Toshiba Satellite U845-S406 14.0-Inch Ultrabook (Sky Silver)

This computer is not the fastest out there, nor does it have the most advanced features. But it's great if you need a very portable laptop and you don't have the budget to buy a macbook air. Though you can buy cheaper laptops, at similar specs, this laptop falls into the 'ultrabook' category as defined by Intel. The benefits to an ultrabook is the thin size, light weight, and long battery life. This is not even the best ultrabook out there, but it is one of the cheapest of those. The majority of the ultrabooks seem to be 900 and up, making this sort of a 'budget' ultrabook, if not a budget laptop.

I ordered this for my dad, who needed a new laptop for his work. Some notable points about it.

Design:

The laptop looks sleek, with a great finish that doesn't seem to make fingerprints too noticeable. The keyboard is a chiclet style -similar to the macbook air that this category of laptops attempts to follow Which means it is more shallow than the usual keyboard. I do find it easy to type with, though it does take a bit of getting used to. It looks very nice, in a subdued sort of way. I wish the screen was a higher definition, but oh well.

Portability:

One of the main reasons my dad chose this laptop. It is not as thin as some of the better ultrabooks, but it's thinner than the standard laptops, and -muchlighter.

Usability:

As the other reviewer said, the boot time is slower than I expected from an SSD/HDD hybrid. Yet, it certainly boots faster than the 5 year old laptop it is replacing! Once on, it runs smoothly and quickly for office tasks, and streaming videos. The fans seem quiet, though I haven't tried to task them with anything pushing the computer's limits. It's not a computer for gaming, and I'm not even attempting it. It seems fine for daily use / buisness/ school etc. The Battery lasts about 5 to 6 hours of streaming video and web surfing, etc.

I don't use trackpads if I can avoid it, usually with a wireless mouse, so I can't really say whether that is bad or good. My dad says he preferred the old trackpad he used, but that this one is good enough.

Overall:

I would recommend this laptop to someone who wants all the portability advantages of an ultrabook, but doesn't necessarily need something with super high performance. It's really a pretty decent little laptop. Comparatively, you might also like the Zenbook prime UX32a from ASUS, which is a similarly priced ultrabook that also has an HDD/SSD hybrid.

This is a good Ultrabook, but not excellent. HD makes noise sometimes (including some "clicks", which makes me wonder about its health; that I'll figure out just with time), more than the standard for most laptops. Touchpad sometimes fails on recognizing taps on some areas (it can be adjusted on its settings to make it work smoother, yet this is not among the best touchpads you'll find around). Battery life is fair good (does not last as long as the brand says), not excellent but not bad. Backlighting is a great feature that many Ultrabooks miss, makes it a plus for this one. It's not the lightest Ultrabook, but is light enough, easy to carry. It doesn't heat up much, what is very good. Its case is awesome. For about 650 dollars, it's a good deal.

Update (Jan 23rd 2013): The hard disk stopped making noise, whatever's the reason. It's been working good so far. SSD drive really makes a difference, this Ultrabook boots very quickly. Touchpad (even after updating its driver) still has issues, it freaks out sometimes, requiring me to restart the machine.

Someone has written in a review that this ultrabook actually doesn't have backlight as announced by Amazon. I confirm what's announced on the page here, it DOES have backlight, and it works very well (it's a smart backlight, after sometime without using the keyboard, the light turns off automatically).

Buy Toshiba Satellite U845-S406 14.0-Inch Ultrabook (Sky Silver) Now

I research as well prior to purchasing good Laptop/netbook and found the Toshiba was the right price /ratings. After using it for a month now it is a great product light weight screen jumps out at you easy to use and the 32 GB boot up is fast. One thing I found out when I upgraded to Windows 8 is the PC locked up we had to reset the PC I guess like most laptops with the battery inside there is a small hole under the back you have to hold in to rest. It wasn't the PC but Window 8 ...when you shut down Windows 8 you have to hold down the Shift Key as you shut down the reason is an app is running in background. This I hope an update will fix. JJJ Tech Pioneer(the supplier) was very helpful and would buy from them again thru Amazon...

Read Best Reviews of Toshiba Satellite U845-S406 14.0-Inch Ultrabook (Sky Silver) Here

i was kind of skeptical about this laptop because the price was pretty low for an ultrabook with features such as the toshiba u845-s406. i must say i was pretty surprised by its performance so far. it's very sleek and fast pretty light, and has good speakers. the only downside so far is it gets a little warm, and make some sound but still nothing to serious. although allot of people scared me with the non responding keyboard i found no problems with the keyboard but on the other hand the touchpad buttons can get frustrating. other than that the backlit keyboard is awesome-best feature if u ask me.

Want Toshiba Satellite U845-S406 14.0-Inch Ultrabook (Sky Silver) Discount?

When buying this I sought a light laptop still running Windows 7 that would compare with an Asus UL30 I bought a couple of years ago. I bought the Toshiba because it appeared a good value and of comparable quality. I disregarded several luke-warm reviews in computer magazine websites. That was a mistake.

I will say the Toshiba is attractive, has a bright and sharp screen, and boots and closes down quickly.

The keyboard does not have a positive feel for a touch typist, and I was annoyed to find that in order to get a function key to operate in the expected way--say F8, I had to hold down the key and then hit F8. This (mis)behavior can be corrected in the BIOS, but should not be the default. Also the proper names of the keys F1, F2 ... are dimmed out and hard to see. I use function keys a lot, and resent this stupid system.

The trackpad works well enough, but the mouse keys are integral with it, and this makes them much less easy to use and one is never certain they have "taken".

Most laptops have a removable battery. Not this one. If the battery fails, you will have to return to machine to Toshiba. The power supply brick lacks a pilot light.

Most laptops have a hatch on the bottom giving access to the RAM storage area, so you can add memory when necessary. Not this one. You must remove the whole bottom, at the minimum, finding screws hidden under feet and labels.

It's not unique to Toshiba, but this machine comes loaded with crapware. The hard drive has only a C: partition, not an optimal setup for a drive of this size.

But yes, it works, but if I kept it, I would be chronically annoyed at myself for buying this. Instead, I am buying an Asus U36SG-DS51, which I believe more suited to my needs.