Toshiba Satellite T130

The Intel ULV-powered ultraportables we’ve seen over the last few months have been a bit of a mixed bag. Some, like the Samsung X120, have successfully exploited the thin-and-light idea to offer something new, while others, like the Advent Altro, seem to have missed the point completely.

On the face of it, the Toshiba Satellite T130 looks like a recipe for success. It pushes the limit of what could be considered an ultraportable with its 13.3” screen and correspondingly capacious chassis, but it’s still only 35mm deep at its thickest point and weighs 1.76kg.

The Toshiba Satellite T130 isn’t a bad looker, either. It’s available with lids that come in a rainbow of colours, but the standard glossy black looks chic enough, thanks to its faint grey faux carbon-fibre finish — a finish that also extends to the glossy plastic that surrounds the keyboard.

A thin silver strip runs around the outer edge of the case and gives the sleek black lines an extra lift and although its plastic for as far as the eye can see, the Satellite T130 does feel pretty robust. We will draw Toshiba’s attention to one small oversight, though.

The two parts of plastic that make up the lid don’t quite marry along its bottom edge and one side stands slightly proud. grab the laptop in one hand and the edge feels rough and unfinished, and its possible to prise the two pieces apart with a fingernail. This isn’t really a problem, but it does stand out as a manufacturing slip on a laptop that otherwise feels very well made.

“Thin and light” is the term usually applied to this new breed of Intel ULV-powered ultraportables, but the Toshiba Satellite T130 feels a little thicker and heavier than most. Fortunately, this is down to the big 61Wh battery that adds a big bulge to the back end of the chassis — the rest of the laptop is a good deal slimmer.

Anyone looking for a laptop for use on the move may not be best pleased with the Satellite T130 — the lid’s hinges are stiff, but they still allow a surprising amount of wobble when the laptop is jiggled. Still, the screen itself is up to scratch — there’s only the narrowest of bezels and the glossy finish helps give a rich, vibrant image.

The Satellite T130’s keyboard is similar to that on the Toshiba NB200 — it’s full size, but has the same wide, flat keys. It’s as good to type on too, but the pale grey key legends don’t stand out on the shiny black key-tops and it’s very difficult to make the small Fn mode labels on the top row of function keys in anything but bright light.

The wide trackpad has a rough finish that feels pleasant under a fingertip, but it didn’t work so well for us. The mouse pointer’s movement was far from smooth at times, though we couldn’t pinpoint whether this was due to software or hardware. We’re also less than keen on the silver plastic buttons — or rather, “button”. There’s just a single strip of silver plastic below the touchpad that sits on a central pivot, and the amount of pressure needed to trigger a click varies depending on where you press.

We’ve seen everything from Celeron to Core 2 Duo processors in ultra-low voltage laptops, but Pentium chips seem to be a popular option for manufacturers looking to give the most bang per buck. Based on benchmark results, dual-core processors seem to be the prerequisite for improved performance though, but the Satellite T130 we reviewed only packs a single-core Pentium SU2700. As a result, performance is only on a par with the ULV Celeron-powered ultraportables we’ve reviewed and not that much better than an Atom-powered netbook.

Unfortunately, the Toshiba T130’s 3D graphics performance is equally lacklustre — the Intel HD4500M chipset is hardly a powerhouse, but it seems stymied in this ultraportable and turned in performance at the bottom level of what we’d expect.

Battery live does pull the Satellite T130’s bootstraps up a bit, though not by much. It lasted for a middling three hours in BatteryEater Pro’s Classic test and a much more impressive 8.5 hours in its Reader test. That should equate to around six hours of typical Wi-Fi-enabled use, which isn’t pretty for a 13.3” laptop that weighs this much.

Toshiba offers the Satellite T130 is a few different specifications, including one model with a ULV Core 2 Duo processor. That T130-170 model sells for around £700 though, while the T130-11H we reviewed can be found for around £469. That kind of money will buy a faster ULV ultraportable with a screen ranging from 12” to 15”, but it won’t have the same long battery life as this.