Toshiba Radius Satellite P55W-B5318 Convertible 2-in-1 Ultrabook Review

Toshiba Radius P55W-B5318
via Amazon

Toshiba Radius Satellite P55W-B5318 is a solid and stylish 2-in-1 convertible 15.6 inch touchscreen ultrabook and tablet in one PC with a powerful 4th generation Intel i7 processor, 12GB of memory and a large 256GB Solid State Drive instead of a traditional HDD. You can use it in laptop, tabletop, presentation, audience and tablet modes with its 360 degree rotating hinges giving you quite a bit of flexibility- like the Yoga and Flex lines of Lenovo but in more modes- 5 as compared to 2 in Flex and 4 in Yoga. It is suitable for the smooth running of regular daily things or more demanding tasks, at home or work. You’re indeed getting performance, speed, durability, flexibility and functionality at a reasonable price.

Toshiba Radius is offered with the dual core Haswell Intel i7-4510U processor with hyper threading (two cores, four threads hence the CPU is better utilised) and base speed of 2.0GHz that can be easily moved up to 3.1GHz with turbo boost when tasks need the speed, 12GB DDR3L SDRAM for lots of smooth multitasking, 256GB SSD for much faster overall performance and reduced boot-up times from zero or waking up from hibernation and 64-bit Windows 8.1 operating system which you’ll be able to upgrade to the newer Windows 10 for free very soon. Well, it is quite the workhorse with a Passmark benchmark score of 3990 that you can run heavy demanding software on while keeping several web browsers open and listening to music. Intel i7-4510U is an ultra low voltage processor with a TDP of 15 watts including the graphics card and other components.

15.6 inch Full HD LED backlit widescreen responsive 10-point capacitive touchscreen that supports multi touch gestures and 1080p content with 1920x1080 pixel resolution, 217-nit brightness, 16:9 image aspect ratio and IPS panel for larger viewing angles up to 178 degrees (which you’ll need especially when using in different modes) offers sharp images with great details and vibrant colours- superior colour production and accuracy. You’ll hear loud (hit 89 decibels in volume test), clear and balanced sound with big bass through its Harmon Kardon speakers located above the keyboard and DTS sound software even in the audience mode when the speakers are facing the desk. It has an integrated 720p HD webcam with dual microphones with Beam Forming technology and seems to be fine for casual live chats on Skype on video-conferencing at work. Graphics card is only the integrated Intel HD 4400 but offers better performance than it normally would due to the powerful CPU and you can stream videos in HD quality and play games like World of Warcraft comfortably but not the more demanding Far Cry 3. It is faster than Intel HD 4000 but slower than Intel HD 4600 and 5000, more or less equal to Radeon HD 7550M.

Brushed aluminium finish in satin gold Toshiba Satellite Radius P55W looks great with silver brushed aluminium lid, clean rounded edges, a diamond-cut chrome Toshiba logo near the right corner, silver and black hinges, a brushed aluminium deck and Harmon Kardon speakers above the keyboard with a small logo. It weighs 4.90 pounds, measures 15 x 0.75 x 9.70 inches and comes with a frameless LED backlit (easy to type in dim lighting) raised tile full-sized island style keyboard with a 10-key numpad for easier data entry, volume control, one touch function keys (keys are big enough and nicely spaced out- 1.71mm key travel and feel tactile and strong) and chrome lined touchpad that measures 4.2 x 2.6 inches with multi-touch control and without the separate left and right clicks. The 4-cell 60Wh lithium ion battery offers up to 10 hour battery life (probably 7-8 hours if constantly web surfing on relatively bright screen) and is not user replaceable. Connectivity options are: Faster 802.11ac wireless with wider coverage, Bluetooth 4.0, Memory SD Card Reader, 1 x USB 3.0 port with USB Sleep and Charge, 2 x USB 3.0 ports, Microphone input/Headphone output port and an HDMI port with 4K Ultra HD output capability. There is no RGB port if you need it and no optical drive (sold separately).

Conclusion: Sleek, modern and attractive Toshiba Satellite Radius P55W-B5318 is a powerful multi-mode convertible PC that can be used in five different modes, allowing multi-person use and collaboration while offering very decent performance and long battery life. It is a proper tablet when you fold it 360 degrees but a 4.9 pound one too, so bear that in mind. If you’re considering a Lenovo Flex 2 15 as well, this one is a better machine overall- judging by the independent tests. It comes with a 1 month trial of the new Microsoft Office 365 and a 12 month Norton Anti-Virus subscription. Webcam is not the best and the display is a little on the dimmer side and if you need to be gaming heavily you do need at least a mid-range dedicated graphics card but everything else is more than fine. We like the loud and clear audio, Full HD screen with IPS panel offering sharp visuals and large viewing angles, long battery life and good solid overall performance. It is EPEAT Gold registered, Energy Star qualified and comes with a standard 12 month warranty by Toshiba. You will find a solid suite of Toshiba apps and utilities pre-installed for multimedia and maintenance as well as some useful third party apps which mostly seem fine and you can simply delete the ones you don’t need. This is a nice looking machine that moves between different modes conveniently with solid performance for work and play- play games and watch movies without keyboard getting in your way- a good versatile, functional, fast and powerful PC with decent set of features and is rather competitively priced for all that it offers.

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