Toshiba M645

looks like metroman and I both decided on the toshiba over the samsung...The specs are better and you are right, the keys and especially the mouse pad just felt unnatural to me..overall I'm really excited to get this laptop. How hard is it to uninstall all of the bloat-ware?

 

I have no doubt you will be happy with your choice. I'm not sure if people have really given this laptop a good look see as I haven't seen allot of interest with this unit compared to others. And with this setup it deserves a little more recognition.

 

I just went in and uninstalled every application that had the word "Toshiba" in front of it. 75% of that stuff seems completely redundant to features that are already implemented in Win7.

 

Honestly, I've never liked the way the Toshiba's looked. They always reminded me of a lappy with too much wasted space around the keyboard and screen bezels, and just too big and bulky all over.

I have to admit, though, even with the battery, I'm quite pleased with this notebook. As soon as my SSD shows up, I believe the performance of the machine will really shine.

 

Would an owner of a 12 cell model please run a battery test such as Battery Eater (notebook benchmark tool) - Downloads

 

And ... did someone say the 12 cell actually weighs 8 lbs? Yikes.

 

The battery does not weigh 8 lbs. My total with the 12 cell battery was overall about 8 lbs. I am running the battery test but if it takes too long I will have to mess with that another time.

 

Thanks for battery test; I appreciate that. Sorry for the confusion, I did mean weight of M645 with 12 cell.

 

It is about 6 pounds with the 12 cell. That's the listed weight and to me it weighs almost exactly the same as my old 6 lb HP dv6000. Another poster also used a postal scale and came out to just under 6 lb.

 

I don't know if my test of this battery was proper, but the way I did it was in a real life setup for my situation. I did run the test and with the laptop set in a full on power mode with screen in full brightness and my cell phone plugged in to stay powered up and surfing the internet while it was doing it's test was for 2 hours and 15 min before the machine shut itself down and that was with the 12 cell battery. Now, I have't tested it with the unit in a balanced mode and not doing anything while it's running the test which is labor intensive as it works the CPU, Graphics and harddrive etc. in the test.

 

Rep

Thanks. Surprised at results.

 

BigD...are you still loving the laptop?? Did you test any games on it? I'm thinking about making the purchase...anything new to share? Thanks

 

I honestly think if I ran the test without other things running in the background and my phone not charging on it at the same time would have improved the time. When I have a day when I can spare the time I will try another test...

 

After using the laptop now I have to admit that I am very happy with the laptop. I have tried some games and it did good enough for my needs. For the price point for what you get it's one hell of a good laptop. I don't have anything to say in a negative lite. If you pick one up from best buy at least you get a return period without restocking fees for 14 days. Try it out. I'm curious what you will think.

 

Here is a quick update with the notebook's hard drive results, when the old mechanical hard disk is replaced with a Vertex 2-120GB SSD. I have no complaints, and that battery test that bigd ran are fantastic results, they crushed the Asus 8-cell that I had tested at a bit over an hour.

 

@BigD,
What kind of battery life are your getting with yout m645? I get 7.5-8 hrs according to windows and 6.5 hrs according to batterybar.

 

Just checked the weight with the 12-cell installed, about 5.8 lbs. here.

 

With the system in performance mode and doing allot of surfing etc I got 5 to 6 hours of actual use.

 

I think I am going to take my laptop to a local shipping place and have it weighed. That is the second person that has said about 6 lbs and if my scale is off that would make my wife happy lol. Seriously, I know being accurate is important.

 

Well, mine was a digital bathroom scale, so take that decimal place for what it's worth.



There's maybe a couple 0.1's in there for the difference of the old spindle drive vs. the NAND flash drive I suppose. The battery looks big in all the retail photos and such, but I kind of like how it props the system up, and keeps the intake vents clear. Dunno how the heavy mobile users would appreciate it though ...

 

um... by M645 u guys did mean Notebook Satellite M645 | Toshiba Leading Innovation - Asia did you?

why the picture some guy post in the front page is a little bit different?

also there is a backlit keyboard in this model here...

 

That was one of the things that sold me onthis laptop - the fact the battery acts as stand to allow better airflow. The laptop stays extremely cool when i use it on my legs and i am wearing shorts most of the time. That and how solid the KB felt.

 

xinn3r - If you go to the Toshiba website to look at notebook support options, I believe you will find a number of M645 sub-models (8 variations as of today). For example, the one at Best Buy here in the US is M645-S4050. So before you purchase, you would need to research the features that are specific to the target model.

 

A couple of questions. Does the battery span all the way across the base of the laptop, or is it shorter, and if is, by how much on each end?

Also, the one I saw at BB that was just sitting there running the typical BB info program, felt pretty warm just under the right side exhaust, which was blowing some pretty warm air. I'm thinking that it might get uncomfortable on my legs while doing typical web surfing. Anybody else notice this, and is it a problem at all for using it on your legs? Maybe it was just this particular machine. Thoughts?

Finally, how do you think the M645 compares overall against the Dell Inspiron 14R, especially for screen quality?

 

This laptop looks to be a VERY VERY good one. I'm looking forward for this laptop to reach Canada. Is there someone here that would know how much time it will take?

 

ok, thx for the info!

 

I use the M645 all the time on my lap. Heck using itnow as i type this response. Everything on it stays cool - the bottom, the battery, the palmrest. The hot air gets vented to the side intermittently but does not contact my legs. Bottom line is that it isn ot a problem to use on my legs. Stay quite cool when using it for wifi, web, email, office, and online videos. Cant comment on the Dell.

 

The notebook is about 13 1/4 inches wide, the battery is about 9 1/4" wide. The battery is not quite centered on the laptop, close but not quite.

 

Thanks for the info. Good to hear about the heat not being an issue. It might have just been that particular one I saw. I think I'll go to a couple of other nearby BB stores today or this week to check out their display model of the M645 and see if it feels warm or not, and I'll see if they will also put in the battery so I can see what it looks like and feels like with it installed. Definitely a nice looking machine with good specs.

 

The display model at the Daytona BB where i bought had the battery already in place. They did not have to put it in.

 

This thing can throw some heat when it's under some load. Keep in a couple things in mind:

- This machine has a fairly powerful processor in it, when it's kicking hard, along with discrete graphics, it's going to throw some heat.

- If you have the thing on your lap, then let's assume that it's not plugged in, and you have selected a power saving scheme that minimized processor usage (and it's not using the discrete video GPU). So the issue of how much heat it generates is basically based on your own personal preferrence with regards to the tradeoff on speed and power vs. battery life.

 

Trying to chose between
Toshiba M645-4050 and Asus UL80JT (both from BB).

0) to KryptoNyte:
-I found in your reports (thanks for it!) that they have only 20% difference in Processor WEI (6,8 for Toshiba and 5,5 for Asus) - so no huge gap between them. Is that corrects?
-why Graphics Aero WEI for Asus only 3 and for Toshiba 4,6. Don't they both have the same Nvidia 310M card?


1)what is the webcamera resolution in M645?

2) I wonder if somebody can compare which laptop has better keyboard and touchpad, do they have buttons of the same size?

3) Sound quality and max volume?

4) What about screen?
Which of this two models has less glare and reflections?

5) does any of them has international waranty?



Thank you,
Ed

 

0) Ed, I wouldn't give the WEI much weight. Compare the Sisoft Sandra CPU benchmark results (Agreggate arithmatic, drystone, whetstone) and I believe you'll find the Asus machine to be about 2/3 (or less) of the performance of the Toshiba, regarding CPU. The Intel HD graphics on both of these machines is the "primary" graphics chip, and is engineered into the CPU, and because the Aero desktop is powered by the Intel graphics, it doesn't surprise us that the Toshiba scores better in this region (again, it's just the WEI, so take it for what it's worth).

1) Don't know, never used it and I no longer have any apps installed to test it.

2) Keyboards are pretty subjective, they are both the Chicklet, but each has it's own feel for sure. Honestly, I don't see how anyone would be disappointed with either keyboard. Folks generally claim that the Asus notebooks have more flex, which I found to be slightly true, but not so much so that it would be a problem (for me). Really just personal preference here.

3) Sound quality and volume on the Toshiba is great for a notebook (speakers are right beneath the screen and fire upward). The Asus machine was okay, but as I recall, the speakers fired somewhat downward and were located on the front/bottom of the machine. Don't remember exactly.

4) I would think the screens on each machine are hard to tell apart, they use the same basic technology and are the same size and resolution. They're both glossy screens (as is just about every notebook these days it seems), so there will be some reflection.

5) No idea, but both of these machines were available at Best Buy, so I wouldn't count on the greatest warranty. To drive prices down, I'm pretty sure they all start at one year, and you pay extra for a longer term.

Again, I thought that both of them were nice machines. If you were looking for ultimately portability, and very light to no gaming, then the Asus would be a fine pick. If you are planning to run some processor heavy applications, Photoshop, video encoding, etc., then you would probably want the Toshiba. Neither machines will really rock any serious games, but I will note that the older Half Life 2 played fairly smooth on each (I didn't check framerates).

Both machines had zero trouble playing some of my largest 1080p HD video files. As someone else had already mentioned, on either machine, you can use the nVidia control panel to control which video processor is used for any specific executable file.

 

Just bought this laptop. Had my bb coworker pick it up for me at a different store. super excited for it! Sounds like alot of positive results so far!

 

Sounds like a great laptop but wish it could be like $50 bucks or more cheaper. This is because a lot of Gateway laptops have the same specs/ or better with the same price or less. But the only problem I have with the Gateway laptops are that they are too big. I need help choosing between this or this:

Gateway NV59C57U NoteBook Intel Core i5 450M(2.40GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470

Newegg.com - Gateway NV59C57U NoteBook Intel Core i5 450M(2.40GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470

I would like a 14" laptop but I dont think it is worth the price increase of 100. The Gateway has better aesthetics and better speakers, but less power in hardware. Is it worth it. Or the laptop at $800 in my signature. ( Don't really like the gigantic screen of 17")

 

I just got this laptop yesterday (M645-S4055) and I'm loving it! The only thing I'm a little bummed out about is how the GPU (330M in my case) is underclocked. I don't do too much PC gaming, so it's not a problem. Besides that, this is a great laptop. I'm also loving the backlit keyboard on this model! Battery life is over 3 hours on average (it depends on what you're doing). The bloatware was bad, but disabling most of the programs at startup fixed that issue (and removing the trails of course).

All in all, this is a great laptop no matter what variant you have.

 

Well darnit, now I wish mine had the backlit keyboard. Maybe someone will do a video on how to modify one ...

I just put a Gateway laptop down, only a couple years old, of course just out of warranty. Gateway machines don't strike me as one of the higher quality purchases these days.

 

Just to show off the backlit keyboard

The M645 looks pretty good in person. Sure it's not metal, but it has some pretty good plastic. The pictures on Newegg don't do it justice (it looks more like the press release pics). The speakers on the M645 are really good. I was surprised how loud these speakers are compared to most laptops! I'm not an audiophile, but I think the sound quality is really good. I'm not sure if you're looking into an Optimus M645 or not, but the Optimus models are great because of the automatic graphics switching. Guess I'm biased, but I'd pick the Toshiba over the Gateway if you want a nice combination of portability and power.

 

Hmmm, I pre-ordered the Asus U43JC Bamboo through BestBuy but now I am not sure if I should cancel that order and pick up one of these Toshiba M645 models.....Hmmmm

 

I got M645-4050 last week. I am having a problem with the built-in wireless card. It stops working after running for a while and only rebooting the computer can fixed the problem. I checked the windows setting for energy saving, and found no solution. Does any one have the same issue with this model ?

 

Awww. Mine looks so ... dark ... and lifeless now.

A couple of times using the notebook late at night, I kinda wish I could see the keys better. Looks good, TC.

I haven't had any problems with the wireless and have used it for some rather large, continuous downloads. It sounds like the user has already been into the power saving settings for "Wireless Adapter Settings -> Power Saving Mode -> Maximum Performance"

 

Yeah I just used my phone to snap a quick picture. I'd take some more, but I can't find my camera anywhere

jingle,

Like KryptoNyte said, the wireless card could be a power saving problem. It could be the wireless touch button above the keyboard, but I doubt that . You can try reinstalling the Broadcom drivers again and see if that does anything.

M645-S4050 Drivers

Just select the OS and what category of drivers you're looking. I hope that helps

 

Just wanted to mention something else. There are numerous drivers on the Toshiba website that are slated for this model, the M645-S4050, but some of them are simply not necessary as this machine doesn't have that hardware, like the Intel Wireless Display technology for example (and there are quite a few more in that driver list).

Now, I did a clean install of Win7 Home Premium from an OEM 64 bit install DVD, and there was one piece of hardware that just wouldn't dial in. I finally found the driver for the "Management Engine Interface" (MEI) that fulfilled that particular missing piece of hardware in Device Manager (I believe it was called simple communication device or something like that):

Lenovo Support & downloads - Intel AMT 6.0 - Management Engine Interface and Serial Over LAN driver (SOL) Driver for Windows 7 (32-bit, 64-bit), Vista (32-bit, 64-bit), XP - ThinkPad

Download and install "6ir114ww.exe"

That did the trick for the one driver not properly provided on the Toshiba website.

 

Out of curiosity is does anyone else have a webcam that is super blurry/grainy?

 

Yeah the webcam is a disappointing part of the laptop. Mine wasn't that blurry, but it was actually super sharp. Messing around the settings makes it acceptable, but nothing spectacular.

 

I am a little confused here. In windows device manager, it shows that the computer has a intel 6250N wireless card. but why on toshiba support the driver is acutally a Wi-FiBroadcom Wireless LAN Driver.

 

That's weird. I checked my device manager and it showed up as Broadcom 802.11n network adapter . There should be other drivers besides the Broadcom one on Toshiba's website. I know they have a few Intel drivers as well.

I'm actually having a problem myself. I've noticed my laptop was having a crackling/popping sound whenever I play an audio file or anything with audio. It doesn't happen often and it's not long (3 seconds max), but when it does happen, it's the most annoying sound ever. I don't think it's a hardware issue, but I'm not sure which drivers could be causing it. I tried updating the Realtek drivers, but it didn't do anything. Any suggestions?

EDIT: Doesn't look like a driver problem at all. I removed my Realtek drivers and I still get the same noise from the speakers. It only seems to happen at startup too.

 

Jingle, TC has a different machine than we purchased at Best Buy. My machine does have the 6250n with integrated WiMAX. Now, I can't answer the question to why Toshiba has a truckload of drivers that supposedly relate to just the one model, when clearly there are drivers in there for a few different models. That's really poor practice, and very confusing.

Anyone that's looking to re-format and do a clean install on your machine, please make sure you get a good print-out of your device manager hardware specifics (or better yet, if you're reading this, just do it now). This applies to any computer system. I also get a hard copy of my list of installed software.

 

Yeah I was just assuming these variants would have similar wireless cards, guess not. Toshiba's drivers site is weird since they don't organize laptop specific drivers. Even though you have to choose a laptop to see your "specific" drivers, you'll still get a bunch of different drivers that go for any laptop.

As for my little problem, I think I'll just deal with it. I only hear the buzzing/popping/distortion whenever I play a song from my hard drive right after I log in and no other sounds get distorted. So eh.

 

Is their a control panel for the optimus options? Or does it just automatically turn on lol..