Toshiba Satellite E205-S1904 bundle review: Toshiba Satellite E205-S1904 bundle

Editors' note: This review is part of our 2010 Retail Laptop and Desktop Spring roundup, which covers specific fixed configurations of popular systems found in retail stores.

8.0

Toshiba Satellite E205-S1904 bundle

The Good

Slim design; easy-to-use Intel Wireless Display built-in; speedy Core i5 processor.

The Bad

Unimpressive speakers; no dedicated gaming graphics; unimpressive battery life.

The Bottom Line

As one of the first laptops to feature Intel's Wireless Display technology, the Toshiba Satellite E205-S1904 is a slim, fast, and affordable package for mainstream users.

At this year's CES, one of the technologies that captured our interest was Intel's Wireless Display technology, or WiDi. Presented as a simple plug-and-play way of transmitting a laptop's video signal to any TV with the help of a small Netgear-made box, WiDi presents a tempting solution to the often messy methods currently available to those who want to get their Hulu on the big screen. (For more on Intel's Wireless Display, check out our hands-on report and video.)

WiDi, however, needs to be built into a compatible laptop. One of the first notebook computers to include WiDi at retail is the $899 Toshiba Satellite E205-S1904, a model that's exclusive to Best Buy. Though having WiDi included makes the E205-S1904 intriguing enough, we're also excited because the last Best Buy exclusive design that Toshiba made, the E105-S1802, was one of our favorite Satellite laptops. We particularly liked it for incorporating a more comfortable keyboard and touch pad than are available in most mainstream Satellite models.

The new E205 changes the look of the E105 considerably. Gone is the boxy but clean look, replaced with a sleek curved blue design. A new Intel Core i5 processor replaces the previous Core 2 Duo, offering some performance upgrades and power-management advantages. A slot-loading DVD/CD drive is also included. The keyboard is still backlit, and speaker volume is improved over the E105. At a price of $899, it's only $50 more than last year's E105 Blue Label offering. For the improved CPU and wireless display functionality alone, however, it's arguably worth it.

One of the biggest changes to the Toshiba Satellite E205 is cosmetic: whereas the E105 series had a clean, somewhat boring gray chassis and a solid, tapered keyboard, the E205 adopts a totally new look with a dark blue plastic finish (called Fusion Finish in metallic blue), rounded edges, and a slot-loading DVD drive. The laptop feels more plasticky and slightly less rugged than the E105, but it also looks trimmer, too. The E205 looks thin, but a lot of that is a visual effect produced by the extremely tapered edges along the sides and front. Still, the Satellite E205 is thinner than many full-size laptops at only 1.2 inches. A larger-than-normal rear hinge enables the 14-inch screen to open up at an angle that "floats" a little more off the keyboard than standard lids. The lid also opens up at a very wide angle.

Toshiba's move to a flat backlit keyboard instead of the very comfortable tapered keyboard on the E105 is frustrating: it's a return to the keyboard lineup available on most Satellites, and frankly, the flat keys leave something to be desired. Though the E205's flat keyboard seemed to respond a little better than the keyboards on other Satellites we've reviewed, the main part of the keyboard still flexes too much for our taste. The multitouch touch pad beneath is smaller than the stiff-clicking buttons beneath, which is awkward--but the flush matte touch pad surface worked fine for us as we used the E205. A row of dedicated media touch-keys run down the right side of the keyboard, controlling audio, basic play functions, an Eco power utility, and backlighting.

The Toshiba Satellite E205-S1904's 14-inch LED screen has a resolution of 1,366x768 pixels, which is standard for mainstream HD laptops. With a 16x9 display and reasonably bright backlighting, the screen looked great when playing DVDs or streaming Hulu videos, although the glossy screen offered up a considerable amount of glare in an office environment. The big disappointment on the Satellite E205-S1904 is its stereo speakers: embedded in the front-facing underside of the laptop, they sounded middling and soft even at maximum volume. Toshiba laptops usually have strong speaker quality, and for a Blue Label product sold at Best Buy, we expected more.

The Satellite E205-S1904 lacks a few features available on mainstream-or-better machines, most notably Bluetooth, but its inclusion of a high-speed eSATA port and a USB sleep-and-charge port make up for the loss. The 4GB of included RAM can be expanded up to 8GB, and the 500GB hard drive is plenty generous for most people.

The included Intel Core i5 processor was a pleasure to use in our anecdotal testing, feeling snappier and better at multitasking than most mainstream Core 2 Duo processors. That was reflected in the benchmark results: though the Core i5 is an improvement over the E105-S1802's Core 2 Duo processor in iTunes and Photoshop tests, it's a huge leap forward in our multitasking test.

Loading videos in Flash and performing media tasks was a snap, especially with the built-in Intel HD Media Accelerator. Unfortunately, like its predecessor, the E205-S1904 has no dedicated gaming graphics. The E205 can't play mainstream games, therefore limiting this device to those looking for very solid media and video playback. Still, this E205-S1904 has great bang for the buck on most mainstream computing needs.

The E205's most notable feature, one we've profiled in great detail, is its Intel Wireless Display capability, or WiDi. The E205 can, with the assistance of a simple Toshiba software tool, send its video display to any TV with RCA or HDMI input jacks, courtesy of the included Netgear Push 2 TV box. The WiDi connection is akin to that of a Wi-Fi bridge, but has surprisingly decent clarity and can be initiated at the push of a button. Our initial tests worked well and at a far range, although a few subsequent tests had connection difficulties.

The playback works at resolutions up to 720p (although you can run 1080p files as well, they'll just display at the lower resolution), but DVDs and Blu-ray-formatted Discs are locked out for DRM reasons, limiting WiDi users to streamed Web programs or downloaded video files. The included Netgear box will eventually sell for $99 when this technology spreads to other laptops; if you consider that an included value, then the price of the Satellite E205-S1904 becomes even more reasonable. We also love that WiDi includes the transmission of sound, making it a complete cord-free solution for home users. We were very impressed with the results, but running WiDi will slow down your computer a good deal, which isn't going to be a problem, since the E205 mirrors whatever's on the screen to your television, and if you're streaming video, you likely won't be working on other projects.

Juice box
Toshiba Satellite E205-S1904	Average watts per hour
Off (60%)	0.45
Sleep (10%)	0.74
Idle (25%)	11.86
Load (05%)	55.78
Raw kWh Number	53.42
Annual power consumption cost	$6.06

The Toshiba Satellite E205-S1904 ran for 4 hours and 46 minutes on our video playback battery drain test, using the included six-cell battery. Though that's a solid amount of battery life for a mainstream laptop, it's only a few minutes different than the life of the Satellite E105-S1802. Our battery drain test is especially tough, so you can expect longer life from casual Web surfing and office use, but it's pretty spot on for video playback, which is what this system may spend a lot of time doing. Though thin-and-light laptops with ULV processors get longer battery life, this is a solid yet unspectacular number for a mainstream machine in a small body.

As part of Best Buy's Blue Label program, the Satellite E205-S1904 gets 30 days of Geek Squad customer service support, plus an extended two-year warranty from Toshiba. A toll-free phone number is available 24-7, and additional support and drivers can be found on Toshiba's Web site.

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System configurations:

Toshiba Satellite E205-S1904
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.26GHz Intel Core i5 M430; 4096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 64MB (Dedicated Video)/1695MB (Total) Intel Media Accelerator HD; 500GB Hitachi 5,400rpm

Dell Inspiron 1564
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 M520; 4096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330; 320GB Western Digital 5400rpm

Toshiba Satellite E105-S1802
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7450; 4096MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 128MB (Dedicated Video)/1759MB (Total) Mobile Intel GMA 4500MHD; 500GB Toshiba 5,400rpm

Sony Vaio VPC-EB1JFX/B
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.13GHz Intel Core i3 M330; 4096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz; 128MB (Dedicated) Intel Media Accelerator HD; 500GB Seagate 5,400rpm

HP ProBook 5310m
Windows 7 Professional (64bit) 2.26Ghz; Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300, 2048MB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz, 64MB Intel GMA 4500MHD, 320GB Seagate 7,200rpm