Toshiba Satellite P845T-S4310 Review

Introduction & Design
Price determines everything. Toshiba's Web site lists the MSRP of the Satellite P845T-S4310 as $909, at which price it's competitive with, well, nothing. Best Buy, however, offers the 14-inch touch-screen laptop for a considerably more tempting $749, and sometimes puts it on sale for still less. Acer Aspire 5100 battery That makes the P845T-S4310 a valid rival to the likes of Asus' VivoBook S400CA$639.99 at Rakuten, although we still have our doubts: Toshiba's site also describes the Satellite P series as the company's "premium performance" line, while the only truly premium features we could find on the system were its speakers.

That's not saying the Satellite's a dog by any means. Its Harmon Kardon speakers are accompanied by handsome aluminum styling and a long-lasting battery. But its performance is decidedly average, no better than that of 14-inch ultrabooks (which sport the same adequate-for-mainstream-use Intel Core i5 CPU and integrated graphics). And it's noticeably more hefty than those machines, though CD and DVD diehards will appreciate that it has the onboard optical drive that most ultrabooks lack. Sony VGP-BPS13/S

Still, we can't help wishing that Toshiba had taken advantage of the decision to use a laptop rather than ultrabook chassis to put a little more horsepower under the hood. As is, shoppers who don't have their hearts set on an optical drive may want to consider not only the VivoBook S400CA but touch-screen ultrabooks such as the HP Envy TouchSmart 4t-1100$824.99 at HP Direct—or, if willing to step down from a 14- to a 13.3-inch display, the Sony VAIO T Series 13. (Toshiba's own contender in the touch-screen ultrabook space, the Satellite U925T, is still smaller-screened at 12.5 inches, plus more expensive.) Dell Inspiron 1564 battery

Design
The Satellite P845T-S4310 measures 13.6 inches wide by 9.1 inches deep and runs from 1 inch thick along its front edge to 1.3 inches thick at its rear. At 4.8 pounds, it's a pound or more heavier than 14-inch ultrabooks. There was a time where a nearly 5-pound, 14-inch laptop was perfectly acceptable, and it's certainly still quite portable, but why carry an extra pound with you when you don't have to?

Relative portliness aside, the Satellite is fairly sharp-looking, with a textured, silver-finished aluminum body that feels sturdy and repels fingerprints. The screen glass runs edge to edge for an attractive, seamless look. Touches of chrome and black, such as around the touch pad and on the speaker grilles above the keyboard, add class. ASUS Eee PC 1008HA-PU1X-Pi Battery Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 064746U battery

Features
The display itself features LED backlighting for a bright image, today's lowest-common-denominator 1,366x768 resolution, and 10-point multi-touch support. Photos and videos looked crisp and vivid in our time with the laptop, and the touch screen felt quick and responsive. An HD Webcam sits above the display.

Not every Windows 8 laptop or ultrabook features a touch-screen display as you get with the Satellite P845T, and this feature is appreciated in particular here because the other two input devices—keyboard and touch pad—leave something to be desired. The keyboard features generously spaced keys, but no backlighting, and the keys feature a glossy coating that doesn't offer the best feel. Sony VGP-BPS13A/Q

As for the touch pad, it's also generously proportioned, but the integrated mouse buttons are more trouble than they're worth; you'll need to train yourself to keep your thumb from resting on the bottom edge of the pad while your fingers go about their mousing business. In our tests, the touch pad repeatedly misread a haphazard thumb and swiping finger as a multi-touch gesture. What's so wrong with having dedicated mouse buttons that are separate from the touch pad? Sony VGP-BPS13/Q battery

We don't have any complaints about the Satellite P845T-S4310's audio output. Two Harman Kardon speakers sit above the keyboard and emit excellent, powerful audio. Volume reaches impressive levels when turned all the way up, and the sound remains clear and dynamic. It's some of the best audio we've heard from a laptop. The Toshiba is one of the few laptops capable of acceptable music playback (provided you're located in a small room), in addition to more than capably handling movie dialogue and effects. ASUS ZenBook UX31A battery

You won't find any surprises among the system's ports and connections. There are three USB 3.0 ports in all, two on the left side and one on the right. The two on the left support Toshiba's Sleep-and-Charge feature, which lets you recharge USB devices even when the laptop is shut down. Also on the left edge are an Ethernet port and a slot-loading DVD burner.

On the right edge, you'll find HDMI and VGA ports and headphone and microphone jacks. Lenovo L10S6Y01 Hiding on the front edge is a media-card slot. Wireless technologies comprise Wi-Fi, of course, but also Intel Wireless Display (WiDi), which lets you stream video and audio from the laptop to an HDTV set or larger monitor with the aid of a $100 Netgear adapter.

One last note on the ports and connections: the power cord plugs into the right side and is plagued by a long and awkward adapter. The rigid adapter that plugs into the laptop sticks out a good two inches, which is similar to the nuisance we noticed with the HP Envy TouchSmart 4t-1100. Unlike the HP in question, the Satellite's plug fits snugly into the laptop. Still, the awkward adapter could spell trouble in tight or crowded working conditions. An L-shaped connector would be more space-efficient. Dell Latitude E4200 battery

Performance & Conclusion
Following a trend we are seeing with Windows 8, the Satellite P845T-S4310 comes with more than its share of bloatware, likely in an effort to populate the Windows 8 Start screen with a matrix of colorful tiles. Right out of the box, you'll find tiles for Amazon, eBay, iCookbook, iHeart Radio, Netflix, and WildTangent games.

The system's specs, too, follow a recent trend: Like the abovementioned Asus and HP, as well as the Vizio CT14-A4$849.00 at Microsoft Store and CyberPower Zeus-M we chose to round out our benchmark charts, the Satellite relies on a 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U processor and Intel HD Graphics 4000 integrated graphics. ASUS N51V Battery Toshiba rounds out the core specs with 6GB of memory and a 750GB hard drive.

With the same CPU across the board, the laptops posted basically identical scores in our Cinebench processor-crunching benchmark (not charted here). But we saw a variety of results in PCMark 7, a synthetic benchmark that measures a system's overall performance. We hoped here that the Satellite P845T-S4310's extra RAM (6GB rather than 4GB) would give it a boost, but the system finished last while the laptops with solid-state drives ran away with the contest: Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 064746U battery

The Toshiba managed a more competitive finish in our Handbrake video encoding test, which converts a five-minute 1080p clip to smartphone format—it more or less tied for the win with three other contenders, while the Asus VivoBook was an outlier in last place:
And the Toshiba and Vizio were the class of the field in our Adobe Photoshop CS6 test, which applies a series of complex filters and effects to a large JPEG image:

Graphics & Gaming Tests
The Satellite posted a narrow victory in 3DMark 11, a synthetic measurement of overall graphics performance, though all of the scores were in the casual gaming zone rather than the hardcore or demanding titles zone: Samsung AA-PL2NC9B Adapter/charger for Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 064746U

Neither it nor any of its competitors could come close to the 30 frames per second threshold for smooth gameplay in our Heaven 3.0 (not charted here) or Aliens vs. Predator gaming simulations:

Battery Life & Conclusion
The Toshiba finished on a high note in our battery rundown test. It played back our video test file for almost five and a half hours, placing second only to the HP Envy TouchSmart ultrabook:
Overall, other than its weight and perhaps the touchy touch pad, there are no deal-breakers with the Satellite P845T-S4310. On the flip side, apart from its excellent audio and respectable battery life, there are no must-haves here, either. Asus X72F Battery

Call the S4310 what it is: an affordable mainstream laptop for users who want both a touch screen for Windows 8 and an optical drive for CD and DVD enjoyment. We believe they're outnumbered by users who'd rather forfeit the optical drive and save a pound, but they'll come to appreciate the Harmon Kardon speakers in short order.