Toshiba Satellite P755D: Nearing the End of the Road for Llano
by Dustin Sklavos on April 11, 2012 12:00 AM ESTConclusion: It Depends on Who Needs It
The Toshiba Satellite P755D is, first and foremost, a notebook for the budget consumer market. It's not necessarily meant to be a particularly exciting piece of hardware; it's meant to fill a niche, offer value to specific end users, and basically to just be an inexpensive computer that can handle most tasks and watch a movie once in a while. Taken on those terms, the P755D is successful.
It's pretty clear that Toshiba made a series of tradeoffs to get the Blu-ray drive into a notebook at as low a price point as possible, and a visit to NewEgg will see that they were mostly successful in that respect. The only notebook NewEgg offers that isn't a refurbished model and is less expensive than the P755D is a strikingly similar Gateway unit, but you sacrifice hard drive capacity, USB 3.0 connectivity, Bluetooth, and carrying weight in the process. If you're in the market for a notebook with Blu-ray, that's something you'll have to weigh on your own.
Of course, if Blu-ray doesn't matter to you, the P755D doesn't belong on your short list. You can find better performing notebooks from other vendors or even Toshiba themselves at a similar price. Screen quality is going to continue to be an issue (same as it ever was) no matter where you look, but Acer and even Lenovo are currently willing to sell you a faster processor coupled with Optimus-enabled NVIDIA graphics for around the same price, resulting in a notebook that's going to beat the P755D at every metric except gaming on the battery.
Ultimately, though, I think we can all agree that the next generation of hardware can't come soon enough. A little birdie told me Toshiba's Fusion X2 is on its way out and due to be replaced by a much nicer fit and finish, alleviating one of my biggest grievances with Toshiba's notebooks. Llano is a fine chip, but it needs just a little more pep, and if AMD's predictions for where Trinity's performance is going to line up come to pass (and it appears they will), then Llano is going to look like the rough draft for the chip we were all really waiting for.
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jrocks84 - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I was hoping you would consider including testing of the wifi speed in future laptop reviews.jjrudey - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I have the Intel version with i7 2670QM. Pretty sure it's that. But anyway. They're really great for someone who doesn't want to spend over $1000.Bull Dog - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I appreciate your rant about DRM on Batman AA. As a paying consumer, It really sucks when the pirated product is better than the legit one.teiglin - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
Always makes me think of one of my favorite comics: http://xkcd.com/488/Of course, Randall doesn't include the path the vendors hope you'll take: instead of attempting to recovery your DRM-locked files, they hope you'll simply buy the stuff again. I mean, why expect to be able to use your legitimately-purchased products indefinitely? Obviously you should be paying for the same thing every few years.
When I was a kid, I read 20- or 25-year-old copies of Dune and even older copies of The Hobbit and the trilogy. If Amazon's DRM weren't so easy to strip, I'd never buy anything electronically from them, because as much as I love my Kindle, I can't really see passing the exact device down to my son the way my parents introduced me to their old books.
duploxxx - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
toshiba satellite garbage, yet another example why you shouldn't be buying these entry level OEM HW platforms. Selling material is all they care about, not optimizing or finetuning anything at all. in the long run this is negative impression towards Toshiba users and as already mentioned in the review, typical on AMD system as if they don't care....cknobman - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
Exactly. Most of what toshiba pushes nowadays (especially the satellite series) is garbage exceeding the level of crapiness that even Dell stoops too on its budget consumer grade products.Scannall - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I've had an entry level Toshiba for several years now, with the AMD P320 + 4250. And it has been a solid and reliable computer. With the switch to Trinity soon, maybe after those are out these will be at fire sale prices on their Toshiba Direct site on eBay. Might be time for an upgrade.lazymangaka - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I would've loved to see what a decent overclock would've done for performance. K10STAT for the win, my friends.frozentundra123456 - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I really dont see the point of blu ray on such a low end product with a lousy screen. I am sure the only way to use the blu ray capabillity would be to put it out to a big screen TV. I guess you can do that, but if I had a good entertainment system like that, I would have either an HTPC or a dedicated blu ray player.Also, I would have been interested in seeing results with the memory upgraded to faster dual channel mode, and/or overclocking as some else already mentioned.
Overall, to me who is not really interested in blu ray, too expensive for what you get.
frozentundra123456 - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
Also, I agree with the article that Llano is close, but still not quite there overall. Worse CPU performance than intel, and still very borderline for gaming with modern titles.If trinity lives up to the claims made for it, it might offer gaming that is good enough for decent resolutions and quality settings.