Customer Reviews

Toshiba Satellite L645D-S4036 LED TruBrite 14-Inch Laptop (Black)

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(50)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(38)

 

 

The triple core 1.8ghz Phenom II is a strong and economical processor choice for a desktop replacement-type laptop. This computer regularly gets 3.5 hours on the battery with only the screen brightness turned down a bit. I really enjoy this.

The video card is listed as an ATI Radeon 4250, which it is, but the M880 chipset for it gives it power way beyond the Radeon 4250's power in itself. When I checked the GPU benchmarks, the M880 chipset Radeon 4250 was consistently ranked middle of the pack, above such GPUs as the ATI Radeon HD 5145.

This computer is nice and portable, and the size is perfect for carrying with me. The screen isn't small to where it creates any issues with seeing for me; I'm actually enjoying the fact that it is shorter and I can cradle it in my lap perfectly and totally comfortably.

The keyboard is not one with a full NumPad, but that doesn't bother me much. The keys don't have a loose sensation at all, which I really enjoy. I am still getting used to the location of a few of my keys, especially the backspace, but I'll certainly get used to it soon enough. The trackpad isn't bad; you can tweak it however you like. One major issue I noticed right away is that the Webcam drivers were so out of date that the webcam wouldn't work when I first got the computer. I tried to update it and was told that this was already the newest available driver, but it still didn't work. I ended up taking it off altogether and restarting the computer and it works just fine now. Just a word of warning for those who are looking at this one: The webcam may take a second of fiddling with to get it set up correctly. IT is nothing too bad, and there are guides all over the internet explaining how to do this.

Other minor gripes, the touchpad can be seems a bit insensitive at times, even with it turned up almost all the way... The two finger scrolling also isn't as intuitive as it was with my last ASUS. I also have to press the power button to get it out of sleep... All minor gripes that I will come to terms with soon, after which I will be completely satisfied with my purchace. ;)

These are my impressions after a few days with this computer... Great specs and performance for the money! I'll be sure to update this review if anything else comes to mind.

EDIT- I want to add that the sound quality that comes out of these speakers is not too bad. Look in the Control Panel for a utility called SmartAudio. It controls all the sound output for the computer and will give you much greater control over your desired sound. You can go into the SmartAudio settings and have it appear in the System Tray if you're going to be listening to a lot of music! I'm not claiming that the speakers are perfect; you're still going to need good external speakers or headphones if you want an excellent and LOUD audio experience. Basically, these are good for stock speakers, mainly because of the SmartAudio software (found in Control Panel)...

I don't think I need to say much coz the reviewer before me did a pretty good job explaining features and benefits of this machine, and that is the only reason I bought this laptop.

So now it is my moral duty to leave a review of this product so others might learn from my experience with this laptop.

I used to have an HP before this one which by the way was a complete piece of junk compared to this one, and the build quality on the Toshiba is much better that any of the HP's out there right now, given that this one does not have the bells and whistles like HP's have like a remote control to control your media or a wifi on-off switch, but still it is so worth the money when you actually have this thing in your hands.

The only thing I don't like about this laptop so far after a week of use is that the mouse pad buttons make a clicking noise and are not silent when clicked. Windows 7 loads up fairly fast and compared to my desktop which has a 3.0 ghz quad core processor, this one loads up may be a second or two later, so really impressed by that.

I have really been looking for a 14" screen laptop coz 15" seemed to big for my portable computing needs, and I dont know for what ever reason the 14" laptops Ive been looking for have been more money than the 15" laptops, so I was lucky enough to find this one.

Haven't tested the graphics card yet, but I know it should be alright for playing suitable games on the laptop since I use my desktop for playing power and graphic hungry games.

I also like the feature where you can put two fingers on the track pad and maximize or minimize your fonts going in or out on the track pad.

If you are on a budget, you need a laptop for yourself or your son or daughter going to college this should satisfy most peoples needs.

Oh and by the way I did go to a best-buy and turned on a laptop with an i3 processor and this one has a much faster load time than an i3, so people out there debating Intel i3 or this one, it should be a no brain er, I didn't have a chance to compare i5 to this one, but in comparison with an i3 I would think that this processor should be at par if not less than an i5.

Oh and by the way the battery on this thing is really good, It lasted me about 4.5 hours before it needed a charge in Toshiba Eco mode.

I think I've done my job for leaving a review for this laptop so now I can sleep good, coz I know hopefully I helped in simplifying someone Else's decision out there.

My review may not be as thorough as the previous two which were extremely helpful for me, but here goes!

I spent a good deal of time researching what I needed in a computer. I debated a netbook, desktop, larger vs. smaller laptop. My previous computer was a 6 year old HP desktop which had worked well for me, but I needed something for commuting back and forth to school with. I was not a fan of laptops in general as I had never had one before and had only used a couple of laptops. My research brought me to another store at first and I had settled to wait to buy the laptop there for my state's tax free weekend, but a week before I was going to buy it the store raised the price which caused me to do some more shopping around.

This brought me to Amazon where I found this great deal! The Toshiba was a better model at a lower price and after reading the reviews I purchased it.

I have had the laptop for two days now, but I am thrilled with it so far. The difference in speed is amazing and I have never had a computer that starts up as fast as this one does. The size of it is perfect for me; it feels small and compact without being as tiny as a netbook (my sister has one and the screen size would drive me bonkers!). As far as the webcam issue, I have been able to use my webcam without any problems so far and haven't had to do anything to fix it.

I like windows 7, but I did have some minor problems trying to get some of my older software to work, but I have now gotten it all up and running (it took me an hour or so to work through these minor issues as I'm not terribly tech savvy).

The battery has been lasting somewhere between 3.5-4 hours. Great keypad for typing. The speakers are decent.

The only drawback with this laptop was that it doesn't have lightscribe technology which I use fairly often, but other than that I have no complaints. I would (and actually have already to a friend) highly recommend this laptop if you're looking for something portable, fairly powerful, and easy to use. At this price you just can't beat it!

UPDATE: I have now had this laptop for about 6 months. I would still say I LOVE IT! However, I will alert others that the hard drive crashed after less than a month of my owning it. This was an inconvenience due to classes having started. I called tech support and they were very helpful and able to address my issues, but they kept asking me what I had done to it as if it were my fault! That is the only issue I had because I had not done anything different with it than normal, but other than that the technicians were helpful and clear about what I should try and then quick to tell me my options about sending it in for service. I opted to pay to have it overnight shipped from a UPS store instead of waiting for them to send me a box that I could send to Toshiba for free. I am so glad I did this! I sent it in the next day (a friday) and was able to track progress online. I had it back withing two weeks and I have not had a problem with it since. I have read some of the bad reviews and I would disagree with the two major complaints I have seen. I do not think the laptop is loud at all and my battery still lasts 3-4 hours. Still very happy with my purchase!

Length:: 7:42 Mins

This is my first review; so please be kind. Thanks.

Here I go over my first impressions, go into detail about the specs and performance, and give some advice for potential buyers.

Two things I didn't address in the video is the "fan problem" and the build quality. Although I can hear my fan, it is in no way loud or distracting; people who buy laptops with more than two cores should expect the fan to be on almost always unless they want their processor to fry.

Second, the build quality is excellent. This laptop is solidly built; the only way the laptop will even flex is if you directly push down on it. And even then the flex is slight.

I hope this review helps.

-A. McKinney

I just received my laptop a few days ago and it dropped $30 in price since then, not sure why, but I wish I waited a couple of days to order. About the product, Toshiba did a very good job in everything, but forgot the acoustics parameter. It could be because the the triple core needs constant cooling, but the fan is on at full speed about 90% of the time. This is a big deal for me because it is just too loud and it gets to the point where it's annoying. Performance, weight, sound and battery life are just as specified, but too bad noise level was never mentioned anywhere. I had laptops with loud fans before, but usually the fan is on only for a few minutes and then turns off. This is not the case for this laptop, the fan will be on almost all the time and is very loud, even when I am not doing anything and the laptop is just sitting there. I am starting to wonder if my laptop has a bad temperature sensor because no one else complained about constant fan noise. I am thinking about returning it because it is way too noisy.

i bought the Toshiba Satellite L6450D-S4036 for several reasons. first, i've had a Toshiba Satellite 15" laptop running XP for over five years now, and it's gotten to the point where the drive capacity is wanting, and the number of utilities etc running concurrently have made it annoying slow. that said, i loved the construction of that machine, and for its vintage, it was a great machine...once i clean out a lot of the stuff (i plan to take everything off, re-install the operating system, and keep it slimmed down), i'm sure it's going to work great for a number of years more. so basically, i felt that Toshiba's were very well made. my wife had an HP laptop that gave up the ghost after a few years of service and didn't seem as solidly built as the Toshiba, and i have some hostility toward Dell based on the torture that is their customer support system (the techs don't listen, they just read from a script and force you to waste time checking irrelevant things, no matter what you tell them...in contrast, HP's tech support is excellent, but i don't think the hardware is the equal of the Toshiba stuff).

another issue with my old laptop was the 15" screen, which is too big and bulky for use on a plane, and i don't need that much screen space for most of what i do on a laptop...plus, the screen size is the biggest determinant of battery life, and i'd rather have more battery life than more screen real estate.

so, i'd been thinking about a new machine for awhile, and when i saw this nice-looking laptop for only $519 (incl everything) i jumped on it sight-unseen.

first the good news: it performs great. very fast, though you should probably take that with a grain of salt because i'm comparing it to my old Centrino Duo machine running 32 bit XP...with the AMD triple-core processor running 64-bit Windows 7, it should be a great performer. how it compares to other contemporary systems, i can't say.

now the downsides, and there are several...
first, the speakers are incredibly terrible, and i do mean incredibly. i've never heard any sound so tinny and muffled coming from any computer speaker. if you look at the slots from which the sound is emitted, you can see that the majority of the speaker itself is blocked by the plastic housing. the speaker itself has a diameter of about 1" (i don't have the machine here, so can't measure), but only a thin strip of that, maybe a third, if that, is visible through the overlying plastic housing. the volume's bad, the sound's bad...everything. this is a non-issue if you use an external speaker or headphones, and in fact the speakers are so bad you have to use either an external speaker or headphones. but it seems a little odd for a machine that includes a skype bundle, internal mic and webcam, i.e. a machine that is clearly positioned for internet telephony use. i also miss the physical thumbwheel of my old Toshiba for adjusting the volume, and the front facing headphone jack, which meant that when you did use headphones, the cord didn't have to cross half the machine, but fell nicely in the center, between your arms. on this machine, the headphone jack is on the left side (user's left).

second issue, for a sound-sensitive fellow like myself, is the intermittent CPU fan noise. the thing i liked about my old Toshiba laptop was how silent it was (is)...the HP laptop my wife had had a CPU fan that made noise when it was on (admittedly intermittently), and i never liked that, but the old Toshiba was nice and quiet. this one has fan noise when the fan turns on. it's not terrible noise, i.e. not as bad as my wife's old HP laptop, but it's definitely noticeable...again, a weird design flaw given the intended use for telephony, though perhaps unavoidable given the heat generated by new-generation chips.

the third issue is less important...when closed, the top of the computer, i.e. the screen, doesn't meet the base of the machine in the middle on the back side, i.e. the side opposite the user when the machine is open. what this means is that if you put pressure/weight on it, it flexes significantly, which cannot be good for it. on the old Toshiba, when it was closed, it made solid contact all the way around, so you could put a stack of books on it with no worries. not so on this model...there is a substantial gap along the back side between the hinges. thus, it clearly needs to be treated more gingerly, which is disappointing given my having chosen the size so that i could use it more on the go.

finally, and this may seem trivial to you, but it isn't to me, the power cord is on the right side of the machine (the user's right), rather than the back. this is better if you typically work on a space that has more room on the sides and less in the back, but worse if, as is the case for me, you have plenty of room behind the machine, but are restricted on the sides. also, the cord position means it gets in the way if you are right-handed and using an external mouse.

each of these issues diminished my enthusiasm for the machine. i thought about sending it back, but didn't want to pay the re-stocking fee. the way i look at it, it's a perfectly serviceable machine and i can accept these negatives in a machine priced at $520. i can work around the speaker issue by using our external wifi speaker at home, and a small portable speaker on the road, but i was surprised given Toshiba's usual hi-quality design...i really can't understand the speakers being so awful. they do say that the bad taste of poor-quality outlasts the good taste of low price, and in retrospect, i think i'd rather have paid $50-100 more for a more solidly built machine with good speakers and, hopefully, no CPU fan noise (though the latter may be a pipe-dream for processors as powerful as the current generation).

all that said, i do think that, for the price, the machine is fully serviceable. would i choose it again, probably not. do i regret buying it, not really. ultimately, the real test is the test of time, particularly with Windows machines (btw, i'm not that fond of all the irritating bells and whistles in Windows 7), whose performance can degrade significantly with time.

Basically I was looking for a travel laptop that was large enough to be usable (I adore netbooks, but they're just a bit too small for me), that would be a reasonably full featured laptop, fairly fast, and would play DVDs since when we travel, we like watching a DVD in bed in the evening. (We made our way through South Africa watching episodes of Babylon 5.) All of this to be in as small a package as possible, and not outrageously expensive.

I spent a short but intense period going around and looking at laptops in the 13 - 14" range, with a bias toward Toshiba, since I've had good experiences with them. 5 pounds seemed to be the lowest weight laptop that included a DVD player. I'd looked at enough laptops that when this one popped up on my screen at Amazon at a good price, I bought it immediately.

It's fast and will enable me to work and blog when I travel, the DVD player works fine, and my negotiations with Windows 7.0 have been minor. The cute little shiny case gets fingerprint marks when you look at it cross-eyed, but that's not a critical point. This is a fine little laptop for someone who wants good features in a compact, well-priced package.

The fan starts up shortly after I turn on the computer and stays on, usually more than 30 minutes. It is louder than any laptop fan I've heard. I'm concerned about it being distracting at meetings. It is annoying when I'm working.

I've called Toshiba, the help person told me that the fan is supposed to come on above 15 degrees C. (59 F). I've owned three laptops, none of them did this. The CPU is running at under 20% capacity, and the computer has never felt warm. Perhaps they have the heat sensor set too low? I don't mind if the fan comes on for a short bit when the machine is getting hot, but to me this is a poor tradeoff--low temperature over noise.

I haven't been able to test the machine long enough to vouch for its capabilities. I suppose if you need a machine that stays cool, and you're not bothered by noise, it could be a great choice.

I'm returning my machine, I find the noise intolerable.

UPDATE: Amazon was great with the refund. I read up about multi-core processors and heat is a problem, perhaps the cause of the fan running loud so frequently and so long. I liked that Toshiba has earned EPEAT Gold award to reduce the environmental impact with this line of laptops, few of its competitors in this price range have done this. I found another Toshiba Satellite L645 model with a 2.3 ghz dual core processor (not triple) at the same price. Performance is similar if not faster. The fan never comes on over 58% (was often over 88%) even though the processor reaches 58% of its heat limit.

I needed a powerful, compact, well made, reliable notebook (not netbook) PC to be used as my main desktop system. This was replacing a Dell Inspiron 530S Pentium Dual Core desktop PC tower, 3GB system with resident Intel graphics that recently failed. I thought, why not just buy a smaller notebook PC, hook it up to a full sized plug and play keyboard (my old Dell keyboard works great), and save space. Enter this amazing notebook. I basically only use my PC for web surfing and downloading, playing, and storing my HD MP4 videos (taken with a Sony 'Bloggie') in 720p, and for my digital camera photos. I would like to start using my L645D-S4036 to play some hi-res video games, driving/racing games, and flight sims as well. Anyway, what sold me were the features and 'horsepower' of this machine, given the fairly low price. Where else can you get a reliable brand name like Toshiba that includes a 720P HD LED widescreen, an AMD triple core Phenom II processor, Radeon graphics, 4 GB DDR3, CDR-DVD player, and 64-bit Windows 7 for this price?

ADDENDUM TO MY REVIEW: I've had this PC only a few days now, and already, it is all of a sudden exhibiting technical problems! I'm using this as my main home PC (with AC power), and on several occasions, it just would not shut down via the 'start menu' 'shut down' command! The 'caps lock' light would remain lit, (did not have caps on), as would the lights on the front of the unit! The screen would be blank though, but I could not get it to shut off. 'Esc' or 'Alt Ctrl, Del' would not work, and the only way to shut it off was to unplug the battery pack. Anyone else experiencing shutoff problems?!

9/29/2010 UPDATE: The unit did not want to shut off again (happened another 2 times), and I had to unplug the AC cord and re-insert it again, and go through the whole re-boot process. Major inconvenience. Now, this PC is dimming the screen on it's own as well, until I hit a key or move the mouse. But it's doing it from time to time on it's own, without much of a delay since the last keystroke/mouse use. As if this isn't enough of a hassle, this morning, it wouldn't accept the Windows 7 updates, and had to revert to a previous state. Every time I turn the PC on now, it goes through the same time consuming screen, whereby it states that it is configuring Windows updates, but the percentage figure stays at 0%! It also has changed font size and type on it's own as well! I am fed up with this piece of garbage, and would have given it 0 stars if I didn't rate it so soon after purchase.

12/6/2010 UPDATE: My machine has been working very well the last few weeks, with NO problems! This thing flies! I downloaded the latest BIOS update a few weeks ago, and apparently this has solved the main issues I had with this PC. I have not experienced any shutoff or fan issues, which I am ecstatic about. No hard drive issues as well. The fan now runs at a steady speed, instead of throttling up and down like mad (as it did previously at times), and the system is quieter and more controlled. If my Toshiba PC continues to be reliable as it has lately, I will remain a Toshiba customer. I only use this with the AC power supply, since it is my permanent, fixed home 'desktop' computer. I removed my battery a long time ago, and it has been collecting dust (and may have lost it's charge ability).

Please leave any comments if you have had a similar experience, whereby the BIOS update fixed any issues you had. I would be curious to hear your story/experience. Thanks!

8/19/2011 UPDATE: The machine has mysteriously slowed down considerably, and it still does not shut down properly about once a week, despite initiating proper shutdown procedure. So frustrating. The slowdown issue seems to be the Norton Internet Security software 'updating'. Every time Norton downloads updates (which is very frequently/several times an hour?), ALL the programs i'm working with, or surfing the web, slow down to a frustrating crawl, or do not work at all. Complete hard drive virus and system scans take forever as well compared to many of my previous PC's. At least I have not had any hard drive failures (knock on wood), as so many others here have had.

3/17/2012 UPDATE: I still have this machine as my main desktop unit. It works well, but it still runs slowly (only when the Norton Internet Security software is 'updating' lots of files when you first turn it on after a day or more of inactivity), and now, full system virus scans take FOREVER! When I first got the machine, complete scans took maybe 2 hours at most. Now, using the same 'NIS' software, a complete system scan takes anywhere from 17 hours to over 24 hours!!! I have absolutely no idea why a scan that once took 2 hours would now take a day or so! I am befuddled. I also placed 4 sorbothane feet under the unit to raise it an additional 1/2 inch or so. The fan seems to run a bit less, since there is now more air circulation underneath the unit, serving to cool it more efficiently.

I looked all over for a replacement to my 13.1 inch Sony Vaio laptop that was about the same size with considerably more power. This is everything i've looked for. Much smaller and alot more portable than any 15.6 in. laptop around. The previous reviews detailed all the specs nicely and I concur with all the positives. My webcam worked perfectly out of the box as well.

Great Screen and powerful laptop, this thing is FAST! If there was one thing I could nitpick on is that there isn't a way to turn off the vertical or horizontal scrolling on the touchpad. But that is a very minor issue that never gets in the way of the Phenomenol deal you are getting for this price.

People will not believe you only paid $500 dollars for what looks and performs like a much more expensive product!!