Toshiba Satellite L645D-S4036

Sometimes you just need a basic laptop that won't hurt your wallet or your back. Toshiba's Satellite L645D-S4036 ($550 as of August 16, 2010) strives to fulfill that role. But while all low-cost laptops make some compromises, the L645D sacrifices some usability to achieve its target price.

After living with a number of different Toshiba laptops over the past few months, I was struck by how bare-bones and utilitarian a notebook the L645D-S4036 is. This Satellite lacks even basic media transport controls, any form of digital video output, and a fingerprint reader.

On the other hand, Toshiba does come with a Webcam and an integrated microphone, so you'll be able to make VoIP calls. Also present are three USB ports--two on the left, and one on the right--though one of these is a dual-purpose USB/eSATA port. A five-in-one memory card reader is built into the front of the unit, and a gigabit ethernet port appears on the left side.

The biggest weaknesses of this budget laptop are related to audio and video playback quality. The speakers sound terrible, though some of Toshiba's more ambitious units offer some of the best-sounding audio I've ever heard on a laptop. Meanwhile, headphone audio sounded as though it were being played inside a barrel, even when when I listened to it through high-quality headphones.

Video playback is subpar, with high levels of noise visible in DVD playback, particularly in scenes containing broad swaths of light color; the problem was especially noticeable in some scenes from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, but it also appeared in the Serenity DVD. Some noise was evident in WMV playback in sky scenes, too. Worse, visible moiré patterns appeared in the high-def content. The LCD display proved perfectly adequate for normal desktop use, however, so it's acceptable for Web browsing and normal office chores.

The keyboard felt very comfortable during touch-typing, though the trackpad lacked precision and the button presses required more force than I initially expected. I was happy to see a button for deactivating the trackpad--useful when you need to plug in a mouse on short notice.

Toshiba includes Microsoft Works (full version) and Microsoft Office (a 60-day trialware version). Also included is trialware for Norton Internet Security and Toshiba's own DVD utilities, which are convenient for backing up data to DVD recordable discs.

The L645D-S4036 is built around a triple-core AMD Phenom II P820 that has a clock speed of 1.8GHz. The presence of three cores is sure to help in multithreaded applications, but the relatively low 1.8GHz limits performance. Of the 4GB of RAM, 256MB is taken up by the integrated Mobility Radeon HD 4200 GPU. These various limitations resulted in a pedestrian WorldBench 6 score of 76. Though the Radeon Mobility HD 4200 is one of the better integrated GPUs available, the L645D-S4036 is not a good laptop for games.

In the end, the Toshiba Satellite L645D-S4036 hits its low-price goal, but at the cost of noticeably poor audio quality and mediocre video playback. The keyboard is quite good, however, so if you're looking for a laptop for basic office use and nothing more, the L645D-S4036 may just fit the bill.
source :www.pcworld.com

Benefits In Buying Laptop Computer Parts Online

The internet holds so much sway in the market today because a lot of merchandise can be purchased directly off the web. It makes shopping much more convenient, not to mention that there are many payment options that you can choose from depending on what is most feasible to you. The same can be said when purchasing computer products online, more so with laptop computer parts, which is what we're going to focus on as we go along.



In the same parlance, computer products also proliferated over the internet, with so many websites offering them for sale. That makes it even trickier to choose and buy laptop computer parts online. If you have the right mindset and general knowledge of how everything works, you can receive lots of benefits from using the internet as your main avenue for canvassing the market and buying computer products.

We're going to enumerate some reasons why shopping online is advantageous. You will only have to recognize them while doing online shopping so that you won't miss out on its benefits.

1. Having to choose the convenient time, and not having to worry whether the shop is open or closed is one particular advantage. You'll also find that shopping for computer parts online is much, much cheaper. Why? Simply it's because a website doesn't have to worry about expenses that involve running a shop. And lastly, it's the simple pleasure of shopping in the comfort of your own home. No traffic, no long lines, no crowded areas, and no physical discomfort caused by carrying your purchases. It's fast, easy and much more efficient.

2. More often than not, you won't find what you're looking for when you go directly to a shop. The amount of computer products in the market is so high that you can't fit them all in there. On the other hand, a website can hold a high volume of information that every product can be viewed and checked for specs. You can also know more by reading comments about a product from visitors of the website. Most online shopping websites now can ship orders within 24-48 hours, as opposed to retail shops taking days, even weeks to look for a particular product that went out of stock and have it delivered to your home.

3. Information regarding a product can easily be perused on a website, including but not limited to, specs, compatibility information, and feedback from site visitors. Online shopping websites usually have applications that allow you to compare computer items according to categories like cost, memory, battery life, and many more.
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4. Since you can register an account on a website, you will have your own page that shows your shopping history. This can help you double back on particular products that you have purchased and those that you have marked for future purchase. A newsletter can also be sent to your email giving out recommendations that are related to the items you have ordered or placed in your online shopping cart.