Toshiba is to the computing world what Toyota is to the car industry - it produces a range of machines that might not be the most racy examples of their kind, but are always solid and dependable.

The Satellite Pro L500 1D6 very much fits into this mould. It’s a large laptop, weighing in at a considerable 2.72kg and it seems solidly built – but its styling is unsubtle compared to other machines you might find for the money. The main chassis has a rather chunky look to it, and the glossy finish of the plastic with silver stripes is uninspiring.

Equally, the bezel around the display, containing a webcam, is large, and the rubber pads round the edges are practical but it doesn’t add up to sleek looks.

For example, a similar amount will garner you an Apple MacBook, which undoubtedly is a more, desirable laptop computer, but as ever in the world of Windows, what you lose in style you gain in other areas, specifically screen size and processor power.

The L500 1D6 sports an Intel Core 2 Duo P8700, a 25W TDP Penryn based chip that speeds along at 2.53GHz and equipped with 3MB of level 2 cache and it runs on a 1,066MHz front-side bus. Sure enough, the benchmark score of 1.25 indicates that for a laptop, this is a fast machine. That said, we’re starting to see laptops fitted with mobile versions of Intel’s new Core i3 and Core i5 mobile processors and, inevitably, before too long this Core2Duo will seem long in the tooth.

Perhaps more impressive though is the graphics chip – an ATI Radeon HD4600, which propels the 2D graphics score to a high of 1.40. This highlights the laptops strength for video playback and video editing or even a spot of light after hours gaming.

Processor and graphics are supported by 4GB of 800MHz DDR2 memory, which is good but for reasons it knows best, Toshiba has only seen fit to supply 32-bit Windows 7 on this professional range laptop, so only 2.96GHz can be addressed by the operating system.

We also have other reservations. While the 15.6in display is a good size, the 1,366 x 768 resolution seems limiting - even for standard web browsing it’s going to feel a little cramped.

While under our tough display tests the LCD struggled to reproduce highlights and black level detail in practice DVDs still looked smooth and impressive – but only if you’re seated straight on, as viewing angles were poor. However, in terms of everyday readability for business applications it can’t be faulted, being bright and clear.

Leaving aside the resolution issue, the L500 makes for a very effective work machine. The chassis size has been put to good use and the keyboard is effectively full size so there are no oddly shrunk keys – Backspace, Enter and the right Shift are all as they should be and you'll also find arrow keys underneath this. What’s more, there’s plenty of room for a full number pad on the right, which is unusual on a laptop. The only negative is that we often struck Ins, instead of Delete, which can cause issues with disa...

Author: Benny Har-Even

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