Toshiba Satellite A350 (PSAL6A-059016B)

Toshiba Satellite A350 (PSAL6A-059016B)

Toshiba Satellite A350 (PSAL6A-059016B)

Features: Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4GHz
Graphics processor: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650
Hard Drive storage capacity: 400 GB
Camera resolution: 1.3Mp
Screen size: 16.0″
Screen resolution: 1366×768
Wired terminals / ports: External SATA, ExpressCard, D-Sub, Firewire, HDMI Output, Headphone Jack, Microphone Jack, RJ45, S-Video Output, USB 2.0
Wireless technology supported: Wireless 802.11n, Bluetooth, Wireless 802.11b, Wireless 802.11g

Pros: Fast processor, good graphics, reasonable price, HDMI, eSATA, FM tuner, good 16¿ screen

Cons: Only a 4200rpm hard drive, heavy weight.

The final word: The Toshiba Satellite A350 (PSAL6A-059016B) is a powerful and well-priced desktop replacement laptop with a wide variety of ports and a good 16″ screen.

IN terms of design, the Satellite A350 has a striped ash-grey body with piano black keys. It’s the same style seen in many of the Satellite range, and we’ve praised its subtle attractiveness before – this won’t look out of place in corporate or home environments.

The 16” widescreen display has a native resolution of 1366×768, making it useful for video editing programs like Final Cut Pro and Avid that use more horizontal screen space for non-linear timeline editing. Images and movies are produced with vivid colours and the level of reflectivity is relatively low for a glossy screen.

The Satellite A350’s full-sized keyboard has large keys and provides plenty of space for the cursor keys. We found that the button response was a bit too spongy for our liking, but touch-typing is still easy to do at high speeds once users have gotten used to this.

The Satellite A350 uses a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 processor and 4GB of DDR2 RAM, while the storage is provided by a 400 gigabyte (GB) hard drive that spins at 4200rpm.

We’d prefer to see a 5400rpm or above hard drive at this price point. Unfortunately, Toshiba has bundled this notebook with the 32-bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium, which can’t use more than 3GB of RAM, leaving 1GB of RAM unused.

Toshiba has also included a built-in radio tuner, so you can tune into your favourite FM station during otherwise productive work hours. If radio isn’t quite your thing, the notebook comes bundled with a USB stick digital TV tuner.

An ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 graphics card provides the system graphics, and it helped to get a 3DMark06 score of 4161 in our tests. This is a good score for a device at this price point, and it means you can play DirectX 9 titles like Half-Life 2 without any problems while newer and more graphics-intensive games like Crysis will devour the card.

Connecting the Toshiba A350 to a range of devices is simple thanks to the variety of ports built into it. Four ’sleep-and-charge’ USB 2.0 ports mean that USB devices can be charged while the computer is switched off, and one of those ports doubles as an eSATA connection.

The HDMI output lets you connect the laptop with LCD and plasma screens and Toshiba has provided a D-Sub port and S-Video out port for other compatible display devices. For networking, there is 802.11n wireless functionality, as well as Gigabit Ethernet.

An ExpressCard/54 slot sits on the left-hand side of the unit above a FireWire port, which is great for taking data off devices like camcorders. A 5-in-1 card reader (SD, MS, MSPro, MMC, xD) can be found on the front of the chassis, next to the microphone and headphone ports.

All up, the Satellite A350 gives great performance for a reasonable price. It’s a mid-range desktop replacement that is worth considering.