Review: Toshiba Satellite S50D-A-10G

Introduction and design

Toshiba is a reliable choice if you're looking for a solid mid-range laptop, and the S50D-A-10G aims to continue that tradition with a tempting price of £480 (around US$820, AUD$870). At this end of the market, there's an interesting battle going on between Intel and AMD: while many systems still make do with Intel Core-branded chips, more than ever rely on AMD's APUs.

The S50D is one such machine. It's powered by an A10-5745M, which is the most potent APU that AMD currently puts inside laptops. It's got four cores, and each of those uses the Piledriver architecture – the same design that's found inside AMD's full-fat desktop processors.

Those four cores run at 2.1GHz, and they'll hit a peak of 2.9GHz using Turbo mode. APUs usually impress thanks to integrated Radeon graphics cores, but Toshiba has gone one step further with this machine: instead of relying on the Radeon HD 8610G core, it's fitted an HD 8550M discrete GPU.

The discrete chip and the integrated core both have 384 stream processors, with the HD 8550M clocked to 650MHz – a little faster than the 626MHz top speed of the HD 8610G. When more graphics power is needed, both cores can work together to deliver more grunt than the APU provides on its own.

Chipping in

This isn't the only recent system that's arrived with an AMD APU inside. The HP Pavilion TouchSmart 15-n070sa used an AMD chip from the ultra-mobile Kabini range, and Toshiba's own C50D-A-13G also deployed Kabini silicon.

Another Toshiba rival, the M50-A-11C, relies on Intel Core i5 hardware, and a left-field competitor comes from Lenovo: its IdeaPad Yoga 2 11 is an affordable hybrid device that uses an Intel Pentium processor.

The S50D looks strong with that AMD APU inside, but the rest of its specification isn't as enticing. 8GB of RAM is what we expect from mid-range machines these days, and the 1TB hard disk has plenty of space – but its 5,400rpm spindle speed suggests poor performance.

The screen's 15.6-inch diagonal is decent, but the 1,366 x 768 resolution is low – and it's not a touchscreen, either. At least there's a DVD writer, which is often omitted from laptops.

Ports and connectivity

There's little to shout about on the connectivity front. Bluetooth 4.0 is another standard inclusion, but the Ethernet connection isn't Gigabit, and the 802.11n Wi-Fi is single-band. Around the edges are two USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0 connection, HDMI and D-SUB outputs, an SDXC card reader and two headphone jacks – a standard load-out.

The exterior is typical Toshiba. It's mostly plastic, with a thin layer of aluminium used across the wrist-rest and to coat the back of the lid, and glossy black elsewhere – so it can't be accused of being ugly, but it's not going to draw any admiring glances either.

Build quality is mixed; the wrist-rest didn't move much when depressed, but the plastic underside feels weaker – and the middle of the screen is similarly flimsy. We'd advise slipping the S50D inside a case before it leaves the house. The 2.38kg weight and 24mm-thick body aren't impressive, either; this machine is thicker and heavier than three of its rivals, with only the Toshiba Satellite C50 proving chunkier.

The Scrabble-tile keyboard is made from glossy plastic, and it has a good layout. Toshiba has found room on the wide S50D to fit a numberpad, and most of the keys are large enough, with big backspace and shift keys and a double-height Return button – we'd only quibble about the tiny spacebar.

Quality is serviceable, too. The keys don't have enough travel, but that's not a huge problem: they're heavy and consistent enough to provide solid feedback without feeling too weighty, and the base is strong. We quickly got up to speed – an improvement on most of the other systems mentioned here, which combined low-travel keys with flimsy bases.

Little stands out about the trackpad – its surface is fine and the two buttons are light and clicky, although they feel a little too cheap for our tastes.

Performance

PCMark 8

Home test, High Performance: 2611

Home test, Power Saver: 1475

Home battery, Balanced, screen 50%: 3hrs 52mins

Home battery, High Performance, screen 100%: 3hrs 7mins

Home battery, Power Saver, screen 25%: 4hrs 17mins

3DMark

Ice Storm: 44,210

Cloud Gate: 4,616

Fire Strike: 1,102

DiRT 3

1,366 x 768, High quality: 37fps

Bioshock Infinite

1,366 x 768, Low quality: 32fps

Cinebench R11.5

OpenGL: 15.48fps

CPU: 1.31

Cinebench R15

OpenGL: 17.38

CPU: 118cb

The AMD APU wasn't troubled by our PC Mark 8 benchmarks – as its benchmark score of 2,611 demonstrates. That result is better than the Lenovo's Pentium chip, and it's also quicker than the modest AMD hardware inside the HP Pavilion and the Toshiba Satellite C50. Only the Toshiba Satellite M50, with its Intel Core i5 silicon, was faster.

That impressive processing result was backed up in Cinebench. This machine was easily quicker than the HP Pavilion, Toshiba Satellite and Lenovo IdeaPad, although it still fell behind the Intel-powered Toshiba.

The Radeon HD 8610G graphics core inside the A10-5745M proved its worth in benchmarks, too. Its 3D Mark Ice Storm result over 44,210 is better than three of its rivals – again, only the Toshiba Satellite M50 was quicker because of its discrete Nvidia GeForce GT 740M graphics card.

That reasonable theoretical result means that it's possible to play top games – as long as you're prepared to drop down to lower quality levels. We ran older racing title DiRT 3 at High settings and 1,366 x 768, and the game scored a smooth 37fps, and at Bioshock Infinite's Low quality level and the same resolution this more modern game ran at 32fps.

Toshiba hasn't installed a particularly big battery in this machine, so it's no surprise that its longevity didn't impress. In Balanced mode with the screen at 50% brightness the Toshiba lasted for just shy of four hours, with this figure extending to 4hrs 17mins with Power Saver mode enabled and the screen's brightness turned to 25%. That's shorter than every other laptop we've mentioned here, albeit not by much.

We turned the screen to full brightness and activated High Performance mode, and the Toshiba lasted for 3hrs 7mins – another mediocre result. However you cut it, this machine just won't last a full day away from the mains.

Screen issues

The screen's 1,366 x 768 resolution is what we expect on affordable consumer machines, and the glossy panel isn't a touchscreen. That low resolution is about par for the course on consumer systems, and it's not exactly generous – it makes it difficult to work with two windows open side-by-side, for instance.

Quality isn't high, either. The brightness level of 230:1cd/m2 is reasonable, but the black level of 1.02cd/m2 is dreadful – and it means the contrast of 225:1 is just as bad. That means the Toshiba's screen delivers a narrow range of colours, with a lack of punch at the top-end and black tones that look more like insipid greys.

The colours that are displayed aren't accurate, either. The colour temperature of 6,947K is on the cold side of the 6,500K ideal level, and the average Delta E of 11.31 is one of the worst we've seen. The final nail in this coffin is the sRGB gamut coverage: the Toshiba's screen could only display 59.2% of this undemanding range.

The screen is only capable of handling basic tasks, light work and low-end games, and it's paired with mediocre speakers. Volume is reasonable, and the mid-range is suitably crunchy, but the high-end is dominated by tinny sounds, and there's not nearly enough bass.

As with most other machines at this price, the Toshiba has a 1TB hard disk rather than a pricier, smaller SSD. The 2.5-inch mobile hardware inside this machine ran through our sequential read and write tests at 106MB/s and 100MB/s – entirely average results. The lack of solid-state pace means that application and OS loading times are slow, and the 24s boot time is poor too – around half the speed of the best SSD-powered devices.

Conclusion

Building a budget laptop always involves compromise, so you'll have to figure out exactly what you want before taking the plunge with a system like the S50D.

The AMD APU, when combined with the discrete graphics card, makes this the most powerful AMD-powered budget laptop we've seen recently, and it's also got more grunt than machines equipped with Intel's low-end chips. The rest of the specification doesn't break any speed records, but the 1TB hard disk and DVD writer provide versatility.

The concentration on components does mean the screen is poor, and the exterior is uninspiring, with this laptop having a rather mixed build quality overall.

We liked

The core components in this system performed well: the S50D has enough processing power to outpace any machine unless it's got a Core i5 processor inside, and there's enough gaming grunt here to run modern titles – albeit with the quality settings toned down.

The rest of the specification is versatile, and it's wrapped inside a reasonably sturdy exterior.

The keyboard has a comfortable typing action and a solid base, and all this costs less than £500 (US$855, AUD$900) – which means it's around the same price as the slow, Pentium-powered Lenovo hybrid and much cheaper than the £630 (US$1,080, AUD$1,140) Toshiba Satellite M50.

We disliked

The use of good components has meant cost-cutting elsewhere, and the most obvious area where the budget bites is the 15.6-inch screen.

It's not a touchscreen, and the 1,366 x 768 resoulution rules out serious work on this system – and it's not good enough for 1080p films, either. The screen's quality is sorely lacking. It's just about bright enough, but it falls down in every other benchmark, from black level and contrast to colour accuracy and gamut coverage.

The speakers are mediocre, the connectivity options aren't any better, and the battery life is similarly middling – if that's a chief concern, more longevity is available elsewhere.

And, while build quality isn't bad, this machine certainly has the occasional structural weaknesses, and the plastic and aluminium exterior won't turn any heads.

Final verdict

The Toshiba has its issues, then, but none of them are deal breakers if you're searching for a budget laptop – rather, they're things that just have to be accepted.

If you want a system for general computing and light gaming and you'd rather concentrate on processing power, it's an ideal buy thanks to the combination of an AMD APU and discrete graphics core. If screen quality or battery life are more important, though, look elsewhere.

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