Toshiba Satellite Click 2 review

The Click 2 is definitely not a stunner from Toshiba, but it's a big improvement from the original convertible hybrid. Thanks to a more capable Pentium processor I never ran into any of the performance issues on the original Click and its AMD CPU. What's more, the new Intel chip also seems to have fixed the short battery life, which also plagued the Click 2's predecessor.

We liked

Going Intel was a boon for the Click 2. Not only has the new chipset dramatically improved the performance of this hybrid laptop, it's also drastically extended the battery life to over six hours. Toshiba hasn't sacrificed processing horsepower for more power sipping performance either. I was easily able to run all of my typical, resource intensive applications without any hiccups. The great screen, meanwhile, is just an extra bit of icing to go with the Click 2 surprisingly excellent performance.

Recently Microsoft and its computer manufacturing partners have been in search of affordable, power-efficient Windows 8.1 laptops to compete with Chromebooks and the Click 2 offers a glimpse of that future could be. Plus the screen detaches to become a tablet.

We disliked

While the Click 2 has fixed many of the ills that plagued its predecessor, Toshiba's hybrid is still far from being perfect. The most glaring flaw of the Click 2 is its absolutely dreadful design. It's shape is lopsided making it just as awkward to balance on your lap as it is unwieldy to hold. The design as a whole just seems backwards and while that might its characteristic signature, it's really not working here Toshiba.

Final verdict

The Click 2 is a step in the right direction and Toshiba has improved greatly from the originally Click, which in general was a borked machine in every way. Still it's not a notebook I would easily recommend, especially when the Lenovo Yoga 2 11 has can be had for the same affordable price. Plus the two machines share very similar specs. Sure you're sacrificing some screen real estate, but Lenovo has nailed its hybrid design and a 11.6-inch tablet might actually be more comfortable in your hands.

With the Click 3 I can only hope Toshiba will go back to the drawing board to create a slimmer, lighter and easier to hold laptop hybrid. Once it does that, Toshiba could have a very hot convertible machine on its hands.