Toshiba Satellite C75D-B7350 17.3 inch Laptop Review

17.3" Toshiba Satellite C75D-B7350
via Amazon

Toshiba Satellite C75D-B7350 is a modest and low cost ‘desktop replacement’ notebook with a 17.3 inch non-touch screen, Windows 8.1 OS, a quad core AMD A4 processor and 4GB RAM- sufficient power and performance to handle almost all daily tasks as well as entry level multimedia editing and light games. It seems to be a regular modern laptop with a large screen, DVD drive and other useful connectivity ports for an average user. Just don’t expect to perform heavy and demanding tasks on this computer, and it certainly doesn’t have the price tag for it anyway.

Toshiba Satellite C75D-B7350 comes with the April 2014 release AMD A4-6210 processor (2MB of L2 cache) with four cores at 1.8GHz base speed and no turbo boost or hyper threading, which mean the speed stays at 1.8GHz and four cores will handle four threads, 4GB DDR3L SDRAM at 1600MHz that is not user expandable but should be adequate for day-to-day things, 500GB Serial ATA hard drive at 5400rpm rotating speed as adequate space for storage for majority of users and 64-bit Windows 8.1 operating system. The AMD A4-6210 is a mid-range processor designed for entry level machines, with a Passmark benchmark score of 2173 (on 16 January) and a TDP- Thermal Design Power of 15 watts. You may think it is only 1.8GHz but it is 4 cores and this leads to better overall performance in daily workload and entertainment.

17.3 inch widescreen LED backlit HD+ TruBrite display with a 16:9 cinematic aspect ratio and 1600 x 900 pixel resolution that doesn’t support Full HD 1080p resolution but you can certainly view such content on your HDTV via its HDMI port. HD+ screen is the minimum you should have on a 17 inch display and is perfectly fine at this price range (Full HD screens with IPS panels do cost money). Graphics card is the integrated AMD Radeon R3 graphics with shared memory with the CPU and performs a bit like between the Intel HD 4000 and 4400 card and will let you play World of Warcraft, FIFA or Sims 4 at lower settings and resolutions and would be a little hard to play the latest games to be honest. It comes with an integrated front-facing webcam and microphone that would be sufficient for informal Skype chats. The graphics card supports video streaming for up to two external displays and can support the main processor during the decoding of videos up to 4K. Speed will very much depend on the power of APU, varying between performance levels of Radeon HD 8250 and HD 8400.

Textured Resin in jet black Toshiba Satellite C75D-B7350 weighs 5.9 pounds and measures 10.60 x 16.30 x 1.30 inches- lighter than an average 17 inch laptop but in normal size and thickness so it is not really portable to take out and about, but it is fine as a desktop replacement and with more portability than a desktop PC- should be considered by those that don’t need too much portability. It has a 6-cell lithium ion battery that offers up to 4 hours of battery life on a single charge, but it will decrease with time and usage. Connectivity options are: Multi DVD±RW/CD-RW drive, 802.11n wireless also compatible with 802.11b/g, 10/100 Mbps Ethernet, 2 x USB 2.0 ports, 1 x USB 3.0 port that is up to 10 times faster than USB 2.0, an HDMI port to view your photos, videos or any content on your even larger HDTV, a VGA port, an SD Card Reader- Memory Card Reader, a stereo Headphone jack, a mono Microphone jack and a Security Cable Lock slot but there is no Bluetooth.

Conclusion: Toshiba Satellite C75D-B7350 is a low cost 17.3 inch screen laptop created mainly for home use. The quad core AMD A4-6210 is fine for daily tasks and 4GB memory would be adequate for what it is designed to do. Operating system is Windows 8.1 and many people prefer the older Windows 7 but this is what you get with the majority of modern day systems and you’re very much likely to get used to it, that is if it is your first time with Windows 8. Bluetooth is not supported by default but all you do is order a USB dongle with the purchase of this PC. You’ll get a bit of junkware you may want to get rid of before starting to use it so that it offers snappier performance, as well as 1 month trial of Microsoft Office 365. We’re also not so sure if you should keep the pre-installed Norton internet security (again 1 month trial version), just replace it with free AVG or AVAST you can get off the internet and you should be fine. It is Energy Star qualified, EPEAT Gold registered and comes with a 12 month standard limited warranty for parts and labor. Despite its small flaws, it seems to offer good value for money for a 17.3 inch HD+ screen Toshiba laptop with a quad core AMD processor.

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