The Toshiba Satellite P505 is a multimedia powerhouse that packs an ATI Radeon HD 4650 and a massive 18.4" display. Offering dual drives for optimal performance and storage, this notebook handle all your multimedia needs, while still being able to power through games. In this review of the Toshiba P505-S8950 we find out how well it performs in daily activities, and if 18.4" is really too big to still be considered portable.
Toshiba Satellite P505-S8950 Specifications:
- Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1)
- 1680 x 945 HD+ TriBrite Display (Glossy)
- ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 with 1GB GDDR2
- Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 (2.53GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 3MB Cache)
- 6GB DDR2-800 RAM
- 64GB Toshiba SSD + 320GB 7200RPM Hitachi
- Slot-Loading DVD SuperMulti (+/- Double Layer) with Labelflash
- Intel 5100AGN, Bluetooth v2.1, and Atheros AR8131 1GB Ethernet
- Harman/kardon speakers
- Built-in web camera
- 12-cell 10.8v 87Wh (100Wh actual) battery
- Dimensions: (LxWxH) 17.4 x 11.6 x 1.63"
- Weight: 11 lbs., 0.3 oz. as configured
- Retail Price: $1,599
Build and Design
The Satellite P505 is a massive notebook, dwarfing even large 17" gaming systems. Combine that with a heavy body and you are left not wanting to stick it in a backpack; and good luck finding a slip case big enough. The exterior appearance is classy with a glossy black pinstripe finish and chrome trim around all the edges. Inside the color scheme stays the same, with chrome speaker grills, screen hinge, and touchpad buttons. The matching keyboard does a good job of blending in, with glossy black keys and white characters with white backlighting. While its size might make people turn their heads and stare, the tasteful color scheme does a good job of helping the notebook blend into the background. If you are using this as a multimedia hub for a bedroom or dorm, this is exactly what you want, as you aren't distracted by flashy colors or lots of LEDs.
Build quality is above average, although with the high weight and long width, you will see some mild flex if you try to carry the notebook by a corner. Plastic creaking is minimal and the chassis as a whole feels very strong. The keyboard area and palmrest show no signs of flex, even under very strong pressure. The glossy plastic finish seems to resist minor scratching, keeping a clean look even after wiping the body down multiple times for fingerprints. The screen has excellent protection from the backside, as well as the front thanks to the all-glass panel covering the LCD. Even with strong taps to the front and back of the display, there are no signs of color distortion. The only downside to the massive screen is its weight seems to act against the screen hinges, giving it some wiggle when in an open viewing position. You don't notice this unless you are constantly shifting around with the laptop on your lap though.
Users looking to upgrade components will enjoy the easy access to both hard drive bays and memory slots. Each hard drive is located in its own individual bay, with a third panel giving you access to the RAM. With the middle panel off you also get a glimpse at the graphics card, but the opening is not large enough to remove the card through. No "warranty void if removed" stickers were found anywhere on our review unit.
Screen and Speakers
The 18.4" panel on the Satellite P505 has a resolution of 1680x945, which seems lacking for something this large. Most high-end multimedia notebooks of this size usually offer a 1080P display, which takes more advantage of the greater surface area. That said, the panel still looks very nice for viewing games, images, or HD video. Colors appear bright and vibrant, thanks in part to the glossy surface. Depending on the viewing situations, reflections can play a huge role in what you are viewing on the display at any given time. While using this notebook at my kitchen table in front of a window, all I saw was the bright sunlight and slates to the shade reflecting off the screen. You can alleviate this by rotating the notebook or tilting the screen, but it is still quite annoying. Vertical viewing angles are average with colors starting to shift or distort as soon as 15 degrees forward or back. Horizontal viewing angles were better, staying true until roughly 50 degrees where reflections on the screen started to overpower the screen itself. Backlight bleed was minimal at the highest brightness setting, and never noticeable in normal viewing conditions.
The last notebook that really impressed me with the onboard speaker system was the Toshiba Satellite A305, giving rich audio from oversized flush-mounted speakers. The P505 continues that trend with an impressive harman/kardon sound system. Unlike the majority of notebook speakers, you can actually hear bass and midrange, although not enough to shake picture frames off walls or annoy neighbors. For a small room the sound system is more than adequate for watching a movie or just playing music in the background. For larger areas, headphones or a stereo system would still be preferred.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard was very comfortable and responsive while typing and the backlight helped greatly with low-light visibility. The 18.4" frame gave ample room for a full-size keyboard and keypad, with enough room left over for a 1" wide touch sensitive multimedia key section. Individual key action was springy, with a soft click when fully pressed. The layout was easy to follow, but the tight key spacing did take some getting used to. The top of each key was slightly larger than normal beveled-edge keys, giving less buffer space between each of them. The LED-backlighting was clean and just the right brightness to not be overpowering when typing in dark rooms. With the backlight on you could see some light shining through the edges of keys at a certain angle, but it was not overly apparent.
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Toshiba incorporates a large flush-mount Synaptics touchpad into the palmrest of the P505. While we normally praise most Synaptics touchpads, this specific model had inconsistent lag and was frustrating to use. No amount of adjustment in the control panel would help it, since it seemed to be tied directly to its slower refresh rate. Movement across the surface felt inconsistent, and took a bit to get used to. This may be entirely related to buggy drivers or a faulty touchpad on our review unit though. The touchpad buttons were large and easy to trigger with the side of your thumb, giving off a mild click when pressed.
Ports and Features
Port selection on the P505 was good, with three dedicated USB ports, one eSATA/USB combo port, a FireWire connection, LAN, VGA-out, HDMI, and audio jacks. Our model also included a legacy modem port. The notebook could have fit a few extra USB connections, but four should suffice for most people.
Front: Wireless On/Off, SD-Card slot, activity lights
Rear: Screen hinge
Left: LAN, eSATA/USB combo, one USB, HDMI, FireWire, optical drive
Right: Audio jacks, two USB, modem, VGA, AC-power, Kensington lock slot
Performance and Benchmarks
The Satellite P505-S8950 performed very well in our tests thanks to the Intel P8700 processor, Toshiba 64GB SSD, and ATI Mobility HD 4650 graphics card. Initial boot times were minimal, even with a fair amount of bloatware preinstalled on the system. The only downside to the system we noticed from the start was the 64GB capacity of the primary drive, being a fairly low capacity. We managed to completely fill the drive without noticing, just by installing our benchmarking applications and Left 4 Dead over Steam. In this situation, it would have probably been best to install applications on the secondary drive from the start. As long as you are aware of the space remaining on the smaller system drive, you shouldn't run into these problems. Multimedia performance was excellent, handling 1080P HD video with ease. Gaming performance was great, but not as good as dedicated gaming systems. The primary target audience for this notebook isn't really hardcore gamers, but instead people who are looking for a very capable desktop replacement. With a 6,000 point score in 3DMark06 it was under high-end gaming rigs, but still above most notebooks with dedicated graphics.
wPrime Processor Performance Benchmark (lower scores mean better performance):
PCMark05 Overall Performance Benchmark (higher scores mean better performance):
Synthetic Gaming Performance using 3DMark06 (higher scores mean better performance):
HDTune Hard Drive Performance Benchmark:
Heat and Noise
Heat management was above average, with a large chassis and plenty of airflow to keep system temperatures at reasonable levels. Noise levels were always low, even under stress. The fans seemed to stay on constantly after the system had warmed up, but since they ran nearly silent it wasn't a big issue. Even after running multiple benchmarks, the primary contact areas of the notebook were barely above room temperature. These areas include the palmrest, touchpad, and keyboard. If your legs don't mind the weight, the bottom of the notebook also stayed relatively cool during our tests. The only part that showed any significant amount heat was the AC adapter, which got as high as 125F. This was under a significant amount of stress though, with the system charging from a nearly dead state while also having the processor and GPU heavily tasked. Under normal use it stayed between 90-100F.
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Battery Life
Excellent battery life and 18.4" gigantic multimedia rig don't usually belong in the same sentence. In the case of the P505, they were a perfect match. This notebook included a large 12-cell with a reported capacity of 100Wh. At idle this notebook consumed between 20-25 watts, or roughly twice the amount of the standard notebook. In our battery test with the screen brightness set to 70%, Vista on the balanced profile, and wireless active, the P505 stayed on for an amazing 4 hours and 27 minutes. Now this time was entirely dependent on the 12-cell battery, but it is still impressive to see such a long runtime. All other P505 models come with a 6-cell battery with half the capacity, which probably won't offer comparable results.
Conclusion
The 18.4" Toshiba Satellite P505 is a massive desktop replacement notebook, capable of gaming, watching HD video, and pumping out rich audio. The harman/kardon speaker system put out some of the best sound we have heard from a notebook in a long time, full of bass and great midrange tones. While most people might not think a machine of this size could have good battery life, we managed to get four and a half hours thanks to the 12-cell battery. The only real negative aspects we noticed were debris between the all-glass covering and display, and a lackluster touchpad. Overall while this notebook might not have been the most lap-friendly system we have tested, its gaming and multimedia performance was excellent for its price range.
Pros:
- Great speaker system
- Good performance
- Excellent battery life
Cons:
- Very heavy
- Twitchy touchpad
- Dust between layers of the display
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Toshiba Satellite P505 Review
On order: Sager NP8690 i7 720QM, 500gb hdd, gtx280m, 4gb ram 
Fall back: Acer 4920g T7500, 160gb hdd, 2gb ram, hd2400xt 
Sold: Asus a8jn T5500, 80gb hdd, 1gb ram, go7300 
