Toshiba Satellite P755-113 review

There's some great mobile technology being released by Intel, AMD and Nvidia right now. Intel's Sandy Bridge CPU architecture suits the energy efficiency needs of mobile devices and brings serious processing chops to the table.

AMD and Nvidia have locked horns, as always, to produce the best mobile graphics solution, whether that's integrated or off-die. It makes the £1,000 price point more competitive as ever. That's exactly where Toshiba's Satellite P755-113 falls. There's stiff competition from Medion's Erazer X6811, Alienware's M11x and HP's Envy 14. None of these laptops prove a no-brainer, however.

With some seriously powerful components under the bonnet, and Nvidia's 3D vision thrown in and integrated to minimise fuss, the Toshiba Satellite P755-113 looks an attractive proposition.

We liked

The big selling point under the bonnet of the Toshiba Satellite P755-113 is the GPU – Nvidia's GT 540M. It's a DirectX 11-capable card with 1GB of memory, able to render any current game at high detail settings over the Satellite P755-113's 15.6-inch screen.

Picking up some of the slack that the CPU leaves is the 6GB of RAM. Running music software or Photoshop will see the benefit of this wealth of memory.

Like 3D? Want to enjoy 3D on the go? Really? Well, you'll probably be interested in the Nvidia 3D Vision kit included with the Toshiba Satellite P755-113. Unlike the desktop version of Nvidia's headache-inducing, dimension-multiplying goggles, the IR receiver is integrated into the laptop itself, above the screen. That's great for saving on sable clutter and minimises driver issues. For £999, it's a nice inclusion.

We disliked

There are drawbacks to the Toshiba Satellite P755-113. The biggie is battery life – at just two and a half hours, it's restrictive to your mobility. Running games, it's below two hours. An SSD drive can really boost system performance so we're a bit disappointed to find only old-fashioned hard drive storage here, 750GB of it to be exact.

Beneath the keyboard, an Intel Core i5 2410M occupies the CPU slot. Part of the Sandy Bridge family, it's architecturally impressive but a bit of a letdown performance-wise, operating at 2.3GHz with just two cores and two threads and no Turbo Boost available.

The Toshiba Satellite P755-113 may boast relatively quick frame rates, but the 1366 x 768 resolution's prohibitive for HD content. That's the compromise for its portability.

Verdict

At £999, this Toshiba laptop has a lot going for it, but there still isn't an obvious champion of this price point.