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The Toshiba Satellite C670D has some good specifications on paper, but how does it perform in the real world? First impressions of this laptop are pretty good. The laptop boots and loads Windows 7 Home Premium in only a few minutes, enabling you to begin opening documents and running your favourite programs while less powerful laptops would still be starting up.
Start-up speed and general Windows performance is unfortunately compromised by the amount of additional free software that Toshiba has seen fit to include with the Satellite C670D. While some of this software might be found useful, on the whole these extra programs add nothing new, and serve only to take up precious hard drive space and system resources.
Luckily this is only a minor quibble that can be rectified easily by uninstalling the programs you don't want. You can even speed up the process by using PCDecrapifier.com to remove unwanted pre-installed programs. After removing these programs, the increase in performance is noticeable.
The integrated AMD Radeon HD 6310 graphics card does well at making the most of the Toshiba Satellite C670D's generous screen size, with movies looking great, helped by the very good contrast ratio of the screen. When it comes to 3D gaming the strain begins to show, with frame rates suffering when more detail and action is displayed.
Processor performance can also be a bit choppy, and the AMD E-350 processor falters where a Core i3 would have flown. For day to day computing, the Toshiba Satellite C670D's performance is absolutely fine, and the RAM keeps multitasking basic programs ticking over nicely. However, when using more complicated programs – especially at the same time – the performance does dip, which can be a frustrating experience.
The size of the laptop of course impacts on how portable the Toshiba Satellite C670D is. At 2.83kg this isn't a lightweight laptop, and certainly is more suited to use around the home. The battery life suffers somewhat from the additional bulk, giving you around four and a half hours of computing time away from a power source.
As you'd expect, the more complex the programs you run, the sharper the battery life falls. If you're on the lookout for a laptop you can take on the road and work on, an Acer Timeline such as the Acer Aspire Timeline X 3820TZ, offers a far longer battery life.
Benchmarks
3D Mark: 5620
Battery life: 272 minutes
