Toshiba L655-S5161x Laptop Review, Part 1

The Toshiba Satellite L655-S5161x came out last year for a retail price of $620. It’s the Intel-powered version of the L665D which comes with an AMD processor. The L655 features a second generation Intel Core i3 processor and costs $20 more than the AMD version. Just like most of Toshiba’s current laptops, it adopts the company’s own Fusion finish that in this case has a circular checked pattern which is a bit subtle, sitting underneath the glossy finish on the keyboard deck and the plastic lid.

Toshiba sells this model with various finishes, including Helios White, Helios Red and Helios Brown. The keyboard has a glossy black finish, while the laptop’s underside has a matte black plastic construction. It weighs 5.4 pounds and measures 14.9 x 9.8 x 1.5 inches so it should be easy enough for most people to carry it around from one room to the other, but we’ve seen lighter and slimmer laptops in this segment.

It comes with a glossy black keyboard that has a dedicated numeric pad sitting on the right. This is a spacious keyboard but the spacebar could have been a little bit bigger for a more comfortable use. In addition, we would have preferred that the function keys were inverted so that it wasn’t necessary to press the Fn key to do various simple tasks like muting the audio or dimming the screen.

The touchpad sitting below the keyboard measures 3.25 x 1.6 inches and has a matte finish which provides a suitable amount of finger resistance. It’s large enough to do multitouch gestures without any problems, while its rounded mouse buttons are recessed into a shallow oval well, overhanging the touchpad’s edges by approximately 0.5 inches on both sides.

The Toshiba Satellite L655-S5161x comes with a standard 15.6-inch screen that has a maximum resolution of 1,366 x 768 pixels which manages to provide good color accuracy and it gets quite bright as well.

It has the same selection of ports as its AMD-powered sibling, except for the fact that it doesn’t come with the eSATA / USB combo port. Sitting on the left spine is one USB 2.0 port, an HDMI port, the Kensington lock slot, as well as the microphone and headphone jacks. To the right you’ll have access to two additional USB 2.0 ports along with the SuperMulti DVD burner. Below the right mouse button of the touchpad sits the five-in-one memory card reader. This laptop also comes with a VGA webcam that produces only dull images and videos so it’s not suitable for those of you that plan on doing a lot of web chatting.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about the hardware specifications of this Toshiba Satellite L655-S5161x, along with mentioning a few things about the software included and the performance of the battery. Stay tuned.

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