Toshiba Satellite Click 2 L30W-B-10D review

Convertible laptops that have a removable tablet can be a useful prospect for some. Uncoupling the screen from a keyboard base makes for a far more comfortable user experience than jabbing away at a laptop’s touchscreen, which can be unwieldy and uncomfortable, and gives you some added versatility when it comes to sharing content or collaborating.

With the Toshiba Satellite Click 2 you can detach the screen from its keyboard dock simply by sliding an unlock slider and lifting the screen away, instantly making it a 13.3in tablet. Re-attaching is just as simple and the connection feels tough.

Unfortunately, when using the Click 2 in keyboard mode any taps of the screen causes a lot of wobble as the hinge just isn’t rigid enough. This is due in part to the weight of the screen where all of the components are located in order to allow you to use it as a tablet. This makes it quite thick and it’s reasonably heavy as a tablet, weighing 1.1kg. The weight of the full system is 2.1kg, which is also slightly heavier than some other 13.3in traditional laptops as well.

We found the keyboard reasonably comfortable to use. The keyboard has has a very slim profile due to it not housing any of the components like it would on a traditional laptop. This means it’s a lot lower than you might be used to, which took some getting used to.

It has a Chiclet-style keyboard that is well spaced out, but we found that the keys didn’t have enough travel for our tastes and they were also a little spongy, which meant that it was easy to miss-type a word after failing to press a key fully in.

The touchpad was pleasant to use, and is easier than using the touchscreen when in laptop mode. It’s a good size and uses a suitably frictionless material to allow your finger to glide across for swipes and gestures. It uses integrated mouse buttons that worked well enough, although they also feel a little spongy but we never had any problems with clicks not registering.

The screen is where you will find the majority of connections, which can look a little odd when you’re used to a traditional laptop. There is a micro HDMI port for outputting to an external display, a USB2 port and a multi-card reader for a variety of SD and MMC cards. There’s also a power button and a volume rocker.

On the keyboard base there is an additional high-speed USB3 port. It’s a shame there isn’t more ports on the keyboard as we would have especially liked to see Gigabit Ethernet because as it stands there’s no support for wired connections so you’ll have to rely on wireless. Usefully, there’s a DC power input on both the keyboard dock and on the tablet itself, meaning you can use the Click 2 as a tablet while charging.

Inside you’ll find a quad-core 2.16GHz Intel N3530 that also supports Intel Turbo Boost up to 2.58GHz when temperatures allow and this is paired with 4GB of memory. In our application benchmarks, this provided an overall score of 32, which is middling for a laptop but quite impressive for a tablet, albeit a large and heavy one. It will be ample for most tasks like browsing the web, movie-watching and work.

The Click 2 didn’t perform quite so well as a gaming laptop, however. In our Dirt Showdown tests the system managed just 13.9fps when playing at 1,280×720 resolution, 4x anti-aliasing and High graphics, which is far too slow to be considered playable.

The display was one of the better elements of the Click 2 and it exceeded our expectations for a laptop of this price. Our calibration tests revealed the display had black levels of 0.37cd/m2, which is very good. Similarly, it had a very positive contrast ratio of 833:1 meaning there is a great level of detail produced between dark and light tones by the screen. Coverage of the sRGB colour gamut was only average for a laptop of this price, with our calibrator showing 59.8 per cent coverage, however.

Happily, we never encountered any problems with the touch accuracy of the display when used as a tablet and navigating Windows 8.1’s tile interface is arguably a more pleasant experience with a touchscreen.

In total, we managed to get 6h 5m of battery life from the Click 2 during our battery rundown tests. This is average battery life for a laptop but quite low for a tablet but you’ll be able to easily watch a movie and browse the web before needing a power outlet.

If you are looking for versatility the Click 2 isn’t a bad choice if you want a hybrid device. It has a great screen for the money and its performance was adequate enough to perform most tasks. If tablet functionality isn’t important to you, the Dell Inspiron 15 5000 has better performance and marginally better battery life.