Toshiba U845W-S414 Ultrabook -An interesting design, top performance, good bang for the buck.
This is a very unusual and interesting design which is one of the things that first attracted me. As someone who constantly has multiple app windows open, 20 or so browser tabs (or more) and multiple browser windows, various utility programs running and so on...anything that gives me more screen real estate is welcome. As someone who also watches a *lot* of video on my laptop, anything that improves that experience is welcome as well. And as someone who has a speaker fetish and listens to a lot of music, sound quality is important as well. This U845W seemed to meet a lot of those needs.
But I hesitated a lot because reviews were very mixed. If it had an IPS display it would be a no-brainer, but it does not. And reviews were all over the place as to display quality, some rating it very high, others not so much. A lot of people complained about the keyboard. Not a biggie for me, but still. The screen size vertically was a concern, so much that I made a cardboard template to see what it would look like compared to my current systems. I then realized it is the same vertical height as my Acer Chromebook 1366x768 display, so no worries there. I considered a lot of other options. Did a ton of research. All the various machines I looked at had flaws of some kind. None are perfect. So, as usual, it came down to bang for the buck and my own particular tastes.
What finally won me over is that this machine seemed like the best overall compromise and I felt I could live with the trade offs. I wanted SSD, but felt 128 GB was too little, that ruled out several nice alternatives. An I5 might be enough, but if I could get an I7 for just a little more, that's insurance I will buy as I will also benefit from it every single day. And as someone who does a lot of video and audio conversions, the added horsepower will be gainfully employed. The ability to have side by side app windows visible was a big plus and when I compared to 1920x1080 options, I felt this (21:9) aspect ratio would work fine and I would get all the other key things I wanted at a very attractive price. A back-lit keyboard was a big plus as I work a lot late at night. A big item for me was that I am not yet ready to move to Windows 8, so I wanted a machine with Windows 7 (Yes, I could always wipe and load whatever, but I don't have the time anymore these days for that. I really wanted something with factory installed [and tested] Win 7.) The 6 GB of RAM vs. 4 GB in several alternatives, the long battery life, the Intel HD 4000 (vs. 3000) [though a discrete GFX option would have been great]. The three USB 3.0 ports are a big plus, especially now that USB 3.0 external disk drives are available at good prices. I will be loading/saving a lot of content, so transfer speeds are important. HDMI out is a win on an Ultrabook (rare). All the ports and HW must haves are there.
Another thing is that in many benchmarks, this rig was a screamer by comparison, outperforming (or tying) all the other top competitors. It even outperformed several rigs with the same Intel HD 4000 GFX. And all of those benchmarks were for the i5 CPU 550GB HDD unit, so the i7 and 256GB SSD performance boost were not even included. All of which told me that performance was going to be top notch with this unit. Something very important to me.
Portability, reliability and design are also important to me. The design won raves from everyone, and the portability seems good to me, even with the elongated form factor (in fact, I like it). Reliability is an unknown, but I have owned several Toshiba notebooks over the years and all have proven very reliable, so fingers crossed, this one will be as well.
And then there are the nice pluses like the sleep-n-charge port, sleep-n-play music feature, and the Harmon-Kardon audio. No need to haul external speakers when on the run. (The speakers actually do sound very good.)
So...top notch performance, tricked out hardware, productivity boosts from 256 GB SSD, i7 CPU and added screen real estate...plus great video and audio for the R&R time spent with this nice rig. It's even up for some casual gaming and for the games that can use the added real estate, that's another unique and fun feature.
So, purchase decision made, how does the pudding taste?
The out of box experience was great. One of the simplest I have encountered. Everything was set up and running in a very few minutes (really!). The ugly stickers were there, but Hallelujah! -they were easy to remove. There was almost no crapware, only Wild Tangent Games and Norton Security that I could find. Some might like Norton. Both easily removed. The desktop was pristine, only the Recycle Bin Icon. Best and cleanest setup I have encountered in a very long time. (Having had several other Toshiba laptops, I do not consider the Toshiba apps 'crapware' as several are actually useful.)
There was actually very little setup. The only thing on my list is to attach an external DVD drive and burn some recovery disks. So, quickly up and running, I check things out and everything seems fine. Everything is very snappy, as expected. Opening windows is nearly instantaneous, starting programs equally so. The 256GB SSD, fast 6 GB of RAM, and the i7 CPU are a treat. I did a few tweaks, disabling indexing on the SSD, disabling disk defragementer, etc. which are better for SSD's.
I try out the windows sample videos and music. The videos look good, the music sounds great. The screen is pretty good for a non-IPS display. Fairly typical, maybe a bit better than average. Text is sharp, clear and readable (at 100% default setting). Screen is very bright, I had to turn it down. Colors look good. Black levels OK. Viewing angles not great, but OK. Man, if Toshiba had put an IPS panel on this they really would have had something, as it is, the display is fine, but not in that league.. Actually very good compared to many, though.
The speakers are very good. Video tracks and music sound great. There is an SRS enhancement that seems to work fairly well. I almost always use external speakers with notebooks, but I will not need to do so with this one. Very pleased. They are also capable of getting very loud. I'm very satisfied with them. Great that they are on the sides and fire up. Interestingly, they sound great with the lid shut, too (came as a surprise to me). This is nice because this rig has an unusual "sleep and play" feature. You can plug in an audio cable to the mic input and play your mp3 player, phone, or whatever via the laptop speakers --even while it is off/sleeping. Cool!
The system is fairly quiet. When the fans do rev up, they have a quiet whoosh sound that is pleasant and not annoying. In normal use, I rarely notice them. The SSD drive is great, silent, fast. In mine, it is a Samsung unit. There were mixed reviews on the keyboard, but it seems quite fine to me. Same for the touchpad. No issues. You do have to be careful when right-clicking to use the lower right, but there is a raised line on the touchpad that marks the "button" areas and if you use this aid, no problems. Scrolling (two fingers) worked fine. No complaints at all. Seems quite fine to me.
The backlit keyboard is very nice. The keys press easily and the layout is good. There is a little flex around the yhuj key area, but not enough to be objectionable. I like that you do not have to use Fn key by default for the control functions on the top row (e.g. media controls, screen brightness, mute, wireless on/of, etc.). The only true button is the power button. The whole unit has a very clean, classy style and look. It has all the essential ports, too, including 3(!) USB 3.0 ports and HDMI out.
As expected, my Windows Experience scores are slightly higher than those in most reviews which were for the i5, 500GB HDD model (and those scores were very good!). The i7-3517U CPU and the Samsung 256GB SSD give some performance boosts. My initial scores out of the box were: CPU 7.1, RAM 7.3, Dsktop Gfx 5.8, Gaming Gfx 6.4, and Disk 7.9 -those are all very good scores for an *ultrabook* in this price range. I miss having a discrete Gfx card, but the Intel HD 4000 is respectable for an on-board GPU -so I can live with it. Casual gaming is quite doable with this rig.
The system boots in about 10 seconds. Resumes from sleep nearly instantaneously (say 1 second). The build quality is excellent. I love the rubberized accents on the bottom, lid and palm rest area. Feels great and the whole thing feels very, very solid. As an online reviewer mentioned, it has the appearance of a piece of high-end audio/Av gear. Definitely a nice looking notebook.
I tried some videos (music videos) none were HD but they looked very good. I was surprised by how good the black levels were and the colors are very true not overly saturated as on many screens. I was very pleased as these were far from the best content, but they looked very good. And the sound as I watched was great. Very nice not having to hook up any external speakers. Not IPS quality, but very good for this type of panel and at this resolution. Viewing angles are the only hitch, but they are about average and OK. (I have been spoiled by my Toshiba Excite 7.7 tablet's Amoled screen though where black is really black, the absence of light, with no backlighting. Best vids ever.)
So, the initial experience is great and I am very pleased with this system. One of the slickest out of the box ever. I am already seeing the benefits to the wide screen in daily use. Can't wait 'til my external Blu Ray drive gets here!
I will come back and update this review once I have enough time and experience with this ultrabook to give additional useful feedback.
2012-12-13 update:
This display seems to have better than average colors based just on my eyes and comparisons with other notebooks I have handy. I've watched some HD Netflix movies and they look great. The viewing angles are the only noticeable hitch. As with most non-IPS notebook panels, you have to angle things just right. It's about average or better, not an undue problem, but I'm very used to IPS and AMOLED now, so I notice it. The HD Vids looked fine, though, and the sound was good. So as a portable entertainment center, it's a win. Played some games and they also looked very good.
2012-12-14 update: If you can live without the 256GB SSD and i7 cpu, the i5 cpu 500GB HDD GB 32GB SSD cache model is now selling at a lower price than when I purchased, making it very attractive (Toshiba Satellite U845W-S410 14.4-Inch Ultrabook (Midnight Silver)) and an almost unbeatable value proposition. Maybe the best deal on an ultrabook going if you are OK with the 1762x768 21:9 screen. For everyday use it performs very well. (12/15 price has gone back up, too bad!)
2012-12-29 update: Purchased BUFFALO MediaStation BDXL Portable Blu-Ray Writer BRXL-PC6U2B external Blu-ray drive for use with my U845W and it works well. Has a nice "smart-stretch" feature (for DVD's only) that seems to compliment the U845W display well. I posted a quick review of the drive, so see that for more info.
2013-01-18 Update: I am really pleased with the U845W-S414. I have continued to compare and I cannot find anything that can beat it for total overall value. Almost all Ultrabooks are shipping with 4 GB RAM (vs. 6 GB) and only a few have 256 GB SSD's (most have 128) and many have i5's (vs. i7). Only the 1920x1080 HD screens are a win for some of the others. But, I am very happy with the video and movie quality, so even though I lust for IPS, I can live with the nice S414 screen (great color). And the productivity of this screen aspect ratio is superb. Many of the pro reviews seem to miss this completely. I do a lot of things that require multiple windows open. And in many cases you want one a bit larger than the other which the default Toshiba utility handles very well. I was also very pleased to discover an "Advanced" options tab for this utility. It allows you to design your own custom screen layouts -very neat. For example, I made a layout with one large wide aspect window and 4 small square windows (l full height left and 2 over 2 right) or 5 total. Being able to build your own layouts and have windows "snap" to them is a great productivity feature and one I will use a great deal. It's a totally unique and useful feature of this line.
Performance is as good or better than anything out there (better than most). I love the style and handling all the more the longer I use it. And the good speaker quality is very enjoyable -having it "built in" is a luxury I enjoy. I congratulate the Toshiba engineers and design team on having the courage to try something different. I'm loving it!
2013-02-03 The 256 GB SSD in mine is the Samsung 830 which is a top quality SSD with great performance. A great choice by Toshiba.
UPDATE 2/23/2013:
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Everything below remains true. I continue to be impressed by this device's combination of power and portability.
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The first thing stated in any computer review, I believe, should be a description of what the customer's needs are. That way you can understand much better why I was satisfied vs. unsatisfied.
My needs are the following:
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1. Durability
2. Portability
3. Easy to write and type on because I write a lot of both fiction and code
4. File transfer speed for ease of backup
5. Ability to play a decent set of simple / old computer games but not the very latest or most photorealistic.
6. Hard Drive Space
I have owned a Toshiba Satellie A234(not 100% sure about the #) for a long time. I bought it on December 6th, 2006 and it lasted until Sept. 1st, 2012, at which point, the fan broke, although the hard drive and processor and other parts still work great. However, I did not want to risk other parts breaking due to age, so I decided to keep it in storage as a backup and buy a new computer. I was very satisfied with this 5.74 year lifespan especially considering I have driven up and down the east coast many times and taken the laptop many places, including going hiking. It was this solid durability, combined with my past experience as a computer repairer at a university --that gave me great confidence in the Toshiba brand and caused me to buy this particular computer as a replacement--especially because there is a big trend in the computer industry now to decrease durability in order to force customers to spend more money and make more purchases.
The U845W
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I have owned this computer for about a week now, and I plan to update this review as time goes on.
Good Things:
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The U845W is: Lightweight. Solidly constructed. Has a big screen. Has extremely powerful, high quality speakers (This was a happy surprise to me, because I had assumed it was impossible for a laptop to create "bass" sounds at all). The processor and GPU, while not the greatest ever, also meet my needs. One of the 3-D video games that I like play for a few minutes at a time is a game called Minecraft. It doesn't have huge demands on a processor or graphics card, but it runs smoothly in full screen and windowed mode. All 2d computer games, obviously, run perfectly. 3-D Visualizations on music players like iTunes and XMPlay also run smoothly.
The flash drive is amazing. I copied files from my USB 3.0 backup drive (I have ~150gb of music so it's a lot) and I was blown away by the speed: 90 megabytes per second. Very impressive! The computer also starts up and shuts down, hiberate or not, lightning fast. I really like this feature and I am glad I got the model with a 250gb flash drive. I also hear that a solid-state drive really increases durability so I am feeling very confident about that, although only time will tell of course.
OK Things:
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The keyboard is fine, it is backlit and has no problems when typing. The function keys work well, although I would probably have preferred a sound volume wheel instead of using F4 and F5 as sound volume keys. No issue for me though.
Bad Things:
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Not much is bad. The only thing I have found annoying is that it's been difficult for me to get used to the trackpad: on this trackpad, "Left-Click" is the entire trackpad, not one button anywhere. "Right-Click" is the lower right corner of the trackpad. I would like to change the settings so that only the lower left is the left button and lower right is the right button, but I haven't found a way to do that. Overall though, I don't really care, since I am not trying to be the world champion real-time video game player.
In short: Everything is great, except for the trackpad, which is not a very big deal to me.
Buy Toshiba Satellite U845W-S414 14.4-Inch Ultrabook (Midnight Silver) Now
I've had this computer for about 3 weeks now, and I love it. My last 5 laptops were convertible tablets, as I live in One-Note (I'm trying out a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 for note-taking). I'd been investigating Ultrabooks, and was really focused on an 11" screen for mobility (I travel at least 2 weeks out of each month) and the ability to use the laptop in a coach seat. I stumbled onto the U845W at a brick and mortar store and had the opportunity to play with it. I researched reviews, and the functionality of the widescreen appealed to me not for viewing video, but rather for the ability to view documents side-by-side. I do a lot of analysis, and being able to see 2 spreadsheets side-by-side is a real productivity plus. I was sold! I chose the -414 for the SSD rather than the i7 chip.
Positives:
1. Form factor I love the low screen height and the width
2. Keyboard spacious and backlit
3. Speed I've always converted my laptops to SSDs and they ROCK
4. Light weight
5. Case design the rubber cladding allows for secure maneuvering of the computer
6. Generous connectivity 3 USB 3.0, Full-size HDMI etc.
7. Great speakers
Negatives:
1. Had to get a new case for it to handle the width
2. Trackpad I prefer left and right buttons, but I'm getting used to it
Overall a good choice if you view a lot of video or need the width and height for the way you work.
Read Best Reviews of Toshiba Satellite U845W-S414 14.4-Inch Ultrabook (Midnight Silver) Here
I'm not a high tech person but do like high tech equipment. But due to this I won't be very technical in my review. This is more just experience based and what I like or don't like about it as an average consumer.
I have been using an old TouchSmart HP computer. My wife's harddrive died so I gave her my TouchSmart (very slow) as an opportunity to get this computer. The SSD is fabulous. I doubt I will buy another mechanical hard drive. It takes 2-3 seconds to wake-up and 5 seconds to boot up.
I get so frustrated with all the updates from Microsoft, Toshiba, Adobe, Virus programs and they all want to reboot the computer. With the older computer I would just turn on the computer and had to wait a half hour while the updates did their thing and interrupted me with a reboot. With this computer it is no big deal. The whole update and reboot takes less than half a minute. I can actually use the computer instead of using my time updating it.
I bought this specific computer due to the price for a i7 with a 256 SSD. After watching prices for some time I thought the price right at $1000 was awesome.
For me the one negative is the screen shape. This computer has a wide screen for movie watching, which is not what I do very much. The problem with the wide screen is vertically there is not much space which for most programs results in a limited view.
If you watch a lot of movies on your computer you will likely LOVE this computer.
But overall I am very happy with my purchase.
Want Toshiba Satellite U845W-S414 14.4-Inch Ultrabook (Midnight Silver) Discount?
Well built has made it through 15 TSA inspections without one issue. I like everything about it except the default screen resolution and keyboard. Being 50 years old I could use a larger resolution that still maintained optimum focus however unless the default is selected you give up clarity something my eyes can't manage. The keyboard requires more attention than most laptops requires significantly more pressure with every keystroke than any other device I've used. Overall the speed is fast, restarts are a breeze, portability is great. No issues with OS.
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This laptop is awesome! Updates and setup take a little while but, I was up and running in a couple hours. The drive is 7200rpm and JBL sound is icing on the cake. 17 inch screen is huge compared to 14-15 I've had in the past. 5 stars for this laptop. Thank you Amazon!!
