Toshiba Satellite Pro L770 review

Toshiba’s Satellite Pro laptop series strikes a fine balance between home and business users. Its sedate design won’t look out of place in the boardroom, but its dedicated graphics card and Blu-ray optical drive should appeal to film buffs and game fans.

It isn’t the most portable of machines, but its 17in screen and 1,600×900 resolution is a welcome step up from the 15in competition. It’s large enough to work on two documents at once or watch 720p video without having to cradle the machine in your lap.

Its image quality’s a little better than average, thanks to vibrant colours and ample brightness, but its lack of screen tilt and its average viewing angles mean you’ll have to choose your seating position carefully. You might want to turn off the lights for watching films too, because the glossy screen finish makes light reflections an issue.

Thankfully, its wide chassis provides enough room for a full-size keyboard, including a separate numerical keypad for faster data entry. The full-size keys push down quite far and stop abruptly when they reach the switch underneath, but bounce back to a resting position very quickly.

We were a little disappointed with the size of the touchpad. Although it maintains the same 16:9 aspect ratio as the screen, it’s squeezed in between the keyboard tray and oversized touchpad buttons, making our hands feel cramped when navigating the desktop. Its response times are quick enough, but we would have preferred more space.

Given the size of the chassis, the decidedly average selection of ports is another small let-down. One USB3 port, two regular USB2 ports, audio inputs and outputs and a multiformat card reader are all you get, but its Blu-ray writer optical drive is almost enough to make up for lack elsewhere.

Desktop performance comes from an Intel Core i5-2430M running at 2.4GHz. The dual-core chip can use Turbo Boost to reach 3GHz when it’s within a certain thermal range, temporarily increasing performance when you need it. Paired with its whopping 8GB of RAM, it flew through our multimedia benchmarks with an overall score of 54. This isn’t too far off the pace of last year’s desktop PCs, so you should have no trouble running all your applications here.

Intel’s processors all have integrated graphics, but Toshiba has also added a dedicated Nvidia card for increased gaming potential. The GeForce GT 525m isn’t exactly cutting edge, but it can still perform well. It managed a borderline smooth 30.6fps in our Dirt 3 test, so disabling anti-aliasing should let you play newer titles. Older games won’t be a problem, even at higher resolutions.

Sadly, the combination of Intel processor and dedicated graphics has a negative impact on battery life. The L770 lasted just under four hours in our light-use test, so it won’t last long away from the mains. Then again, anyone buying a 17in laptop probably won’t be using it on the move that much, so this might not be a deal-breaker.

For £670, the Satellite Pro L770 is great value. Its large screen and Blu-ray optical drive make it a compelling desktop replacement. Its desktop performance is also impressive and you can even play games. However, if you want something more portable with better battery life, the HP Pavilion DV6 or the excellent Samsung Series 5 13in Ultrabook are our current choices.