Toshiba Satellite Radius P55W-B5224 Convertible Touch UltraBook Review

15.6 Toshiba Satellite Radius P55W-B5224
via Amazon

Toshiba Satellite is a 15.6 inch 2-in-1 convertible touchscreen ultrabook that can be used in notebook and tablet modes and anything in between. Being a certified and refurbished unit, is tested, certified and refurbished by Toshiba, includes the original accessories as well as a 90 day warranty, feels and looks like brand new. You have the long battery life, sleek and modern design, power, speed and solid performance at a greatly reduced price than the brand new model.

Toshiba Satellite Radius P55W-B5224 comes with the dual core Quarter 2 2014 release Intel i7-4510U processor at 2.0GHz speed up to 3.1GHz with turbo boost and hyper threading (2 cores and 4 threads), 8GB DDR3L SDRAM at 1600MHz for superior multitasking (not expandable by the user), 1TB Serial ATA HDD hard drive at 5400rpm rotating speed which is double the size of many convertibles on the market and Windows 8.1 operating system but so that the new Windows 10 is out you can upgrade it for free. CPU has the Thermal Design Power- TDP of 15 watts as an ultra low voltage processor despite its power and a Passmark benchmark score of around 4000 as of today.

15.6 inch Full HD touch display with IPS (In-Plane Switching) panel has the 16:9 image aspect ratio, 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, up to 178 degree viewing angles and 10 finger tracking. Graphics card is the integrated Intel HD 4400 for general multimedia tasks and light gaming as it doesn’t have a discrete GPU (but performance will be boosted by the Intel i7 CPU) and the touchscreen feels responsive. You’ll experience loud, clear and balanced sound via Harmon Kardon speakers along a speaker bar on top of the keyboard, for your videos, music or games. Webcam is not the best but the picture quality is quite good with vibrant images, sharp details and large viewing angles. It has both the HDMI output with 4K UHD output capability to connect to your large screen HDTV and Intel’s WiDi (Wireless Display) to stream HD content to any WiDi equipped HDTV.

Slim, modern and attractive silver brushed aluminium with a satin gold finish Toshiba Radius P55W with a dual hinge- bend the display back and around design looks and feels premium. It weighs 4.9 pounds and measures 15 x 0.75 x 9.7 inches making it perhaps a little large to be used as a tablet with its 15 inch screen although it is a convertible ultrabook, is perhaps a little on the large side for a tablet. Connectivity options include the 802.11bgn wireless, Bluetooth 4.0 for wireless connection to peripherals, 3 x USB 3.0 ports (one of them with sleep and charge function), an SD card slot, Microphone input / Headphone output- a stereo headset jack, an HDMI output, 4-cell 69Wh battery charges pretty quickly and will last up to 7-8 hours in normal use (claimed by Toshiba and proven in practice), has a full size backlit keyboard with a 10-key numeric pad for a bit more typing comfort and a functional touchpad with a wide touch sensor (it offers touch functions like zooming, two finger scrolling and edge-swiping).

Conclusion: Toshiba has been making several 2-in-1 convertible devices over the last couple of years and this will have to be one one of our favourite out of all their convertibles in terms of being value for money and all that you’re getting as features and specs. Toshiba Satellite Radius P55W-B5224 system runs very smoothly and the ability to use it in different modes- tablet, audience, presentation, tabletop and laptop with its versatile flip design is quite a convenient feature and you can switch between work and play with a quick hinge flip, so you can watch a movie without being interrupted by the keyboard or play a touch display game comfortably. 8GB memory is plenty for any kind of multitasking but is not easily replaceable by the user, you’re getting a very good deal- an Intel i7 processor with high end specs, power in a portable package at a very affordable price so this computer is quite the winner with its great battery life, very large storage space and obviously the flexible convertible-hybrid design. It lacks the much snappier Solid State Drive that some other convertibles may have but you’re getting a very large 1TB hard drive instead for all your files. This is a great midrange convertible/hybrid laptop that we highly recommend.

Click here for a closer look on Amazon