Toshiba Satellite U845W Ultrabook Review: Going Wide at 21:9
by Dustin Sklavos on October 16, 2012 12:01 AM ESTIntroducing the Toshiba Satellite U845W
It's sometimes very easy to discount Toshiba as an also-ran when it comes to the latest and greatest. They have a strong retail presence as a budget notebook company, and in many ways their first ultrabook, the Portege Z835 maintained that tradition by gaining traction as one of the most affordable ultrabook options available back when Intel first launched the initiative. It's important to note, though, that oftentimes Toshiba has been willing to experiment where others haven't. Toshiba launched a 13.3" version of its Excite tablet to see if the market would be interested in accepting a notebook-sized tablet, and their Portege R700 was an affordable ultraportable option even before ultrabooks themselves became available.
Today we have one of their most compelling experiments on hand. We lament with some regularity the common 1366x768 resolution of notebook screens and its effect on productivity, but vertical real estate continues to be hard to come by. What if we went the other way, though? What if we stretched things out further along the X axis? That's the question Toshiba's asking with their shiny new double-wide ultrabook, the Satellite U845W. This ultrabook is the first widely availabe notebook that features a display with a 21:9 aspect ratio. Was this a wise gamble for Toshiba or a misfire?
Toshiba only adds a W to the model number to indicate the difference between the conventional Satellite U840/U845 (which we've reviewed here) and this new essentially "double-wide" ultrabook, but the differences between the two designs themselves is massive. As you'll see from the spec table below, the U845W is internally very conventional, but the difference in aspect ratio on the display results in some very tangible changes felt across the entire design.
Toshiba Satellite U845W Ultrabook | |
Processor |
Intel Core i5-3317U (2x1.7GHz + HTT, 2.6GHz Turbo, 22nm, 3MB L3, 17W) |
Chipset | Intel HM77 |
Memory | 4GB Samsung DDR3-1600 + 2GB Samsung DDR3-1600 (on-board) |
Graphics |
Intel HD 4000 Graphics (350-1050MHz, 16 EUs) |
Display |
14.4" LED Glossy 21:9 1792x768 CMN N144NGE-E41 |
Hard Drive(s) |
Hitachi Travelstar Z5K500 500GB 5400-RPM 3Gbps HDD Samsung PM830 32GB mSATA 6Gbps SSD (cache) |
Optical Drive | - |
Networking |
Atheros AR8152 PCIe 10/100 Ethernet Intel Centrino 2230 802.11b/g/n Bluetooth 4.0 + HS |
Audio |
Realtek ALC280 HD Audio Stereo speakers Mic and headphone jacks |
Battery | 4-Cell, 54Wh (not user replaceable) |
Front Side | SD/MS Flash reader |
Right Side |
Headphone and mic jacks USB 3.0 HDMI AC jack |
Left Side |
Kensington lock Ethernet port 2x USB 3.0 |
Back Side | Venting |
Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit |
Dimensions |
14.5" x 7.9" x 0.83" 368mm x 201mm x 21mm |
Weight | ~4 lbs (1.81kg) |
Extras |
Webcam Backlit keyboard Flash reader (SD/Mini SD, MS/Duo/Pro/Pro Duo) USB 3.0 harmon/kardon speakers 21:9 aspect display SSD cache |
Warranty | 1-year standard warranty |
Pricing | $999 MSRP (on Amazon for $700) |
Toshiba's internals for the Satellite U845W are fairly conservative. The Ivy Bridge-based Core i5-3317U is a capable enough processor, featuring a nominal clock speed of 1.7GHz across its two cores but able to turbo up to 2.4GHz on both cores or 2.6GHz on a single core. Attached to it is 2GB of DDR3-1600 affixed to the motherboard and an additional 4GB in a non-user-serviceable slot. Storage duties are handled in the typical budget fashion, with a 500GB 5400-RPM mechanical hard disk being sped up through the inclusion of a 32GB SSD cache; Toshiba offers models that do skip the caching and go directly to a 256GB mSATA SSD, but those start at a much pricier $1,249 in retail.
Where things feel unusually skint are in the peripheral ports. Three USB 3.0 ports (and no USB 2.0) are generous, and I can forgive a basic Intel Centrino wireless solution that only has support for 2.4GHz networking, but why in 2012 do we have a dedicated ethernet port capable of only 10/100 speeds? And this is common across the line; there are no gigabit ethernet capable U845W notebooks. Skimping on gigabit ethernet pretty much defeats the purpose of including a dedicated ethernet port; copying our testing suite over through the wireless would take the same amount of time as using a wired connection.
Of course, if you're looking at the U845W it's because of the unique display. Despite being advertised as a 14.4" ultrabook, the U845W is actually an inch shallower than conventional 14" ultrabooks due to the odd aspect ratio of the screen. As for the display itself, that's a relative unknown. It's clearly a TN panel, but we'll have to examine it further to see if it has the same unfortunate specifications that inexpensive ultrabooks typically do.
And speaking of inexpensive, in an effort to make the U845W more accessible, Toshiba has actually made it available in retail at an affordable price. Niche products tend to command higher premiums, but $699 for an ultrabook with an extra-wide display (for the only ultrabook with an extra-wide display) actually seems pretty fair. The $999 starting MSRP doesn't even seem that bad for specs that are relatively within the realm of expectation for an ultrabook alongside its unusual selling point.
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Dorin Nicolaescu-Musteață - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
I'd rather have a proper „editing block” (i.e. Home, End, PgUp, PhDn etc.)DanNeely - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
same here.Samus - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
I know, amazingly the only real flaw with this thing is the typical Toshiba keyboard layout. Other than that, $700 for this type of machine is reasonable if you can adjust to the location of the keys (I can't, if it isn't a Thinkpad editing block I can't do it)noblemo - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
I had the same thought initially. According to PCMag the space is used for "sweet sounding" Harman/Kardon speakers.Poopship - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
I've always wanted a super wide screen laptop with a tn panel at a stupid low resolution. I also hate it when my videos fill up the whole screen because black bars are awesome. It would be perfect for movies released in 2.37, i'll just pop in a blura-- oh.MobiusStrip - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
Wouldn't matter. Blu-Ray doesn't support 7:3. You'd still wind up with 16:9 material with black borders, or you'd have to zoom in and lose resolution.Rick83 - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
Since the display is neither 1920 pixels in width, nor 720 pixels in height, you will always be using non-native resolutions.The advantage with the wider aspect ratio, is that you can crop some of the 1080 vertical pixels (i.e. those in the letter box) and scale the result to 1792 pixels of width (or just crop the borders, if you prefer using the native resolution, and don't mind losing 64 pixels left and right (and about 30 top and bottom)
I hope that we get decently sized wide desktop screens soon.
Some 3840x1600 32" displays would be awesome. I'd be willing to plop down about $2.5-3k for such a display, if it can do localized contrast and brightness control, 10/12 bit color and decent grays, as well as be well calibrated. S-PVA or S-IPS with multiple high-frequency PWM ccfl backlights, or Adobe-RGB color LEDs.
And bloody USB (or displayport, thunderbolt) remote control! It's been done ten years ago, the cost is negligible, but not having to reach across the desk to use some god forsaken OSD to manage the screen is so worth it. Especially if the screen were to support advanced features.
rarson - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
Aspect ratio and resolution are two different things. You all are confused.kmieciu - Tuesday, October 16, 2012 - link
perfect for some retro side-scrolling platform gamesStuka87 - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link
Dude, I was thinking the same thing! You could see like half the level!