Toshiba Satellite M505-S4940 All-Purpose Laptop

 

 

 

Darren Gladstone, PC WorldThough it has awesome audio and decent video, the slick looks of the M505 all-purpose laptop won't fool many people--it's a budget box.

Editor's note: This laptop is a special fixed-configuration model offered only at the Best Buy retail chain.

Toshiba knows a thing or two about squeezing a lot into a little laptop. Has the company succeeded with this student-friendly, $650 (as of 8/11/09) machine? Well, though the M505-S4940 cuts a corner (an obstructed HDMI-out) or two (an integrated GPU, a low-rent CPU), it is a decent deal with some flashy looks--and uninspiring guts.

While it's a little thick, this all-purpose laptop is luggable enough (13.5 by 9.1 by 1.5 inches and about 5.4 pounds) for the scholar on the go. One bonus: It'll get a couple of glances from people in the local coffee shop. Our test unit sported a snazzy, streaky techno pattern painted into the glossy finish, as well as a few LED highlights around the keyboard that offered a subtle glow. The splashy design might distract some people enough that they forget to ask what CPU this hot rod has.

The machine has a low-octane 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T4200 processor. Combine that with the 4GB of RAM and the integrated GPU, and the M505 has just enough power to run the 64-bit flavor of Vista Home Premium. The machine earned a fairly mediocre score of 76 in WorldBench 6--it won't win any races, but it will get out of first gear and run basic apps well. It just won't run them for very long: The M505 lasted for only about 3.5 hours in our drain tests, below the 4-hour average. Even Sony's big, beefy 15.5-inch back-to-school special (the VAIO VGN-NW125J) ran for over 4 hours in our tests.

The M505 fares a little better on the multimedia front, with its great 14-inch screen. Offering a 1366 by 768 native resolution and crisp colorful images, the display provides silky smooth video playback. The first episode of Lost streamed off Hulu without a hitch, and though our installed 720p test video (a couple of downloaded movie trailers) was initially slow to boot, it exploded with colors.

Unsurprisingly, in the M505 Toshiba has delivered on the audio. Again. The Harman/Kardon speakers produce crisp sound--better than just about anything in the M505's class. It's the one category where Toshiba has been impressively consistent. On the other hand, there's the touchpad, which is way too tiny for any self-respecting laptop (or netbook, for that matter). If you ask me, it's disappointing considering that Toshiba's own NB205-310 netbook has a touchpad that eclipses the one on the M505.

Why is the touch area so dinky? It can't be to accommodate the keyboard, whose buttons are a little on the small side. Nothing great, nothing silky, nothing to shout about. At least the quick-launch shortcut buttons atop the keys host a few interesting features. A multimedia shortcut key launches a handy app that not only looks nice and lets you quickly flip through multimedia functions, but also doesn't bog down system performance.

An Eco mode button launches a power-saving mode that gives you lots of information--too much information, actually, as it breaks down how much power each computer component consumes. For users who want to be conscious of how much juice they consume, it's a nice little touch. As for other apps, plan to set aside some time to uninstall the hidden "gems" that come baked onto the M505's 320GB hard drive (no complaints about the hard drive itself, though).

The machine carries a fairly standard-issue set of ports, including several legacy ports and one new port. Among the old connections are a PC Card slot, three USB ports, an ethernet connection, a modem, a DVD-RW drive, a VGA-out, and a flash card reader. The new port is an eSATA connection, ideal for high-speed data jockeys. And the M505 also has one big tease: a port that's labeled 'HDMI' but is blocked up with plastic. So for all the masochists out there who want to see--but not touch--what other options are available, the M505 is for you!

In all seriousness, though, the Toshiba Satellite M505-S4940 isn't a horrible laptop--it's just an underpowered portable that could have been so much more. And considering the price, the good multimedia performance isn't enough to make this laptop a clear winner.

Other laptops specially configured for retail sale at Best Buy include the , the , and the . And check out our video coverage of the four laptops from Best Buy in "."

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Canon PowerShot SD990 IS

As a fan of Canon’s Digital Elph cameras, I was a bit disappointed by the current flagship model of the series, the 14.7-megapixel PowerShot SD990 IS. My...

As a fan of Canon's Digital Elph cameras, I was a bit disappointed by the current flagship model of the series, the 14.7-megapixel PowerShot SD990 IS. My disappointment lies mostly with the build quality of the PowerShot SD990 IS; it produces image quality that's among the best we've seen of cameras of a similar ilk.

I expect a camera priced at around $400 to feel solid. The PowerShot SD990 IS, which has a plastic body rather than the titanium casing of its predecessor (the PowerShot SD950 IS), feels a bit cheap. This, coupled with a handful of other shortcomings, chips into the camera's excellent performance.

The image quality is indeed outstanding. The PowerShot SD990 IS netted an overall score of Superior in the our lab's jury evaluations, producing some of the best results for color accuracy, lack of distortion, and exposure quality we've ever seen in a point-and-shoot.

However, the plasticky build and some design choices hinder its overall score. Canon released the SD990 alongside the 10-megapixel PowerShot SD880 IS ( Macworld rated 4 out of 5 mice ), its less-expensive (and excellent) Digital Elph sibling. The PowerShot SD880 IS, though, feels as solid as a rock, despite the fact that it, too, has a plastic chassis.

The PowerShot SD990 IS has a control dial on the back of the camera, complementing the four-way navigation pad. The dial makes scrolling through menu options extremely fast, but, on the PowerShot SD990 IS, it jiggles enough to make it feel flimsy. What's more, that dial is suprisingly difficult to use, with its secondary function-switching between program mode and manual mode-unhandy at best. When I was dialing between modes, I often couldn't make it land on the one I wanted. On the SD880, I never had such problems with the control dial.

Another gripe I have with the PowerShot SD990 IS is the focal range: At 36mm to 133mm, the 3.7X optical zoom lens is not a true wide angle. When I compared it to the SD880's 28mm-to-112mm, 4X optical zoom, I started wondering why Canon skimped on the wide-angle with this more expensive model.

So what features make the PowerShot SD990 IS pricier than the PowerShot SD880 IS, other than the higher megapixel count? For starters, it has an optical viewfinder. It also has a wider set of manual controls, including aperture and shutter-speed settings, flash exposure compensation, and manual focus. In Quick Shot mode, the PowerShot SD990 IS continuously adjusts for exposure and focus (even when you remove your finger from the shutter button entirely), thus eliminating shutter lag almost completely. The PowerShot SD990 IS's optical image stabilization is also slightly more powerful than the PowerShot SD880 IS's. And it's available in black or silver.

Like the PowerShot SD880 IS, the PowerShot SD990 IS boasts Canon's Digic 4 image processor, which, along with increased speed, hosts a number of upgrades. These include Servo AF (continual focus adjustment for moving objects), "Intelligent Contrast" (which increases dynamic range), and a fun face-detection timer. About the timer: You set up the camera, hit the shutter button, and, as soon as the camera detects an additional face in the frame (that is, once you jump into the scene), it starts a two-second countdown before snapping three photos. And enough time elapses between shots to change positions, making this feature possibly even more fun than a photo booth. Compared to the "smile detection" functions used by its competitors, the face-detect timer wins hands down.

When connected to a Mac via USB, the PowerShot SD990 IS's SD card appears on the desktop, and you can import the photos into iPhoto.

Macworld's buying advice

Despite the improvements on its predecessor, I can't help but feel that Canon dropped the ball a bit with the PowerShot SD990 IS. Unless you simply can't live without an optical viewfinder or extensive manual controls, I see little reason to spend the extra bucks on the PowerShot SD990 IS. I'd go for the $299 PowerShot SD880 IS.

[Danny Palmerlee is a freelance writer and photographer.]