Toshiba M645

Introduction

In 2009, the top five personal computer vendors included Lenovo, Dell, Acer, HP, and lastly Toshiba. Dell and HP are both based in the US, Acer is from Taiwan, Lenovo is Chinese, and Toshiba is Japanese. The Japanese have always been known as the leaders in electronics and gaming. This is obvious in the gaming world where two of the top three gaming companies, Nintendo and Sony, are from Tokyo. Toshiba introduced its brand new line of 3-D laptops, and upgraded the Satellite M640 to the M645.
After using the M645 for a few days, I can tell you right now that this a very capable multimedia machine. If you are using a Toshiba and looking for an upgrade, I would not hesitate to upgrade to the M645. It packs a speedy CPU and solid graphics options with some pretty sweet speakers that appear to be in direct competition with the Lenovo IdeaPad Y460. The question is: does Toshiba have something to offer that is more viable than Lenovo’s machine?

Specs
Intel i3m
NVIDIA 310M
4 GB RAM
14 inch HD screen
Harmon/Kardon speakers
Outside
While some companies, such as Lenovo, do not display their company on the outside, or display a subsect such as Sony’s VAIO, Toshiba decided to brand “TOSHIBA” in large plain letters with a plain textured pattern on the front cover. I’m going to be blunt here, this is my least favorite aspect about this computer. This should not determine whether or not you should buy it, if you don’t like the cover you can always buy an external cover. The middle of the cover has some flex, nothing to worry about, just don’t expect it to survive with a pile of books on top of it. The casing over the entire body is polycarbonate, very similar if not identical to the Lenovo Y460. There is space between the top and bottom cover, this will easily let in dust, but Toshiba is not alone with this problem.
The front just has and SDHC card slot, and 7 LED notification lights representing AC power, whether or not it’s on, low battery, SD card use, wireless, and Wifi. Personally, I never pay attention to these lights, if the second one to the right is on; I know the computer is on. If you’re someone who likes to know without touching a button if the Wifi is activated, or need confirmation that the SD card is in correctly, these little lights will be very useful for you.
The right side sports the express card slot, headphone port, audio in, HDMI, esata/usb, DVI, and a large vent. For this class of laptop, these are pretty normal except for a few notable differences. The M645 has what Toshiba calls “Sleep and Play”. Even when it is off , the speakers can still be used if you plug in an ipod or something. It does use battery life to do this, so be careful about using it when it is not plugged in.
The speakers are not the only thing that work when this machine is off, the power supply continues to supply power to the esata/usb port. While I do not know of any eSata devices that have a rechargeable battery, many phones such as the legendary iPhone do charge through USB. I don’t like to the leave my computer on all night, but sometimes I have to if I want to charge my phone through it. If I had this Toshiba, I could turn it off at night. The DC in is also on the right side. I don’t like it there, but that is probably just because I am used to the left side power port on my Mac.
The left side just has the DVD burner or the optional Blue-ray drive, 10/100 ethernet, two USB ports, and the Kensington security port. Looking at my desk and at my Mac, I have realized that my entire desk is setup around the placement of the ports on my Mac. My external hard drive, speakers, memory card reader, and router would all be in opposite sides of my desk if I had this Toshiba instead of my Mac.
The bottom has two panels for easy access to the RAM and graphics card. This Toshiba also comes with a large 6-cell battery. While the computer with out the battery is not the thinnest laptop in the world, the battery adds about half an inch the back of the computer. My initial reaction was why would I buy a laptop with a battery that sticks out. It doesn’t fit great in my North Face backpack’s laptop slot, my horizontal marware bag seems to fit it perfectly. After using it on the couch, or at a desk though, the large battery is amazing. It sits in a very comfortable position on my lap, and the tilted keyboard is much more comfortable to type on than laptops with flat bottoms. If you don’t mind having an external battery, it has a lot of positives.
Inside
My first reaction to opening up the clasp-less lid was the fat speakers and large trackpad. Finally, a trackpad that is as big as Toshiba could fit under the keyboard. Well anyway, the overall keyboard area is pretty standard except with the speakers on the top right and left, and then a shortcut button bar sits right above the keyboard.
The keyboard feels a tiny bit smaller than full size, but because of the chiclet keyboard, I never hit the wrong key. Critics of the chiclet keyboard claim it’s just computer companies saving money, with anything than smaller than full size keyboards, it allows me to not hit the wrong keys by mistake. Above the keyboard is line of buttons including the power, eco mode, wireless on and off, play, mute, and volume control. The one button eco mode is nice for those times that extra battery life is needed.
The trackpad is slightly off center, something I did not even notice until now. Like I was saying before, Toshiba included a large trackpad, which makes me very happy. Trackpad’s are the most underrated part of laptops today. The only company that has understood how important this is Apple, now they even sell a wireless track pads any computer with Bluetooth. I do like the trackpad for the most part. The right and left click buttons are a little louder than I’d like, but the trackpad is responsive and the two-finger scroll is pretty useful.
The screen is exactly what you would expect from this class of computer, it looks great. My model did not come with a Blue-ray player, but it is only $100 upgrade. Watching HD content from youtube looks great, but I’m sure Blue Ray would look and sound even better. That leads me to my next point. The speakers on this machine or pretty fantastic considering its size . Now don’t get me wrong, whenever I’m in my room I would have it plugged it into my THX certified Logitech 400 watt system, but for casual music listening on the go, they sound great. They produce a very crisp sound that much better than my Macbook Pro’s speakers, and that is saying something. Now there is no separate subwoofer, so unlike the high end gaming laptops such as the Alienware M17x, this doesn’t pump out the bass in Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop”. Listening to John Mayor sounds great though.
Performance
$900 gets you a pretty powerful 14 inch laptop. This thing is fast and thorough. The standard i3 CPU is quick enough for pretty much any task, but if you feel like you need a little more speed, step up to the i5. This is a desktop CPU in a compact machine. The standard graphics card is nothing to write home about; if you like to watch any HD content or play any recent games, pay the extra $76 for the NVIDIA 310M. The audio input is something extra that I was not expecting at this price. Even the Macbook at $1000 has no audio input; this is very important for anyone doing anything with music recordings, and it is very nice that Toshiba has included it.
The NVIDIA OPTIMUS technology software is included if you upgrade to the NVIDIA 310M graphics card. The integrated graphics card is still in the motherboard, and the M645 will switch off automatically between the two graphics depending on whether you are watching an HD video or working on a word document. This saves battery life while providing top of the line performance when needed.
The software Toshiba includes is very well designed stuff. The facial recognition takes many different angles of your face, and from what I saw, works very well in different types of lighting. This is important if you use your laptop in more than one place. In comparison, the Lenovo Y460 did not detect my face correctly when I was on the couch in front of the TV, but did just fine at my desk.
Recommendation
Compared to pretty much every review on the Internet, I have written by far the smallest performance section; these days performance is very similar across each price line. Doing performance tests with this versus lets say, the Lenovo Y460, will vary depending on which specifications you purchase. The i5 will outperform the i3, and the discreet NVIDIA 310m graphics card will kick the crap graphically out of any graphics chip integrated in the motherboard. I don’t talk much about performance because to me, what makes a laptop is how usable it is, or in other words, how ergonomically designed it is.
This Toshiba is a very well designed plastic multimedia machine. I will keep my thoughts to myself about what I think takes the cake year after year for multimedia (I’ll give you a clue, there is a reason I worship Apple year after year), but this PC will not let you down. Does it necessarily perform better than the Lenovo Y460 its direct competitor? Like I said before, it has very similar performance. The Lenovo comes standard with a step up in graphics performance, but this Toshiba is much more comfortable for me to use on a daily basis.
Outfitting
The base model will do just fine for normal computing. Toshiba’s site makes it very easy to order a customized model, and here is what I recommend:
If you have ever thought about CPU performance, upgrade to the i5-450, if not the i5-520. The Intel i5 will perform a little better than the i3, but you will notice a much bigger improve when using multiple programs with the i5.
RAM is very underrated, it will make a bigger difference than upgrading the CPU, at the least, upgrade to 4 gigs. Hard drives are so cheap these days, upgrade to the 500 GB hard drive for $40, you will use more memory than you think, and it will perform faster because it spins at 7200 RPM (the base drive is 5400 RPM)
If you plan on watching Blue Rays (that’s the next option), upgrade to the NVIDIA 310M, or if you plan on playing any decent games. It does not come with Bluetooth installed, is somewhat disappointing, but at the same time, it is only a $20 upgrade. Bluetooth goes unused in most computers; I use it daily with my Bluetooth keyboard, and once in a while if I need to transfer and file with no WiFi present. Bluetooth is a short range network that is useful in situations where you need to send a file to friend next to you, when there is no WIFI around, and no one brought a jump drive; it also is useful with certain cell phones I believe.

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