the difference between loading levels on my desktop (RAID 0) and on my laptop is night and day. I don't even want to play Mass Effect on my desktop anymore because the load times are literally 10 times longer. At the same time I couldn't possibly get by with anything below 500GB; even that is kind of a pain to have to manage. So having only an SSD in anything is out of the question, because 512GB SSD's are just too expensive.
nbgambler - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
By no means blazing fast write speeds, but for the gamers among us, a sub $300 512GB SSD ($0.58 per GB) solves most storage problems I can think of!http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-Technology-2-5-Inch-Max-...
Belard - Wednesday, October 10, 2012 - link
OUCH!! $300.... we are getting there. But honestly, a hybrid setup still works pretty good. $150 80~160GB SSD + $100 1 or 2 TB HD.Yeah, the point of the "ultrabook" is a level of quality and specs... which this thing is not.
There is a reason Apple is selling a lot of $1000~2500 notebooks... as much as I hate Apple, their hardware is consistent.
Toshiba Satellite U845
Zenbook UX31E.
ACER M3-581TG... Notice something about these? The NAMES!
What the hell is a M3-581TG or UX31 or U845? "OMG!! I got the M3-581TG, I've been dreaming about this notebook for weeks" - doesn't happen. Who really knows those names?
Go to Apple: MacBook Air (11 or 13") , MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac, etc.
How about ThinkPad? They at least keep the model names for years. T400~T430...