Toshiba Satellite T135D-S1324 – Another Thin-And-Light T135

Pros

The Toshiba Satellite T135D-S1324 has got a light chassis, 13 inch screen and better than Netbook performance, and all that just for $599.

Cons

The Toshiba Satellite T135D-S1324’s keyboard and touch pad tends to heat up  during extended usage, has got weak speakers and its dual-core AMD Neo processor doesn’t provides any upgrading from the Intel processors used in earlier versions.

Introduction

We were keenly interested in Toshiba’s Satellite T135 series right from the time it was announced, and was interested for two reasons: Price and Performance. The line of slim-and-light ultra-portable from Toshiba announced last year made an immediate impact on the market, and a lot of potential buyers like us were waiting for them. And Just as expected Toshiba’s Satellite T135 series didn’t disappoint us and in the world with endless Netbooks with same old Atom processors, it pierced with its highly potent higher-powered dual-core processor for example the U4100 in the Toshiba T135-S1310. It made a huge difference in the quantity of productivity that we could expect in a slim laptop with firm battery life. Though the Satellite T135 line can’t be tagged as super-compact Netbooks, but with their 13-inch screen, the system is light, easy to carry and is a good value buys for the users looking for a fully loaded ready-to-go system with performance a lot better than what many of the other Netbooks have to offer.

Toshiba since then has made a lot of additions to its T135 lineup. It has added AMD Turion Neo X2 processors which has caused a tad reduction in overall price of the all-ready practical price of the T135-S1310 fitted with an Intel U4100 processor. Another addition was made to Toshiba Satellite T135D-S1324 in the form of additional ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200 graphics, which brought out some reasonable gaming possibilities. Though, there was a tad drop in the overall performance of T135D-S1324 in comparison to T135-S1310. But if saving money is on your thin-and-light Netbook is one your mind, that too without loosing too much then this is a worth considering option.

Design

At a glance, there isn’t any heavy dissimilarity between the design of T135D and the T135 series. They all shares the same aesthetics which we have seen in entire Toshiba Satellite lineup, though they all are noticeably dissimilar from the Satellite NB Netbook line up. The interiors and exteriors for the Toshiba T135D-S1324 are swathed in checked pattern lustrous surface with Fusion Finish in red, white or black. Though, the T135D can be differentiated among the others with its chrome highlights on its touch pad buttons and down the edge of its palm rest. Except for a large “Toshiba” logo imprinted at the back of the laptop, the overall design for the system is pretty simple and offers a neat profile with a battery which is well integrated right at the bottom with minimal protuberance.

Just as the exterior, the interior for Toshiba T135D-S1324 also has got the lustrous treatment right around the screen and keyboard, just as any other T135 model you will see. Actually the overall build for the system is identical, and it also is pretty light with a lid which bends a bit at the base and plenty of plastic. But now that we have seen so many T135s the one thing that we can say in general about their designing is that they all have sturdy profile, comparatively smaller touch pad, a little mushy keyboard, hard to press and awkwardly shaped keyboard.

The Toshiba T135D-S1324’s 13.3 inch glossy LED-backlit screen has a native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, with great brightness level and sharp colors. The system appeared perfectly crisp to us, although we wished the speakers would have got the same quality as the screen. The speaker quality was satisfactory, but the volume level should have been a bit more.

System Configuration

Price: $599.99
Manufacturer: Toshiba
Part Number: PST3LU-001004
Notebook type: Ultra-portable (Under 4 lbs.)   Budget Netbook
OS Provided: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition

Dimensions (W x D x H): 12.7 x 8.8 x 1.3 inches
System weight: 4 lbs
Screen size (diagonal): 13.3 inches
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200

Processor: 1.6GHz AMD Turion Neo X 2 Dual-Cores L625
Hard Drive: 320GB 5,400rpm
Memory: 4GB, 800 MHz DDR2

Video: VGA-out, HDMI
Display Type: 13.3 in TFT active matrix
Max Resolution: 1366 x 768 (WXGA)
Data: 1 USB 2.0/sleep and charge, 2 USB 2.0, SD card reader
Expansion Slots Total (Free): 2 (0) x Memory

Optical Drive: None
Audio: Headphone/Microphone jacks, Stereo speakers
Software: Toshiba ReelTime , Google Toolbar , Toshiba DVD Player , Toshiba ConfigFree , Adobe Acrobat Reader , Microsoft Works 9.0 , Toshiba HDD recovery , Toshiba Disc Creator , Toshiba Bulletin Board , Microsoft Silverlight , Toshiba Media Controller , Toshiba Bluetooth Stack , Toshiba PC Health Monitor , Face Recognition software , Sun Java 2 Runtime Environment , Microsoft Windows Media Player , Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 , Toshiba Recovery Media Creator , Microsoft Windows Live Essentials , Toshiba Power-Saving Eco Utility , Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Edition (60 days trial), Norton Internet Security 2010 (30 days subscription)
Supported flash memory cards: MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, xD-Picture Card, SD Memory Card, SDHC Memory Card, Memory Stick Pro
Built-in Devices: Stereo speakers and Wireless LAN antenna
Features: Security lock slot, TruBrite and LED-backlit

Performance

Toshiba’s approach of switching AMD Neo processor with ATI graphics hasn’t made any significant impact on the performance of T135 series. On the contrary in our testing the AMD Turion Neo X2 Dual-Core L625 processor delivered comparatively slow performance than the dual-core Pentium U4100 T135-S1310, although the difference was marginal. Toshiba Satellite T135D-S1324 also comes with AMD Turion Neo X2 Dual-Core L625 processor and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200 GPU, and hence it also was marginally (negligible) slow in our gaming and multitasking tests. The scores in both the tests definitely wasn’t the best that we expect, but certainly wasn’t worst either, in fact was much better than Atom Netbooks that comes with Nvidia Ion graphics.

The Toshiba Satellite T135D-S1324 comes with six-cell battery, which ran for 5 hours and 59 minutes in our demanding video playback battery draining test. But the actual environment in which the Toshiba Satellite T135D-S1324 will be used will be a lot lighter than our tests environment and hence you can expect a lot better performance than this. Though, the battery life for Toshiba Satellite T135D-S1324 is a tad slower than T135-S1310, but if you are looking to save $100, then it’s clearly sufficient.

Support

Toshiba Satellite T135D-S1324 comes with one year standard parts and labor warranty from Toshiba, you even can upgrade this warranty to three-year coverage. The support is accessible 24*7 through a toll-free number, a Web site with driver downloads and an online knowledge base.

Word from the Experts

Toshiba Satellite T135D-S1324 offers just a slight (or negligible) drop in performance with its switching to an AMD Neo processor, but at the same time saves $100 for you and hence according to us, it definitely could be considered.