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Toshiba Satellite Pro S500-10E review

Toshiba Satellite Pro S500-10E
Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £493
inc VAT

Toshiba's Satellite Pro S500-10E is a well made business laptop with a great screen and keyboard.

Specifications

15.6 in 1,366×768 display, 2.6kg, 2.13GHz Intel Core i3-330M, 2.00GB RAM, 250GB disk, Windows 7 Professional 32-bit

http://www.misco.co.uk

Toshiba’s Satellite Pro S500 is a business-oriented Core i3 laptop with Windows 7 Professional 32-bit, a smart looking chassis and a fingerprint scanner. Although it has a glossy 15.6in screen, it isn’t too reflective and has decent viewing angles. Its image is slightly cold-looking, but colours are still accurate.

The main keyboard is traditionally laid out with chunky keys and plenty of space separating it from the cursor keys and numeric keypad. The Enter key is much skinnier than usual, but this didn’t adversely affect our typing style.

The S500 has a 2.13GHz Intel Core i3-330M processor, 2GB RAM and a 250GB hard disk. It uses the Core i3’s built-in graphics processor, which isn’t really powerful enough for gaming. It managed 10.6fps in our Call of Duty 4 test, but this won’t bother many business users. The S500 performed well in our application benchmarks, producing an overall score of 76.

In terms of connectivity, the S500 has four USB ports, one of which doubles as an eSATA port. This is handy if you need to connect a lot of peripherals. An ExpressCard/54 slot can be used to add components like a USB3 port or 5GHz wireless adaptor. It also has the usual memory card reader and DVD-RW drive. As well as a VGA port, there’s also a mini-DisplayPort rather than the more common HDMI output. Few monitors have DisplayPort inputs but you can buy mini-DisplayPort to HDMI converter for around £10.

The S500 is genuinely comfortable to use, from the keyboard layout to the clear 1,366×768 display. A minor niggle is that the fingerprint scanner is positioned between the two buttons below the touchpad, which made us want to treat it as a scroll wheel or third button. Scrolling is in fact achieved by running your finger up and down the right-hand side of the touchpad. We were pleased to find that, although it’s almost flush with the wrist rest, we never accidentally hit the touchpad while typing. Sound from the built-in speakers is loud, which is great if you’re giving a presentation with audio content, but very tinny and almost completely lacking in bass.

The Satellite Pro S500 is beautifully made, with an excellent display and keyboard. However, you can get more powerful Core i5 laptops for a similar price. Unless you need a fingerprint scanner, eSATA port and DisplayPort, Acer’s marginally more expensive Aspire 5741 is a better buy for home users.

Basic Specifications

Rating ***
Processor Intel Core i3-330M
Processor clock speed 2.13GHz
Memory 2.00GB
Memory slots 2
Memory slots free 0
Maximum memory 8GB
Size 40x375x252mm
Weight 2.6kg
Sound Realtek HD Audio
Pointing device touchpad

Display

Viewable size 15.6 in
Native resolution 1,366×768
Graphics Processor Intel GMA HD (Core i3)
Graphics/video ports VGA, Mini DisplayPort
Graphics Memory 64MB

Storage

Total storage capacity 250GB
Optical drive model Matshita UJ890AS
Optical drive type DVD+/-RW +/-DL

Ports and Expansion

USB ports 4
Bluetooth yes
Wired network ports 1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support 802.11b/g/n
PC Card slots ExpressCard/54
Modem No
Supported memory cards SD, SDHC, Memory Stick, xD
Other ports eSATA

Miscellaneous

Carrying case Yes
Operating system Windows 7 Professional 32-bit
Operating system restore option restore disc
Software included Toshiba DVD Player, Toshiba Web Camera Application
Optional extras none

Buying Information

Warranty one year RTB
Price £493
Details www.toshiba.co.uk
Supplier http://www.misco.co.uk

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