Toshiba Satellite L735-14L review

The L735-14L’s contrasting silver and black “dot matrix” texture on the lid and the inside gives it an interesting industrial look. Constructed largely from plastic, it can’t compete in terms of build quality: when picked up closed, for example, the lid flaps open a little since there’s no catch to hold it in place. However, as the L735-14L is a much cheaper laptop than its rivals, some trade-offs are to be expected.

Toshiba has at least included hard drive protection, where an acceleration sensor detects vibrations or shocks and moves the drive head to a safe position: useful in a classroom, where knocks and drops are likely.

Thanks to a 13.3in screen, a compact design and 2.1kg weight, the L735-14L is relatively portable. The glossy, LED- backlit 13.3in screen, running at 1,366 x 768, is one of the Toshiba’s highlights: it’s bright and renders text and graphics with good colours and crisp definition. Audio output is surprisingly good, with the built-in speakers delivering clear sound with a smidgeon of bass.

Sadly, the Toshiba’s keyboard feels flimsy: the weighting of keys seems off. Also, the glossy keys have a habit of showing up smudges caused by dirty fingers. The textured trackpad is a little better, but it’s small and lacks the tactile feel of those on other laptops. It supports some multitouch gestures, however.

Powered by a 2.3GHz Intel Core i3 processor with 4GB of RAM, the Toshiba isn’t the quickest here, but it’s certainly fast enough to run most classroom applications; it’s in graphically intensive tasks where it will struggle. The benchmark score of 0.51 is average, but not disastrous. Battery life is a more serious issue. The L735-14L promises only 3hrs 30mins of use from a full charge; it lasted a poor 2hrs 41mins in our tests.

For the price, the Toshiba offers reasonable performance, but build quality and battery life tip the scales against it.

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