Toshiba Satellite U405-S2820
Notebook Reviews > Toshiba Satellite > U405-S2820

Review Date: 20th July' 08

Satellite U405 is a mobile, sleek and light 13.3-inch laptop. It weighs only 4.85 pounds, and Toshiba calls it a compact laptop that balances between working capability and carrying comfort. It has many new features and decent specs, making it worth a look in the thin-and-light category.

Satellite U405 may seem like a small and average notebook, but be assured that it actually has superior performance in comparison with most notebooks out there now.

Toshiba Satellite U405 packs a solid Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn performance (from 1.73GHz to 2.4GHz). It is powered by Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium. Other good features include a hard drive with big storage space (up to 250GB), 3GB of memory (can be upgraded up to 4GB), a webcam, and a fingerprint reader for security measures. Toshiba has intended this notebook to be small and light weight, hence it sports a 13.3" diagoanal widescreen TruBrite TFT LCD display. The graphics card is Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 with shared configurable 128MB-358MB memory. This notebook also comes with other standard features like WiFi, Bluetooth and a DVD+/-RW optical drive.

In terms of design and built, the new Satellite U405 look is definitely an improvement over previous versions. The new look is a "Horizon" pattern with a "Fusion" finish, in layman's terms it means silver-gray and black pinstripes combined in a metallic sheen. The high-gloss "Fusion" finish is imprinted design and it is both durable and attractive at the same time. Fans of glossy design will be happy to know that the back of the display can easily double up as your dressing mirror.

Although this unit is not large, it has enough space in the interior for the keyboard, the keys are large and comfortable to use. However the glossy plastic material of the keyboard keys is too much for our liking. Fingerprints are everywhere, you can be sure to trace the last person who have used the notebook if you tried hard enough. In close proximity are the media buttons with white LEDs, which are preferable because they are less bright and aren't as distracting as those on other notebooks.

The 13.3 inch display offers up to 1,280x800 native resolution. It has glossy screens which means good colors and contrasts and images and video seemed to "pop" off the screen due to some 3d effects. What makes this glossy screen particularly nice is that Toshiba seems to have struck the perfect balance between gloss and matte. It is glossy enough to have superior contrast and added color richness and yet the surface is not so glossy that reflections become a big problem.

Connectivity options are good with Satellite U405. It is well equipped with FireWire, 3 USB 2.0 ports, a headphone jack, a media card reader, microphone jack, Ethernet port and ExpressCard slot. It also has Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity.

The audio performance of the Toshiba U405 is a little better than an average 13.3" notebook but it is nowhere near your home theatre unit. There are 2 small speakers located above the keyboard produces average sound quality with no bass at all. On a more positive note, at least the speakers can produce loud sounds when their volume is configured.

The Satellite U405 is one of the best 13-inch consumer budget notebook in the market now. It is not optimized for power-hungry 3D gaming, but it can do the usual spreadsheet, word processing, multimedias and internet surfing with absolute ease. The U405 is the most balanced overall package that we have seen in quite a while.