01 October 2012

Toshiba L875D-S7232 Review


Here are my thoughts on my newly purchased laptop, a Toshiba L875D-S7232. Overall I am very happy with my purchase, but will definitely be looking to upgrade to a SSD at some point.

Pros:
  • 17.3" 1600x900 screen
  • A8-4500M Processor
  • 6GB of 1600MHz RAM
  • HD 7640G Graphics (defaults to 512MB use)
  • The Silver and Black color makes the laptop look professional
  • Good Windows Experience Index Scores (scale 1.0 to 7.9):
    • Processor: 6.7
    • Memory: 7.0 (out of the box; 7.2 after updates)
    • Graphics: 6.7
    • Gaming Graphics: 6.7
    • Hard Disk: 5.9
  • 3DMark 06: 4693
  • Price: $479.99 + tax at Staples
  • Boot Time is 2-3 minutes including login and browser launch

Cons:
  • No Hard Drive Activity LED (I replaced with a software one: http://sourceforge.net/projects/activityindicat/ )
  • The shiny black plastic surrounding and under the keyboard shows dirt and fingerprints easily
  • Norton 30 day trial - I uninstalled and replaced with Avast Free Home - http://www.avast.com/en-us/index
  • Power Plug does not have a separate ground 
  • No Spot for a second hard drive
  • It appears that video driver updates must come thru Toshiba instead of AMD, but this seems to be common with notebook APUs

Other Thoughts:
  • Toshiba Software Update Page
  • Island Keyboard may take some getting used to
  • Function keys (F1-F12) default to their function use (change screen brightness/volume etc.)
    • Was able to change this behavior thru the pre-installed Toshiba HWSETUP Utility
  • Comes with Office Starter (ad supported Word and Excel)
  • On Med/High settings at 1600x900 I get between 40 and 60 FPS (capped by vsync) in DDO
  • On High settings at 1600x900 in Battlefield Play 4 Free I get ~30FPS
  • Side exhaust does get quite warm
  • Battery Life seems to be around 2.5-3 hours

Update 2016-07-06:
  • Toshiba disabled virtualization in the bios. I am disappointed that they did this on a mid-range laptop to try to force more high end laptop sales.

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