Toshiba Satellite T110-12T review

The Toshiba Satellite T110 looks just like an 11.6in netbook, but it’s part of Toshiba’s Satellite range of laptops and has an Intel Celeron M ULV 743 processor rather than the usual Atom. Unfortunately, the Celeron is also a single-core chip which doesn’t use Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology, so it’s not good at multi-tasking. While it scored 43 in our single-threaded benchmark test, it managed a paltry 3 in the multi-tasking test. This dragged its overall score down to 19, which is comparable to an Atom processor.

The T110 will perform much faster than a netbook when you’re running a single application, but if you open another application you’ll notice an immediate slow-down. It’s also unsuitable for gaming with its integrated graphics chip; in fact, it’s barely able to play YouTube 720p video content without stuttering, despite the fact that the latest version of Flash adds hardware acceleration.

Design-wise, the T110 is fairly plain, although it does have a smart pattern that covers the lid and keyboard panel, but the glossy finish is prone to showing up fingerprints. The keyboard has flat keys with a small cut-away on either side, so you’re less likely to hit two keys at once. Although the keys are large, the keyboard as a whole feels cramped, and the layout is non-standard, with some less essential keys, such as the Tilde and Backslash keys, relegated to half-sized slots either side of the Space bar.

There’s a small but wide touchpad below the keyboard. We’ve had problems with the touchpads on Satellite laptops before, but this one seemed responsive and smooth. Our criticism of the single see-saw button still stands though: it’s too stiff, which means there’s only a centimetre at each end that has any give.

With a 1,366×768 resolution, the 11.6in screen has just as much desktop real-estate as most 15in laptops, with the caveat that everything appears smaller. The glossy finish reflects overhead lights, and the fussy vertical viewing angles mean that you’ll have to adjust the screen carefully to get an accurate image. Even then, there’s a blue cast to the image that dulls colours, especially flesh tones.

Around the edge of the T110 you’ll find a limited set of expansion ports. There’s HDMI and VGA ports, plus three USB ports. The network port only supports Fast Ethernet but you’re more likely to use the 802.11n WiFi.

One small design flaw we noticed was the over-abundance of indicator lights, set in a thin chrome panel underneath the touchpad. Most laptops have indicators for power, hard disk activity and wireless, as well as indicators to show whether Caps Lock and Num Lock are toggled. The T110 has a total of nine indicators, some of which we were at a loss to identify. A note to Toshiba: sometimes less is more.

Where the Toshiba T110-12T gains ground back on the competition is its eight-hour battery life. However, Packard Bell’s Dot u costs only £20 more, but has similar battery life and far better performance.