Toshiba Satellite C55-B5272 15.6 inch Laptop Review

Toshiba Satellite C55-B5272 15.6 inch Laptop Review

15.6 inch Toshiba Satellite C55-B5272
via Amazon



Black Toshiba Satellite C55-B5272 is a solid and reliable 15.6 inch laptop, that is a powerful performer designed for daily tasks with an Ivy Bridge Intel i3 processor, large memory and storage space and Windows 7 operating system, which is probably one of its main selling points for the Windows 7 fans. We haven’t actually tested the laptop but through research and customer reviews online, it seems to offer good value for dollar but let’s see what it’s all about.

Toshiba Satellite comes with the dual core Intel i3-3217U processor (3MB cache) at 1.8GHz speed with no turbo boost function so the speed is fixed but has hyper threading for smart four way processing, 6GB DDR3L SDRAM at 1600MHz to be able to run a few apps and browsers simultaneously and without experiencing delays, 750GB SATA hard drive as large storage space at 5400rpm rotating speed and 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium OS that still seems to be the favourite of most. System boots up and shuts down fairly quickly thanks to the i3-3217U processor that is also ultra low voltage with a TDP of 17 watt for advanced energy efficiency.

15.6 inch diagonal TruBrite TFT widescreen LED-backlit (uses less power) display with 16:9 cinematic aspect ratio, 1366 x 768 pixel resolution (720p content) and the integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics offers lush images with lively colours. It comes with dual built-in stereo speakers but we don’t have detailed info on the sound quality but we're assuming would be adequate. The high definition webcam with the integrated microphone is great for videoconferencing with coworkers, chatting with friends and family and taking good quality still photos. This is not a full-on advanced gaming PC as you will be partly limited with the integrated Intel HD 4000 with shared memory with the CPU that would be suitable for lighter games at high settings and some of the latest games at lower settings.

There is no Bluetooth connectivity on Toshiba Satellite but you can get a Bluetooth USB dongle to even a few dollars with your purchase of this laptop, but you have a good variety of other connectivity ports, such as the 802.11bgn wireless, 10/100 Gigabit Ethernet LAN with RJ-45 connectivity, DVD SuperMulti drive supporting 11 formats, an HDMI port which would let you see your movie or play games scaled up to FHD quality- at 1080p resolution and through the speakers of your TV or home theatre system, a VGA port, 1 x USB 3.0 port with very fast transfer speeds and 2 x USB 2.0 ports, Multiformat Memory Card Reader supporting miniSD, microSD, Multi Media Card, SDHC and SDXC, a Stereo headphone jack and an RGB port.

Toshiba Satellite C55-B5272 15.6 inch Laptop Review
Textured resin in jet black Toshiba Satellite weighs just 4.85 lbs with measurements of 14.96 x 10.2 x 1.05 inches. One of the customers complained about the armrest being a little deep and the keys not very close to the front edge but this is probably a minor flaw if it is a flaw at all- may be comfortable for some people and the keys are comfy to type on and nice to have the 10-key numeric pad which allows easy number crunching and the touchpad that supports multiple gestures- pinch, swipe, scroll through images or rotate. 4 cell 45Wh lithium ion battery should give you up to 4.5 hours battery life in normal use on one charge so it is not amazing but not bad either. The Satellite comes with Adobe Reader installed, a 1 month trial version of Microsoft Office 365 and Norton Anti-Virus internet security.

Conclusion: Toshiba Satellite C55-B5272 is a decent computer with Windows 7 operating system for many that prefer it over the newer Windows 8, powerful enough for daily tasks for work and entertainment like internet browsing, word processing, spreadsheets and playing lighter games. It is an Energy Star qualified (like 93% of Toshiba portable PCs) and EPEAT Gold Registered PC (environmental assessment in 51 categories) computer and comes with a 1 year standard parts and labor warranty. As small negatives, there is no Bluetooth, the battery life is average and the graphics card is not really suitable for advanced gaming but If you’re on a budget and want the best for your money in terms of day-today performance (i3-3217u has the Passmark benchmark score of 2296), power, portability, multitasking ability, ample storage for your files, good range of connectivity and decent image quality, this Toshiba is well worth checking out.

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