Review/Feedback on U500?

Am stuck between a Sony SR and a U500.

U500 is quite a bit cheaper than the SR but looks hella fat and looks generically bland. The tiny 3700mAH battery probably won't hold up at all as well..

Anyone that bit on this?

 

Haha, I'm in the same predicament as you! Although throw in the Asus u80v as well. Hard choices. The thing that concerns me about the Toshiba is the lack of reviews and potential build quality issues. Also, it doesn't seem like the u500's screen is led backlit? In any case, you can get a pretty sweet set up from toshibadirect, including slot loading dvd and such. Any hands on information would be greatly appreciated.

 

The U500 also looks to have a glossy keyboard which would be a real downer. But the Sony have a history of paint rubbing off. The U500 seems to be LED:

 

I originally posted these in another thread, but they probably ought to be here;

Review of the U500, though only with intel integrated graphics.

http://computershopper.com/laptops/reviews/toshiba-satellite-u505-s2930

and a short video rundown of the new models

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=53672

 

Wow 4.7 lbs.

Any ideas if the keyboard is indeed glossy (like the Acer Timeline) or not? Wonder how much bulk and added battery life the 12cell will give as well. Ugh, lack of reviews/attention FTL.

 

Laptopmag has a review for the U500 (not 4570).

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptop/toshiba-satellite-u505.aspx

 

Went to a local store (futureshop) today to browse around for Sony colors and WALA, happened to come across a U500! My "won't be there for long" turned into more of an excursion.

Here's what I observed:
- It is THICK. Stack 2 HTC Magics or 2 Timelines and this is what you'll get (so to speak). Adding the 12 cell battery will probably make this into a camel.
- There is NO HDMI in the 4500MHD version. The HDMI slot is simply covered/sealed.
- Keyboard is glossy, but not as bad as a Timeline. Not that bad really.
- The mouse buttons are NOT glossy. Maybe if you opt for the chrome addon it will have it, but normally it doesn't.
- The matte surface is nice, not brushed aluminum nice but the texture definitely will not smudge or attract fingerprints.
- Did I also mention it is mega thick? The HP TZ2 (the tablet..) is pretty damn thick, but I think this may be thicker or just as thick.

Pictures take too much effort to transfer so I'll leave it for now.

 

There is HDMI in 4500MHD as long as it is U505-S2930 or higher. Check http://laptops.toshiba.com/laptops/satellite/U500

 

Where do you see it?

 

I actually work for a division within Toshiba and have recently ordered up a completely loaded U500. Did a custom build with every option except the office software, this is a laptop I'll use for work and it will be with me pretty much for 12 hours out of the day for work use.

When it shows up I'll be happy to give my takes on it and how it works for me. I had dug around at the HPs and such recently and the Acer 751h but when Toshiba came out with the U500 and the NB205 I decided to get them instead. Work pays for them as well if I go that route.

Right now I've got a loaded Tecra A7 that has been fantastic, but it's battery life is horrid and it is a bit heavy for carrying around on long days.

Also ordered up the NB205 in blue, hoping I can use that for most of my daily work as an in between the blackberry and the U500.

 

You know what, i'm really tempted to buy the U500 over the Sony, but that brown finish is a real turn off. I think i'd almost rather have the gloss like the other models.

 

I love the Fusion finish on my U405. Not really impressed with the finish on the U505.

 

It's not even brown; It's pretty much black. I wouldn't ever spend money on a glossy surfaced notebook, fewer things in hell worse than that.

But I have to say the finish is very plasticky. Almost GM/Ford/Chrysler plasticky (the "older" pre-2008 models, if you've ever rented one...)

 

In specs here and here + at photo here

 

I also posted a video here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=400953

 

Got my customized U500 today! I selected every upgrade I could on the build sheet with the exception of MS Office, it is provided by my work on a corp. license.

I'm in the process of imaging it's factory image on the HD before I boot it up and start checking it out, but I thought I'd post my initial impressions.

With the 12 cell battery, it's a little heavier then expected, but not too bad at all considering how much is packed into it.

Really, really like the external finish on it. It's not glossy at all and there is just the slightest tinge of brown in the coloring so it doesn't look like a drab black plastic. The chrome-ish accents around the edges are a nice touch as well, doesn't look tacky.

Backlight on the keyboard is killer, I really like how it looks and it makes the keys much easier to find.

Slot load drive is nice, but it's a little on the noisy side. Still think it looks 100 times better on the device then the huge faceplate on the standard drive.

Overall I think it has alot of potential and I'm anxious to see how the performance holds up on it.

There will be more to follow, once the image is complete and I've had a chance to actually boot from the internal HD....

 

Okay, I've had a little time to use it and have already stripped off Vista Ultimate. Before I started doing any modifications to it, I made a ghost image of the entire HD so I can recover it back to factory shipped state.

I uninstalled all the extra crapware that came on the system and upgraded to windows 7 using the RTM image that I'll be getting in october. If I can rearm it 3 times, I can make it 180 days and I should have my license key by then. The upgrade went well enough, but in retrospect I should have uninstalled the ATI software and the Intel wireless lan stuff I think. After the upgrade was complete after the system finished booting it would freeze solid.

I booted into safe mode and all was fine so I figured it was a startup application or service doing it so I disabled them all. Uninstalled the ATI and Intel software and still had locks so I went through and slowly re-enabled them all a few at a time. Eventually it booted fine normally and I reinstalled a few of the Toshiba specific apps and all was good.

Windows 7 performance is great and all seems to work just fine with the latest software and drivers, hopefully the lockup issue I had will be worked out before the masses upgrade.

Brought it over to a friends house and had a chance to test all the ports out, had 2 usb ports plugged in, eSATA and HDMI to a 65" Mitsu DLP. Worked well at 1080p, didn't even have to adjust overscan / timings. HDMI brought audio right through it as well, didn't have to set anything up.

Played some UT3 on the TV and the LCD, with a little tweaking I can run medium / some high settings at 1280x800 while getting 35-45fps steady.

12 cell battery makes it about 5:30 at normal power settings, not sure what eco mode would do for that. The GPU locks into a low power state when on battery and I haven't adjusted anything with that yet. I bet I could get 4 hours out of it playing a 3D intensive game with the power saving settings at their lowest.

Overall still pretty impressed, seems very quick and the HD is nice and responsive in normal tasks.

Found out how to turn off the bright media / one touch keys! It's in the BIOS as LED Illumination, and can also be set from the HWSetup utility in Windows. Windows power profiles can also control this setting from what I've seen.

If anyone wants me to run a benchmark or test or whatever let me know.

 

Thank you for the review HaTaX. Not sure what test you would run for this, but how high do the temperatures get on the U500? I'm trying to decide between the Asus U80V and the U500, and with so many other things being equal, how warm the computer gets during gaming seems to be one of the deciding factors.

 

Do you have any idea how long it would last playing 1080p h264 (with the 12-cell)? Ya think maybe 3 hours?

Edit: And how's the screen? Viewing angles, etc.

 

I have an infrared thermometer that I can check to see how warm it gets next time I put it through it's paces. But, the FIRST thing I noticed after using it to play on the TV was that it was not hot at all, only mildly warm. Was pretty impressed with it's temps and it was just sitting on the floor on short pile carpet. The battery sticks out on the bottom so it probably helped keep the vents on the bottom open.

Also tried getting the fans on it to max out by running orthos on it and covering up the fan output. Watching in the Toshiba Health Monitor utility that came with it (and doesn't report temps ) I couldn't get the fan to go over 50% and it never really got that hot.

As far as movies go I haven't had a chance to play with that much yet but I am getting to it. Side to side viewing angles are great, viewing from the bottom seems a little better then the top. Top and bottom aren't terrible, but I'd say typical of lcd panels in this category.

Honestly with the 12 cell you could easily make it 4 hours watching a 1080p movie with the decoding offloaded to the GPU. I'd say close to 4:30 would be a better target.

 

Sounds great

I'm seriously considering this....

Also, cnet and pcadvisor, pcadvisor being much more positive than cnet au

 

I am looking at the U500 too with the ATI discrete graphics option but I am also looking at the Sony Z.

I guess the Toshiba one allows me to play some games whereas the Z is a great portable laptop for doing word processing and going online.

Too many choices in life I tell you! Hehe.

 

NBR's own review says that it is a CCFL screen...

 

I *think* it's an LED screen with the bar being across the top, but I could be mistaken. The light looks pretty even until viewed from the bottom and the light appears to bleed slightly at the top.

Also, I've installed RMClock on my U500 with the following settings:


This has helped my battery life by about 10-15% and with the extended battery that equals out to about another hour! I have the P8700 in mine, so depending on your CPU it will most likely differ from my results. Also there was a noticeable heat reduction with this simple change.

With it tweaked a little bit I can run UT3 at 1280x800 with medium / high settings and maintain 30+fps. It runs 45 or so in the light scenes and drops to the low 30s in heavy scenes. Pretty happy with that.

 

has anyone played CoD4 on one of these? I'd love to see some FPS numbers

 

i guess not that many people have this laptop...

 

It's still fairly new as well, and I think some people are holding off for the Windows 7 craze when it's released next month.

I would think with those UT3 numbers I posted, you could easily get COD4 into the same framerate without AA and perhaps a few of the high graphics settings turned down.

Still quite happy with this little rig, has alot of power and with the 12 cell battery I can get about 5-6 hours of use out of it depending on brightness and usage.

 

It's an interesting product. Here it is sold for 999€ with an ATI 4570 and a P8700.

But unfortunately the original battery is somewhat weak with 3700mAh.
And i don't know how much extra the 12-cell battery will cost or whether it will be avaible here at all. (I guess if...then it will surely cost over 100€ .

Can you actually switch completly to the 4500HMD when you want to be mobile?

Also i am quite interested in the screen quality.....i am not a big fan of glossy screens, cause of the reflections which make it impossible to use it outdoors.
I am interested how strong the reflections are and how bright the screen can be at max. setting, also the contrasts.

Other than that it seems to be a good notebook.

I have yet to see a detailed review here (with the ATI video card).

EDIT:
Found out that with the original 3700mAh battery it will run about two and a half hour max. .....

But the most funny thing is that here they offer only 4700mAh battery as an upgrade!

And now the the biggest joke ever.....it costs about 170€ !!!

I can't find words to describe this comparing the offer in the US .........

 

What a pity.....

A review is now published (in german) and the biggest flaw of this device is .....the display.

It seems that the manufactures like to save money in this departement.

The review says, that the display has strong reflections and bad contrasts (100:1) , therefore it is not usable outdoors.

That's real a let-down and yet another dissappointment.

I think they should offer a display-upgrade......