MaximumPC 2008 09

S

ome days, we almost miss Toshiba’s

signature battleship gray notebook

PCs—the latest look for the company’s

long-running Satellite series is just a bit too

much. After a few hours of use, our Satellite

P305-S8825 was covered with fingerprints.

And that was with clean paws! If you like

snacking on Pringles while surfing the web,

this rig will look as hygienic as the sneeze

guard at a Baskin-Robbins after a class of

third-graders has visited.

Unfortunately, the P305 is a lot like Las

Vegas: glitzy on the outside but a bit cheesy

on the inside. For example, this rig doesn’t

sport Intel’s latest Montevina parts (aka

the Centrino 2, with a faster 1,066MHz FSB

Penryn chip). That’s to be expected since

Montevina’s been delayed—but at the very

least give us the last generation of Penryn.

Instead, we get the aged 65nm Core 2 Duo

T5600 at 1.86GHz.

Still, the Satellite has some nice touches.

Its 17-inch glossy screen is gorgeous and

bright. The 320GB hard drive is ample, and

the unit’s USB ports are active when the

notebook is in standby, so you can charge

your phone or MP3 player without hav-

ing to leave the notebook powered up. The

nicest feature, though, may be the price. The

Satellite costs just under $1,000, which takes

some of the sting out of its shortcomings.

But while you may marvel at the amount

of hardware—albeit old—that $1,000 gets you,

the P305’s performance will leave you want-

ing. When compared to our Asus C90s zero-

point notebook, as well as all the midrange

notebooks we reviewed in our August issue,

the Satellite didn’t win a single benchmark.

In fact, compared to the other notebooks

in its price range, the P305 takes a solid

pounding thanks to the 1.86GHz Core 2

Duo T5600 chip and its 667MHz front-side

bus. Only the Asus F8Sn from last month’s

roundup, with its even slower 1.66GHz Core

2 Duo T5450, loses to the Toshiba—and only

in some benchmarks. Gaming on this rig is

also pretty atrocious given its ATI Mobil-

ity Radeon HD 3470. The card is certainly

magnitudes better than integrated graphics,

but you won’t be running any recent titles at

the screen’s native 1440x900 resolution with

the eye candy turned up.

Desktop replacement notebooks tend to

be big, to support their large screens, and the

look and feel of the P305 betray every inch

of its bulk. But since desktop replacements

rarely leave the desk, that probably won’t be

an issue—a good thing, too, since the battery

life is nothing to brag about. During our

rundown test, we were able to watch about

90 minutes of our DVD before the battery

pooped out. That’s comparable to the life we

got from our Asus C90s with its desktop CPU

and the wickedly fast and power-hungry

Alienware Area-51 m15x. What’s the P305’s

excuse? –G O R D O N M A H U N G

78 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC|SEP 08 |www.maximumpc.com

IN THE LAB^

REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Toshiba Satellite

P305-S8825

We like a good deal, but not one

fraught with sacrifi ces

You’ll want to put on

white gloves before you touch

the Satellite P305’s fi ngerprint-prone surface.

SPECIFICATIONS

PROCESSOR 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo T5600

RAM 3GB DDR2/667

CHIPSET GM965

HARD DRIVE 320GB Toshiba MK3252GSX

OPTICAL HL GSA-T40F

VIDEOCARD ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470

VERDICT

$950, http://www.toshiba.com

5

Vibrant and bright

screen; low price.

Horrible battery life

and infested with

bloatware.

GAFFER TAPE

TOSHIBA SATELLITE P305-S8825

GAFFES

ZERO POINT

1,860 sec

237 sec

2,416 sec

3,498 sec

14 fps

29.1 fps

Our zero point notebook uses a 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo E6700, 2GB of DDR2/667 RAM, an 80GB hard drive, a GeForce Go 8600M and Windows Vista Home Premium.

Premiere Pro CS3

Photoshop CS3

ProShow

MainConcept

FEAR

Quake 4

0 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

BENCHMARKS

269 secsec(-11.9%)(-11.9%)

2,520 sec sec (-26.2%)(-26.2%)

3,600 secsec(-2.8%)(-2.8%)

2,779 secsec(-13.1%)(-13.1%)

12 fps (-14.3%)(-14.3%)(-14.3%)

34.4 34.4 fps