Battery Life, Portability, Software and Other Features
Toshiba Satellite C655D AMD E-240 Fusion APU Notebook Review - Mobile 30

With a weight of 5.5 pounds and a display size of 15.6 inches, the Toshiba Satellite C655 isn’t built with portability as its highest priority. The weight is the biggest disappointment, since there is really no reason a laptop with this processor needs to be so heavy. However, as mentioned in the design section, this model of the C655 uses the same chassis as other Toshiba laptops with much more powerful processors. The weight therefor isn’t surprising.

Toshiba Satellite C655D AMD E-240 Fusion APU Notebook Review - Mobile 31

One might hope that the weight has at least gone to a large battery, but that’s not the case. The 48Wh battery installed on the Toshiba C655 is quite small. Obviously, this has a negative effect on battery life. Despite being equipped with AMD’s E-240, a brand new APU designed specifically for use in ultraportables, netbooks and other similar systems, the C655 was just shy of three hours in the Battery Eater benchmark and almost fifteen minutes shy of five hours during real-world testing.

These results are certainly adequate for many users, but they’re less than what I expected from AMD’s new architecture. The Dell Inspiron M101z provides a great point of comparison. In my testing of that 11.6” ultraportable, which is based off AMD’s Nile platform and has a 56Wh battery, I received a result of 2:59 in the Battery Eater test and 4:58 in real-world usage.

While I want to review more Fusion powered laptops before rendering a final verdict, I must say these initial results seem to indicate that AMD isn’t coming anywhere close to the battery life potential of Intel’s Atom processor.

On the other hand, these battery life results are good for any 15.6” laptop, nevermind one priced at $349. While I was hoping to see longer life than testing revealed, this still represents an improvement over the choices currently available to budget buyers looking for a large laptop.

Other Features and Software

Given the price of the Toshiba Satellite C655, it’s unsurprising that there is little to talk about in this section. The C655 doesn’t have a webcam, doesn’t have Bluetooth, and doesn’t have any other feature that might make it stand out from the crowd.

There’s not much to talk about in terms of software, either. The laptop does ship with some bloatware, including a very annoying version of Norton that was constantly reminding me that my laptop was unprotected. The laptop also comes with Toshiba Service Station a basic and thankfully unobtrusive piece of software that can automatically update your laptop’s drivers and software.

Although bloatware is always annoying, the software on the C655 is easily uninstalled and not difficult to work around even if you leave it active.

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