Toshiba A505D-S6987: A Look at Turion II Ultra M600 Performance
by Dustin Sklavos on June 23, 2010 10:57 PM ESTToshiba A505D-S6987 in Greater Detail
The hardware inside Toshiba's A505D certainly offers reasonable performance for the budget-conscious consumer, but the overall design of the unit leaves a lot to be desired. It seems like for every design win, for every perk, there's something else undone. Toshiba outfits the unit with what they call their "Fusion Finish with Sonic Pattern in Black Onyx." What this means is an absolutely relentless, unchecked use of glossy black plastics with silver accents. The overwhelming majority of Toshiba's notebooks on the market are head to toe glossy plastic, and for us it means the difference between "bargain" and "cheap." Gloss on the lid is still fine and fairly common, but most manufacturers are quietly edging away from using glossy plastics. Even Toshiba recently announced their "Fusion X2," which utilizes more attractive, less gaudy matte plastics. For those of you that like glossy laptops, though, the A505D might just be your dream come true.
When you flip open the lid, you're presented with a design most other manufacturers have since abandoned. The Harmon Kardon speakers above the keyboard sound excellent for notebook speakers; they're a bit tinny but notebook sound quality is a contradiction in terms. Unfortunately, situated between them is a series of touch-based media buttons. Toshiba at least backlights them with white LEDs, but the touch-based volume control is disappointing. Toshiba was one of the last stalwarts to employ an analog volume control dial on their notebooks and the omission is missed.
Below the speakers and media buttons is the keyboard proper. Toshiba's keyboard layout really is one of the better ones we've seen come through, including a full-sized numeric keypad along with dedicated document navigation keys. They even managed to include a scroll lock key! To top it all off, the keyboard is backlit with subtle, attractive white LEDs. It's just a shame the keyboard itself is so lousy. When we say head-to-toe glossy plastic, we mean it, and that includes a glossy plastic keyboard. The keys are devoid of texture, have only the most minimal beveling, and just don't feel particularly stable. What you're left with are completely flat, smooth, wobbly keys that make typing a lot less enjoyable than it ought to be.
At the bottom we come to the touchpad, which mercifully has a nice matte finish and texture that makes using it a pleasure. There's a dedicated button to enable and disable the touchpad above it, and it's multi-touch capable. The buttons themselves are curiously large, but they feel fine and offer the right amount of resistance.
And finally, around the edges Toshiba includes an extremely healthy selection of ports. The left side bears a USB 2.0 port, an exhaust vent (always appreciated on the left so it doesn't melt your mousing hand), a VGA port, an Ethernet jack, an HDMI port, a combination USB 2.0/eSATA port, an ExpressCard/54 slot, and dedicated microphone and headphone jacks. On the opposite side are the slot-loading optical drive, two more USB 2.0 ports, a modem jack, and a power jack next to a Kensington lock. The memory card reader is on the front, next to a—thank the heavens—dedicated physical wireless networking switch. It's a small touch but it's welcome.
Honestly, the shame of the machine is the "Fusion Finish" and we're thankful Toshiba is eschewing this on their newer models. There are so many attractive value-adds—the quality speakers, the slot-loading drive, the backlighting in the keyboard, the physical wireless switch—that it's unfortunate the A505D is burdened with all the gloss and a poor keyboard. We don't like glossy laptops much, and the general consensus based on previous reviews appears to agree with our opinion. Keep the layout but change the keys and the coating and we'd be a lot happier with the A505D. Of course, if you happen to like smooth, glossy surfaces the Fusion Finish and our criticisms of it can be tossed out the window. Find one in person at a local store and see what you think.
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jaydee - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
On the Quad-core P920, HD 4200 + HD 5650, could you please include the 3D CAD benchmark? That would be awesome.JarredWalton - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
Not sure which benchmark you want... link please?Hrel - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
so were you guys ever able to talk to Cyberpower and get ahold of that Compal notebook I keep pestering you to review?JarredWalton - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
No response from them. :-(Hrel - Sunday, June 27, 2010 - link
darn, at least you tried. Maybe I'll go pester them for a while:)seagull7 - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
Awhile back I didn't have a lot of money and needed a laptop that was powerful enough to do sql server and Visual studio c# development on. I bought a 15.6" Turion powered, 3200 graphics laptop off Toshibas refurb site. It was cheap, and it works perfectly for what I need it for.While very inexpensive, it has stood up to daily use for a year now and I tote it home from work everyday. I sometimes hook it up to the LCD TV at home to play netflix movies.
My only gripe is that Toshiba laptops can't use AMD's driver releases. You are stuck with Toshiba's version of AMD drivers. While I have no problems with Toshiba's drivers for 90% of what I use the laptop for, it would be nice If I had AMD's more full featured drivers. Toshiba's driver has no driver control panel so I can't set anything manually. My next laptop will not be a Toshiba for this reason alone.
Slaimus - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
These older AMD chips (M3xx/M600) are really completing against the older Intel T4xxx and T6xxx chips which are in the same price range. Against those the results will probably look less grim.blackshard - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
Well, as you see in this review, from a performance standpoint, the M600 competes well against a P8600.One of the biggest problem here is that this Toshiba is really low-end: low-end battery (worst 6 cell battery even seen), low-end display. Maybe low-end motherboard and low-end components.
The fact it is has significant less battery life than a M300 processor when idling means that there's something wrong in the toshiba platform, even since M600 processor is supposed to have a bit more refined power management (more power states) and also because usually M300 and M600 idles at a very close frequency and voltage.
In my opinion a similar notebook not coming from toshiba, but with similar specs has to be tested to really understand AMD chips power usage.
Hrel - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
If someone could do a review on the laptop that I currently suspect is the best "bang for your buck" out there. It's made by compal, and available on Cyberpower.com who's machines you've reviewed before. If you'd like it configured like I did, which I think is the best bang for buck, do this: Go to the website. mouse over 15.6" Laptops and click on the $999 Xplorer X6-8500. It has a 1080p screen. (I'm not sure why the people who run this site do this, but even though the other configurations use the same chassis when personalized they come out to cost more than this one; annoying since it makes me configure all 3 or 4 machines built on the same base chassis to figure out which one is cheapest/best for me.) Then I configured it with the Core i7-620M CPU. (to get it over 1K so I can take advantage of the 5% off.) 4GB 0DDR3-1333, hopefully 7-7-7-21, probably not, but hopefully. ATI MR HD5650 1GB GDDR3 320GB 7200rpm HDD (I did this cause I'm gonna take that HDD out and use the Seagate Momentus XT 500GB, thanks for that review!!) Everything else on that page I left untouched. The only thing I did on page 2 was switch to Intel wifi with bluetooth; Though I'm curious if the MSI option is equal/better; 17 bucks isn't nothing. It has HDMI out and a fingerprint reader. This page says 3 USB ports, the specs sheet says 4USB ports; not sure which is true. (I do wish they were USB 3.0 ports, but I was hoping you guys would test some stuff and tell me if that even matters for use with an external hard drive, mechanical disk 7200rpm. Transferring large files like movies and games mostly.) On page 3 I select "none, format only" for the OS. And select "LCD perfect assurance" cause even 1 dead pixel is unacceptable to me. This brings the total to $1008.90 after 5% off, or $992.75 if you get the MSI network card. So yeah, I really hope you guys can get a hold of one of these for review; as a loner or given as a review unit or maybe someone will just buy one and review it cause it's really tempting me right now... like a lot! If you're review is good I'm gonna start saving up and hopefully be able to buy it around Christmas. Thanks guys! A loyal reader. - BrianPenti - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
Really do the costumers a disservice offering only this poor AMD models to the customers.I don't except Nile and Danube to bring any kind of parity though, they could compete with C2D hardware at best, however you should be able to build a few decent ultraportables out of Nile-platform.
I've long missed any decent AMD models from the manufacturers, they skimp too much on the battery and quality. I've seen no business laptops other then semi-business ultraportables with AMD chips. AMD really needs something like a good 14-15.4" business laptop with a decent AMD CPU, DASH support and integrated plus switchable graphics and DP plus dock station support. Otherwise it's not really interesting at all. You can get a Core i3 laptop for 600 dollars, a business Intel laptop for like 800 dollars with Core i5, 4GB and docking support. Also upgradeable battery, or battery choices. Something like 50 USD for a larger battery is well worth it. Why would you buy an AMD in that climate. I would consider it if they just built the best they could on the AMD platform, but they don't. For a consumer laptop switchable graphics is really needed, a small chipset update (well really Hybrid Crossfire X is there, so it's really there already, but shut off in mobile version) would accommodate that. Otherwise they would have to compete in the 400 dollar range. I'm glad AMD takes laptops more seriously with Liano, and Ontario/Bobcat though. But in a 350-400 dollar device only the OS stands for 120-150 USD. It doesn't leave enough room, and they need to be able to compete against Core i3 ULV processors by then.
Hopefully manufacturers seize the moment when AMD starts getting real laptop-chips out. Bobcat need to be able to compete with Atom. A good graphics/chipset solution would accommodate that though. Danube is just a stop gap which brings the K10 core in all it's glory to notebooks. I would really like DisplayPort on cheap laptops too. Displays are starting to creep above 1920x1200 more and more which is the limit for todays HDMI 1.3 graphics cards. DP is no problem with RS880m or Core i3/5 with HM55/QM57.
I thought they did a good job creating a complete server platform with SR5690 and SP5100. But they should put AMD-Vi/IOMMU into the desktop and notebook chipset too. Too bad they kinda loose out there too. But they need to do the same with the mobile platform and get manufacturers on board. A 48-50Wh battery is no longer accepted. 60-70 and upgradeable to 80-90Wh should pretty much be standard. 85Wh would roughly give twice the battery life. I would rather skip the optical drive and have a larger battery. At least in the ~13" devices. But really it's hard to compete you get a much better product for just a few hundreds more. And a real business laptop comes at 1500 dollars. Building a laptop with AMD processor and ATI graphics like HD5650 would be pretty attractive today though. Maybe HD5730 to give it an edge. But it would have to compete with 900 dollar Core i5 / HD5650 lappys. I wouldn't buy something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8... that though. It can't really compete there, Champlain isn't fast enough. P520 should be pretty good for a low end laptop. If put together smartly.
HP Probooks with AMD is mostly a joke though, but it at least in the form of ProBook 6455b and 6555b, support one off my personal requirements DP-port. The 6555b with HD+ screen even has decent resolution of 1600x900. I would rather have something other though.
Something like Toshiba Satellite L655D just don't cut it. Too. Something like HP Compaq Presario CQ62Z / HP Pavilion dv6z with P520 for $540 USD / $580 USD might be acceptable though. Still trails to close too Core i3 laptops though. It's not worth 600 bucks, they need to knock off 50-100 dollars, most of that should be on the processor (P520) which they should be able to lower 60 bucks or so. It should be a good 150-200 dollars less then a Core i3 2.26GHz laptop i think. It would be competitive then.