Toshiba A505D-S6987: A Look at Turion II Ultra M600 Performance
by Dustin Sklavos on June 23, 2010 10:57 PM ESTToshiba A505D-S6987 Conclusion
When dealing with a notebook like Toshiba's A505D-S6987, what we're really looking at is the value proposition. No one builds the perfect notebook and it's always going to be an exercise in compromises. Toshiba lists (or listed) an MSRP of $799 on their site, and that price is very steep when other AMD-based notebooks can be found for less. Even Core i3-based notebooks are available at lower prices; you lose the antiquated-but-still-fairly-reliable Mobility Radeon HD 4200 integrated graphics, but you're liable to gain substantially in processor performance and battery life. At MSRP, you can do much better, but thankfully no one sells at MSRP.
This exact model sold for $633 on Amazon the last time we checked, and a comparable Toshiba that's identical to our unit except for a slightly slower M500 processor can be had for less than $475 at Best Buy. When you get down to these prices, the value of the A505D begins to come through. The performance and expandability are there, and if you're looking for a basic desktop replacement notebook that you can do some extremely light gaming on, it becomes pretty easy to recommend. Like the Acer 5542, then, it's a matter of pricing, and we'd recommend looking for $400-$450 with an M300 series processor, or around $500 for the M500/M600 parts. The A505D falls into the latter category, and depending on how much weight you place on extras like eSATA and ExpressCard, it surpasses some of the competition.
The main caveats are going to be the mediocre battery life and the must-have-gloss-everywhere styling, and these are both going to be a matter of measuring what you'll be using the notebook for and what you're willing to put up with. Glossy plastic is a fingerprint magnet, and the appearance of the A505D is definitely going to be a matter of taste. More than that, you'll want to see if you can actually type comfortably on the keyboard. We're reviewers and hardware junkies who go through a lot of different hardware, and at least this reviewer in particular can get picky about what he types on. [Ed: I tried it as well and disliked the glossy keys, but the layout was good and at least there wasn't a ton of flex.]
Thankfully, Toshiba has a massive retail presence, and taking one of their notebooks for a spin at a local shop should be extremely easy. We can tell you the performance is there and the battery life isn't, but this one's going to come down to taste, aesthetics, and whether or not there's a sale. Check it out for yourself and if you like how it looks and feels (or at least wouldn't mind it), and the battery life doesn't bother you, we can comfortably recommend it. For an updated look and improved performance at a moderate increase in price, the Toshiba A665 is now available as well. We expect to have our review of that notebook ready in the next two weeks, and it will provide a better idea of what AMD's new Danube platform has to offer.
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veri745 - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
I'm REALLY looking forward to review of the Danube and Nile platforms, but these Tigris notebooks are just not interesting. horrid battery life in a 15.6+" form factor...blech.JarredWalton - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
I agree, but it does help set the stage for the next review, plus there are lots of Tigris laptops floating around. They perform well enough and often can be had for a song, provided you're not after long battery life in an ultraportable chassis.Anyway, the Toshiba A665-S6059 just arrived this evening, and I unpacked it a couple hours back. It's radically different in looks from the A505D, and it throws in a lot of other extras. Quad-core P920, HD 4200 + HD 5650, textured lid/palm rest, and a thinner chassis to boot. Granted, it costs $875, but it looks like it idles at around 13-14W. That's still only good for 3.5 hours of battery life, but blame it on the paltry 48Wh battery. We'll have the review ready for next Friday is the plan....
Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
Oh, I see, Jarred. Keeping all the fun ones to yourself? ;)pmonti80 - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
What I would love is laptops with AMD's new CULV equivalent. Don't remember the name though.JarredWalton - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
That's the Nile platform, which is the lower wattage version of Danube. We're working to get one of those for testing as well. An no worries, Dustin... we'll get you some other stuff. ;-)Roland00 - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
Here are the specific models of the new Nile PlatformThe Nile platform (2010) are 9W, 12W, 15W processors with DDR3 support. All these processors are Champlain processors with the new memory controller.
9W, AMD V105, Single Core*1.2 Ghz, 512 kb L2 cache total
12W, AMD K125, Single Core*1.7 Ghz, 1 mb L2 cache total
12W, AMD K325, Dual Core*1.3 Ghz, 1 mb L2 cache per core, 2mb total
15W, AMD K625, Dual Core*1.5 Ghz, 1 mb L2 cache per core, 2mb total
15W, AMD K665, Dual Core*1.7 Ghz, 1 mb L2 cache per core, 2mb total
The Danube platform (2010) are 25W, 35W, 45W processors with DDR3 support
VivekGowri - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
Ooooh. Quad core + HD 5650 for $850 sounds like fun. It doesn't look all that great though (and the screen is pretty sadly low res - 1366x768 is not okay on a 16" display) and Toshiba is quoting 2.5 hours of battery life. That's not a good sign right off the bat. I'm scared for the results battery life tests, though it doesn't sound like they should take very long ;)Should be interesting to see how AMD's "more cores for less money" strategy works in the mobile space. Just gonna place a bet that it won't work as well as the desktop chips for two reasons: power consumption and heat. Will wait for benchmarks though, it should have a lot of fun with the encoding benches.
JarredWalton - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
Initial idle battery life testing is under way, and it's looking like 3.5 hours is going to be about right. Obviously, Internet and x264 will put a much bigger load on the system. 2.5 hours seems about what you'd get if the HD 5650 stayed active.Quirky system, though: I haven't found a way to disable the dGPU other than unplugging the laptop. I mean, sure, if you're plugged in having the GPU enabled is reasonable, but I do wish there were a way to manually engage/disable it. Also, the lack of AMD driver updates is disheartening... and there's not even an ATI CCC with the current drivers, so I'm not sure what version of the drivers it's running.
$850 is a tough sell given the competition, but at least it looks like battery life won't be bad. The 1.6GHz clock speed may prove a bigger issue for some, but for heavily threaded workloads the quad-core CPU should come close to (or surpass even) some of the i3/i5 processors.
HHCosmin - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
hello. i'm the proud owner of an acer timeline 3820TG featuring an i5 540m and a switchable (manually) 5470 which i do not really need... but that is a different story. i read some reviews and they were complaining that you cannot turn off the discrete card when plugged in. that is not true and it's also not so obvious.goes like this: when you plugin the lappie the discrete ati gpu goes active. then you can go to the ati control center (or something) and there it says that the discrete ati gpu is active. you also have two buttons: one is to enable the "power saving gpu" and one is for the... err power hungry and hot gpu. :) you have to press the button that sys about enabling the power saving gpu and wait. it takes a bit of time to make the switch and the desktop may go dark.. etc but after a while it will say that the integrated gpu is active. all this is on a special page... and you just have to find it. good luck!
fabarati - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - link
Does it have AMD's Turbo-whatever? If it does, does it work well?