Toshiba Satellite L670-12J review

From a distance the Satellite L670-12J looks like yet another plain, black laptop. Closer inspection reveals a subtle cross-hatch pattern on the lid and wrist rest, which we think is attractive.

The Satellite has a 17.3in widescreen display. The glossy finish means it’s very reflective, but it’s bright with accurate looking colours. Viewing angles are a bit tight and the backlight is a little uneven though, so colour accuracy suffers if you adjust your sitting position. The resolution of 1,600×900 pixels is large enough for working on a pair of documents side by side or for watching high definition 720p video. Although the screen doesn’t tilt back completely, it’s far enough to make it comfortable to use on your lap.

Thanks to its large screen, the Satellite is also wide enough to have both a keyboard and numeric keypad that isn’t blighted by any small, undersized keys or odd layouts. Although it feels a bit spongier than other laptop keyboards we’ve seen, the keys are responsive and fine for typing long documents. The small touchpad doesn’t take advantage of all the available space, but it’s accurate and the large buttons give just the right amount of feedback when pressed.

The Satellite weighs just under 3kg, which is around average for a laptop of this size. We weren’t expecting its battery to last very long, but it lasted a respectable four hours and 10 minutes in our light-use test. Although you’re unlikely to take the heavy Satellite travelling very often, it’s good to know its battery can last most short-haul flights when you do. In terms of build quality, the Satellite is up to Toshiba’s usual robust standards.

Performance is good too. The Satellite is equipped with a 2.27GHz Core i5 430M processor which is unexpected at this price. Paired with 4GB of RAM, it came near the top of the charts in our benchmarks with an overall score of 83. Its performance running the latest 3D games was less impressive. The integrated Intel graphics chip managed less than 12fps in Call of Duty 4, but this is in line with a laptop at this price and the chip can still cope with HD video and older, less demanding games.

Surprisingly for such a large laptop, there are only three USB ports. Oddly, there’s a blanking plate occupying the space for a dial-up modem – the room would’ve been better used for another USB port. You won’t need to add more storage for a while as the internal hard disk has a generous 500GB of storage.

The Satellite isn’t brimming with bundled software, but a useful program is Toshiba’s own ReelTime application. This allows you to see your most recently accessed files on a scrolling timeline. Combined with Windows 7 Home Premium’s search capabilities, there’s no excuse for losing your files.

There’s little to criticise with the Satellite L670-12J. It’s quick in Windows, comfortable to use and has good battery life. However, if you can stretch £50 more, Dell’s Inspiron 17R has a faster graphics card, making it the better choice for gamers.