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Toshiba: The Crapware Con

Posted on 29 Oct 2009 at 14:35

Our test Toshiba may have had a superb clean boot time of 39 seconds, but this impressive figure worsened dramatically when every bit of preinstalled software was running: only three other systems here took longer than the Toshiba’s 2mins 13secs.

In almost every other respect, Toshiba’s software was strictly average. The third-party software includes photo and movie software such as myphotobook, Movie Factory and Picasa 2. Toshiba’s proprietary software tackles DVD playback and disc burning, but not much else.

It’s an offering that pales in comparison to that of the Lenovo ThinkPad, for instance.

This mediocre bundle of software had a middling effect on performance. Our 2D benchmark score dropped from 0.76 to 0.74 – the same margin as the machines from Asus and Dell – and a 953MB memory footprint is better than most we tested.

The software bundle took up 844MB of the Toshiba’s hard disk – far less than the likes of Sony and HP.

If you want a laptop where intrusive software and clunky applications won’t ruin the out-of-the-box experience, the Toshiba may be a good bet.

But its undemanding bundle isn’t enough to wrest the crown from the likes of Asus and Samsung.

Rating: 4/6

(Model tested: Satellite A350D-202)

(Illustrations by Lee Hasler)

Author: Mike Jennings