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Posted on September 29th, 2009 by Tim Danton
Toshiba Satellite T110 and Satellite T130 review: first look
Last night we got our first glimpse of the Toshiba Satellite T110 and Toshiba Satellite T130 for a hands-on, first-look review of the two laptops – both based on Intel’s CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) processors.
Toshiba claims the new chips are a step above the Atom found in most netbooks, “They offer more performance and features, while allowing better design and battery life,” said Tony Alderson, Toshiba’s consumer product manager, at the central London event where the laptops were launched.
“To misquote Nigel Tufnel from This is Spinal Tap, they go up to 11: you get a full 11 hours of battery life.”
This refers to the Toshiba Satellite T130, which – Toshiba claims – can keep going for 11 hours from a single charge. Exactly how much life you gain, however, depends on the processor, with the T130 to be supplied with a Celeron, Intel Pentium and Intel Single Core CPU.
This isn’t the only way it’s the bigger brother to the Satellite T110, which offers up to nine hours of life. As can be seen from the photograph above, it’s substantially larger too, with a 13.3in screen to the T110’s 11.6in display. They share the same LED backlighting technology and 1,366 x 768 resolution, however.
Both also include three USB ports (all of which support Toshiba’s Sleep-and-Charge technology, which allow you to charge your smartphone’s battery, say, even while the Satellite is in Sleep mode), Bluetooth 2.1 and 802.11bgn Wi-Fi.
Toshiba was a little coy in terms of dimensions, only announcing that both are 22.2mm thick at the front. We suspect that rises to around 35mm thick at the back, but neither of these are huge beasts. Note, though, that they don’t include optical drives.
From my brief time with the laptops, they impressed. The screens looked up to Toshiba’s usual high level of quality, with no obvious backlight leakage and vibrant colours – as ever, though, we’ll wait to get our hands on the models in our Labs before giving our definitive verdict here.
Build quality appears similarly high. Wrapped up in shiny plastic – and available in “Precious Black”, “Iron Red Metallic” and “Luxe White Pearl” (the latter is only available for the T130) – they could easily pass off for much more expensive laptops.
In fact, the T110 will start from around £429 inc VAT and the T130 from around £479 inc VAT. Considering the Satellite T110 weighs 1.58kg, and even the 13.3in Satellite T130 weighs just 1.76kg, that suggests both could tempt buyers away from the more luxurious netbooks (such as the Sony VAIO Mini W Series).
Interestingly, Toshiba will also be supplying a version of the Satellite T130 with Windows 7 Professional rather than Home Premium: the ingeniously named Toshiba Satellite Pro T130. Though it couldn’t confirm the price at yesterday’s launch, this could provide a strong alternative to the traditional, expensive ultraportable laptops on offer to businesses.
It adds up to a strong debut for Intel’s CULV technology, and if this is the sign of budget laptops to come then we’ve all got a lot to look forward to.
The only question marks hang over performance: just how much faster than the Intel Atom are these new processors? As soon as we’ve had a chance to test them in our Labs, we’ll let you know.
Posted in: Hardware, Just in, Windows 7
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28 Responses to “ Toshiba Satellite T110 and Satellite T130 review: first look ”
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October 1st, 2009 at 9:03 am
Nice chandelier in the reflection, is that how PC Pro rolls?
October 1st, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Oh yes. Chandaliers, butlers, rambling country houses…
October 24th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Great looking laptops. I’ve just been taking a look on Toshiba’s website and had them down as being much more expensive products going by how they look. It will be interesting to see how they perform yet. No sign of them at retailers yet either.
October 26th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
I’ve just bought a T110, and after two days at least I love it… amazing battery life, good keyboard, fast, and very very portable. All it lacks is inbuilt broadband without having to hang a dongle on the side. Still, it’s early days and I don’t really know what it is going to be like to live with long term yet, but first impressions are definately good, both of the laptop and of Windows 7
November 15th, 2009 at 11:57 am
I too have purchased the T110 and I am very pleased with it although I must admit the battery life was a good 8 hours at first but has now dropped down to 6 hours but that is still more than my old Acer Aspire which only gave me an hour’s use. Well done Toshiba
December 6th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Bought T130, it’s great. It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium, too bad red ain’t available in Msia so got White instead. It’s at RM3699, wonder if the price’s expensive.
December 11th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Great little netbook – bigger thsn standard netbooks (11.6 versus 10.1 screen) ours came with 3GB RAM which compares really well with ‘traditional’ netbooks (max 1GB RAM). With 250GB hard disk it’s got plenty on offer. The display is great. We opted for pentium 2.
It’s light, well stacked with goodies and easy to navigate using Windows 7 home premium.
2 quibbles – minor but irritating.
1. The keyboard seems offset in some way and the ‘a’ therefore seems in the wrong place. This means LOTS of typing errors with ’s’ being pressed instead of ‘a’. I’m not a trained typist but I haven’t been able to adjust as yet.
2. The mouse buttons come as one long bar. While this looks great, in reality you have to press the ends of the bar on either side to produce the desired affect (ie left or right click). For someone used to having two buttons that activate on pressing anywhere this is a bit tedious. You have to be SO exact.
All in sall very happy with the purchase and hoping the quibbles will go with use.
Coolock_Kev
December 28th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I received my T110 as a unexpected christmas present. I’m very pleased overall but is it just me or is the audio volume very low even when turned up to full???
December 29th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
I also just bought the T110 and can only just hear sound even with volume turned up full, I an SO dissapointed I could throw it out the window
December 30th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
The volume is dreadful – pathetic — likely to be taken back to the store as not fit for purpose
January 12th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Yeh. The volume. Same problem here.
January 12th, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Just added a set of external speakers. Seems to work fine using them.
January 13th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Toshiba T110 Volume solved:
I had low volume on this laptop too, but today I downloaded the latest drivers, then went to the sound settings in the control panel and adjusted the sound and bass enhancements and did the room setup adjustments, now the sound is much better. The other thing is the speakers are on the underside… It’s hard to believe that people who design such stupid features get paid for their work.
Good luck all you other dissapointed Toshiba buyers, maybe there is hope.
January 16th, 2010 at 11:28 am
Low volume solution:
Uninstall the original sound driver that came with OS and windows update will download new one from microsoft. Then the volume will be perfect.
February 11th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Coolock_Kev i had the same problem with the keypad. my keypad has 3 words in the wrong place ( ” , @ ,£ ) does anyone know how to fix please??
February 11th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Ernest thats your settings go to the search box at the bottom of the start menu search for ‘language’ the option ‘region and language’ will come up click this then go to the ‘keyboard language’ tab and changed to Ireland or UK English this should sort it.
February 14th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
Bought a T110, was also surprised with extremely low sound levels. went to the toshiba website, selected laptop model, selected sound driver, downloaded and installed, now get told to turn it down by my wife. Love the laptop!
February 19th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
I got today the T130…AND HATE THE SOUND ….so plzz anyone explain how to fix the problem??or should i return the whole machine??
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:35 pm
1. also having a problem with the volume… mind you, with headphones or speackers the sound is great.
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:38 pm
2. i can not connect to the internet (BTFON or other public ones). Could it be the security system (McAffee) or should i be doing anything special to be able to connect?
March 21st, 2010 at 4:06 pm
re-install sound driver!! it works
April 20th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Ernest
check ur regional setting and make sure it is not on US
May 26th, 2010 at 11:15 pm
cant seem to find the right sound driver download
any one help
June 2nd, 2010 at 5:09 am
Satellite T130 and T110 laptops add brand new CULV product category to the Satellite and Satellite Pro (T130) ranges
Energy efficient processors offer powerful performance with a battery life of up to eleven hours
Compact 13.3” or 11.6” screens combine with impressively thin and light design for ultraportability
1 1.58kg weight refers to the Satellite T110.
November 5th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
problem with the START-UP….it takes approx 7-10 mins to start the thing !!!
anybody else got that problem?
and what’s the solution?
December 17th, 2010 at 6:55 am
I bought a Toshiba Satellite laptop T130 and T110, but do not know how to Win7? and the installation program does not like the CD because there is no hope to receive a reply.
December 30th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
to Tran Huu Hanh
this is because of no dvd drive to
install windows go to other computer
copy your win 7 cd to usb flash drive
using this app http://www.computerbild.de/download/WinToFlash-4776317.html copy cd to flash drive it does its own thing remember to change boot order in bios to boot first from usb usually f12 in toshiba notebook
hope this helps
May 23rd, 2011 at 11:36 pm
Great speedy powerful laptop, slim and light. Battery does not stick out much. Good features.
Speakers and microphone are terrible but work really well with external headphones.
Keyboard is the worst ever though, noisy and difficult to use.
Fairly decent netbook with excellent screen and battery life as well.
If sound and keyboard were better, this would be the best netbook out there.