Toshiba Satellite Radius L15W-B1310 11.6-Inch 2-in-1 Touchscreen Laptop Review

Toshiba Satellite Radius L15W-B1310
via Amazon

Silver Toshiba Satellite Radius L15W-B1310 is a modern, sleek and compact convertible laptop with a fanless design and a 10-point touch screen offering a great amount of versatility and functionality for its price. The screen flips 360 degrees easily and quickly and can be used in five different viewing modes: Laptop, tabletop, presentation, audience and tablet so you do not need to carry multiple machines. But do not think of it as a powerful gaming or multimedia laptop but a capable, cheap and lightweight tablet with a keyboard, large storage space and connectivity options.

Toshiba Satellite Radius is offered with the entry level energy efficient dual core Intel Celeron N2840 processor with 2.16 GHz base speed that moves up to 2.58GHz dynamically (without the hyper threading- so 2 cores and 2 threads here, not 4), 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM that allows limited multitasking (4GB would be better but that would take the price up), 500 GB Serial ATA hard drive at 5400rpm rotating speed and Windows 8.1 operating system. Technical specs are quite modest but the system seems to handle the average daily tasks just fine but not at super speed and don’t expect to run the complex software or play modern games at high settings.

Glossy 11.6 inch diagonal HD TruBrite touchscreen bordered by black bezels with 1366x768 pixels max screen resolution offers OK image quality with relatively dim display- 188 nits of brightness, recreating 68% of sRGB spectrum and acceptable colour accuracy but the 10-point capacitative touch seems to be responsive when using the Windows 8 apps. You will find the stereo speakers at the front corners and sound clear and loud enough but not super impressive, it is somewhat tinny and lacks the bass and you may want to use headphones to hear better sound. The mobile Intel HD graphics is fine for daily multimedia stuff like simple photo editing, video viewing on Youtube and playing not so demanding casual older games but certainly not those latest graphics-heavy titles. It has a 1280 x 720p webcam for taking still snapshots and live video chatting on Skype.

Nicely patterned pearlized gold finish with a matte silver plastic lid Toshiba Radius is easy on the eyes with its attractive looks and has a solid and sturdy build. It weighs only 2.9 pounds with dimensions of 11.40 x 7.80 x 0.86 inches, so it is small and compact enough to fit in any bag- almost like a netbook and as light as any Windows computer can be- you will find only a very few that are lighter than this model. It has a black chiclet style TruType keyboard (you’ll find all the keys you need but smaller) with raised tile keys for comfy typing without a 10-key numpad due to the size restrictions but a good size touchpad with a smooth feel. When you use flip the screen 360 degrees and use it in tablet mode, keyboard will be locked automatically. Expect to get 4.5 to 5 hours on average from its lithium ion battery so although the Radius is compared to top tablets and wins on versatility and lower price, battery life is a little more than half of iPad. For connectivity you will find a USB 2.0 port, a USB 3.0 port, a headphone jack on the right, an HDMI port on the left, an SD card reader, Volume control and of course the 802.11bgn wireless.

Conclusion: Toshiba Satellite Radius L15W-B1310 (PSKVUU-00400Y) is a modern budget 2-in-1 computer with an innovative and modern design that allows five different modes of use as it flips 360 degrees around its two axis sturdy hinge giving you a great deal of flexibility, but we’re not so sure about the productivity as you’re restricted with an Intel Celeron 2840 processor and 2GB RAM so you will not think of this machine as a very capable laptop but a great tablet with a keyboard. It has a fanless design so you will not suffer the noisy vent fans- it runs rather quietly and stays cool to touch when you’re using it for work or play. It is a power efficient machine but doesn’t offer a particularly long battery life but still OK at up to 5 hours. Despite its restrictions, you will still get more out of it than the top of the range tablets and it is rather affordable. Being a low cost machine it is not made of aluminium but solid plastic and it feels solid and durable overall. Toshiba is one of the largest global laptop manufacturers and certainly is a good brand for computers. The Radius L15W is a good hybrid that will serve your daily computing needs just fine despite the cons due to its very low price for such a sturdy and flexible machine and is offered with a standard 1 year warranty. However you may need to remove some of the junkware before starting to use it.

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