Toshiba Satellite Pro S500-11C review

Toshiba's Satellite Pro S500-11C looks pretty impressive at first sight. It's reasonably slim (measuring 33mm at the thinnest point and 38mm at the thickest) and has an all-black chassis that's interrupted only by the large silver Toshiba logo on the lid.

Pick the laptop up, however, and it feels a little cheap and plasticky. We're also not fans of the corrugated effect on the wrist rest.

Display
The large 15.6in display looks good, but it has a glossy coating that will irritate many business users. On the plus side, it's bright, making outdoor use possible, but in terms of reflections this is when the glossy coating is even more troublesome.

The native resolution of 1,366 x 768 means it's a 16:9 widescreen display that's great for movies and comparing spreadsheets side by side, but not so hot when browsing web sites or scrolling through long documents.

Toshiba has managed to squeeze in a numeric keypad on the right side of the keyboard. But this means there's slightly less room for the rest of the keyboard, and the Enter and Space keys have had to be slimmed down as a result. The other keys are also slightly thinner than we'd like, but not desperately so, and we soon managed to get up a good typing speed.

There's also a small amount of flex, particularly on the numeric keypad, but this shouldn't be a concern unless you have a very heavy typing style.

The touchpad is slightly smaller than we'd hoped for, while the two buttons below it are a little too stiff. Squeezed in between these buttons is a fingerprint reader, allowing for secure access without the need for a password.

Inputs/outputs
Four USB ports are provided (two on either side of the chassis), and one of these doubles as an eSATA port, allowing fast external storage to be attached. Other inputs include a 54mm ExpressCard, multi-format card reader and audio I/O. These are joined by a mini DisplayPort socket, which allows for audio and video to be passed to a compatible external display via a single cable. Toshiba has also found room for a multi-format DVD writer, which is located on the right of the chassis.

The majority of corporate users will find that the 320GB hard drive provides more than enough space, while all the networking boxes are ticked with Bluetooth, 802.11n wireless and Gigabit LAN provided as standard.

Processor
Toshiba has gone for an Intel Core i3-330M processor. Coming from Intel's new entry-level mobile processor line, the i3-330M is a dual-core CPU running at 2.13GHz. 4GB DDR3 memory backs the processor up (this can be upgraded to 8GB), while graphics are taken care of by the Intel HM55 chipset.

The Satellite Pro S500-11C is certainly not a high-performance setup, but should meet the needs of most business users. It returned an overall score of 5,006 in PCMark05, which shows it's capable of handling processor-intensive applications and will cope well with a bit of multi-tasking.

The integrated graphics mean that 3D performance isn't quite so hot, but that's not usually a consideration on a business-oriented notebook such as this.

Operating system
Windows 7 Professional comes pre-installed in common with many of the notebooks in Toshiba's corporate line, along with an XP downgrade option. Other bundled software includes a selection of Toshiba tools, such as face recognition that uses the webcam as a security device. You also get Toshiba's Eco Utility, which lets you keep an eye on power use with a view to maximising battery life.

Those after a truly portable, full-sized laptop probably won't like the 2.6kg weight of the Satellite Pro S500-11C (add an extra 500g if you plan to carry the power adapter), but at this price and performance level you won't get much lighter.

Battery life
If you do plan to take it on the road, be warned that the Core i3-330M isn't the most energy-efficient of processors. This, combined with other power-hungry features such as the 15.6in display, mean that the 55Wh battery could manage only one hour and 30 minutes in the high-stress Battery Eater Classic test.

As always, going easier on it will result in longer battery life but, unless you do little more than read text documents with the brightness turned right down, it's unlikely you'll get more than three hours. Business users who are frequently travelling may therefore want to look elsewhere for a longer-lasting laptop.