Review: Toshiba Satellite P50t B-11D

Introduction and design

As a touch 4K laptop, Toshiba's business-targeted Satellite P50T B-11D was expected to make an impact, visually at least. Toshiba call it the 'world's first 4K Ultra HD laptop' and claim it delivers 'true colour accuracy', allowing you to see movies, photography and art as the artist intended. To back up that claim, they've crammed some solid hardware in there - but is it enough? And what can it really run?

This is a very different sort of professional laptop, unlike Toshiba's own no-nonsense Satellite Pro R50. Like Toshiba's P55T, this is a statement piece and the price (£1200, about $1800 or AU$2400) reflects that.

Toshiba's stated aim is that this will be the laptop you buy to do high-end video-editing and photoshop work, in place of a Retina MacBook Pro (which, to even get near similar specifications, you're looking almost double). Realistically, it'll be bought by executives because it's both expensive and shiny.

Design

The exterior of the laptop is relatively familiar, looking similar to the Satellite P-50 that we got our hands-on in June 2013. It has a brushed aluminium finish save for the black plastic bezel surrounding the edge of the screen, which turns silver as it runs over onto the screen's back. The metal is pleasantly cool to the touch, and seems relatively robust - it won't bend easily, though it does wobble unduly during touchscreen usage.

Underneath the laptop, there's a lighter black plastic finish, which is relatively resistant too - save for the moulded Blu-ray drive, which has that familiar loose and soft feel, and is the only physical weak point. That said, it's nice to have the option compared to the MacBook Pro when you consider how long it takes to download a 4K movie. The hinges, by contrast are strong despite their plastic surround.

Back on the surface, the light-up keyboard is a nice touch (and useful for those dark long-haul flights, even if the battery would give out three hours in - more on that to follow), with quiet, firm keys. The power button also lights up, and is pleasantly resilient and resistant.

The obvious difference from the P-50 is that 4K screen, but there are other differences too. The laptop no longer has a VGA out on the right, and it has no ports on the rear or front which gives it a cleaner look whether open or closed. That means all the USB and HDMI ports are crammed along the sides, which looks messy when you have a lot plugged in.

Overall, the laptop's design is simple and clean, without being particularly inspired. It doesn't have the elfin delicacy of the Macbook Air but, then, that's not the market it's going for. One strange aspect of its visual language is that, when shut, the curved corners at the back look like the front of the device - almost every time I open it, I try the wrong side first.

4K all the way

But enough shilly-shallying. That 4K display is the core point of this device and everything else has just been built to support it. It has a 15.6-inch display, making it every so slightly larger than the MacBook Pro's, but it's the 3,840 x 2,160 resolution and screen quality that make it stand out. To run that, Toshiba has opted for a AMD r9 M265X graphics chip with 2GB of DDR5 VRAM.

The display looks gorgeous and the ten-point touchscreen is responsive and sensitive to the screen's edges, with accurate inputs even on small on-screen buttons; however, it does finger-mark easily. With the brightness cranked right up, it's just about right for usage - but on the standard power-saving or eco modes it's straightforwardly too dim for comfort. At least the brightness is consistent across the screen, and it has very wide viewing angles.

In terms of colour, the screen's blacks are good and deep, and the colours seem extremely natural and high-contrast. The usual problems of reflection are there for such a glossy screen, which cause distraction even in a low-lit room, but the screen is bright enough at max settings to allay that. However, on battery settings the restricted brightness means it won't be easy to see well outdoors - and unless you fancy lugging a UPS around with you, that means it's effectively unusable outdoors.

Specifications

With a weight of 2.3kg / 5.1 pounds, the Satellite P50T B-11D is just heavier than the MacBook Pro. Its dimensions of 377.5 x 244 x 27.9mm / 15 x 9.6 x 1.1 inches mean it's almost the same width and depth as the MacBook, but half as high again.

Here is the Toshiba Satellite P50T B-11D configuration given to TechRadar:

Spec Sheet

• CPU: 2.4GHz Intel® Core™ i7-4700HQ Processor (quad-core, 6MB cache, up to 3.4GHz with Turbo Boost)


• Graphics: AMD Radeon™ R9 M265X (2GB DDR5 RAM), Intel HD graphics 4600.


• RAM: 16GB DDRL (1600MHz)


• Screen: 15.6" Toshiba TruBrite® Ultra HD TFT High Brightness touch display with Chroma Tune colour calbration.


• Storage: 1TB HDD (5,400RPM), 8GB SSD Solid State Hybrid Drive.


• Optical drive: Blu-ray disc


• Ports: 4 x USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, Headphone jack, Microphone jack, Ethernet, Multi-Card Reader (SD, miniSD, MicroSD, SDHC).


• Connectivity: Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 3160 + Bluetooth® 4.0 + LE


• Camera: HD web cam


• Weight: 5.1 pounds


• Size: 15 x 9.6 x 1.1 inches (W x D x H)

There aren't really any options to upgrade the Satellite Pro, given that both its memory and SSD slots are maxed out, but that core specification is solid enough.

The Blu-ray drive is absolutely essential for legal 4K content - especially as Netflix UHD doesn't support many hi-res devices yet. The hybrid hard drive isn't quite up to the standard of a modern SSD, especially considering the price point, but functions adequately and is delivered roughly 120MB short of its 1TB.

The Radeon R9 265X might be an odd choice in this era of Nvidia dominance, but it performs better-than-adequately, proving quite capable of running most modern games on mains power. It doesn't perform well on mobile power, continuing the theme of this as a desktop replacement.

Those luxurious 4 USB 3.0 ports are split between the device's sides, whilst the card reader is concealed beneath the front lip of the

Performance and benchmarks

The Satellite P50t seems to handle most admin tasks well. The Windows 8 interface is, as ever, a hindrance to getting anything done, but once you're through that apps run at a reasonable lick.

Some modern games seem to run exceptionally smoothly on this machine, others just chug. It's unlikely that you'll want to play Total War: Rome II or Metro: Last Light on this, for example, but Shadow of Mordor ran perfectly well at 1080p. Cranking any 3D game up to the native resolution is a bad idea though, as our benchmarks show.

Benchmarks

Here's how the Toshiba Satellite P50T B-11D performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

• 3DMark: Cloud Gate: 4383; Sky Diver: 4852; Fire Strike: 1620


• Cinebench R15: CPU: 656cb; Graphics: 59.54 pts


• PCMark 8 (Home Test): 3196 points


• PCMark 8 Battery Life: 2 hours and 40 minutes


• Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (1080p, Ultra): 15.20fps; (1080p, Low): 35.65fps


• Metro: Last Light (1080p, Ultra): 7.79fps; (1080p, Low): 27.24fps

These results are not exactly wonderful in comparison to the HP ZBook G2, which scored 25% higher than the P50t B-11D in FutureMark's PC Mark 8 test, which runs real-world tasks and applications to measure PC performance. There was a gulf of distance between the two machine's 3DMark scores, with the ZBook G2's NVIDIA Quadro K5100M scoring 92% (Fire Strike), 185% (Sky Diver) and 122% (Cloud Gate) higher in the respective GPU tests.

Despite the lower scores, the results show it's at leat capable of running lesser-demanding games and image-editing apps. Shadow of Mordor approached acceptable levels with details set to Low, churning out 35.65fps. Obviously, framerates drop to single figures and are unplayable if you attempt to run any graphics benchmark at 4K resolution.

The claimed maximum battery life is 194 minutes, but with the brightness cranked up to maximum, the only setting at which it's acceptably bright, it lasted less than 150 minutes for us. Running on the 'balanced' setting added 20 minutes, but at the cost of readibility - outside of a dim room, you don't want to be running on this.

The Harman-Kardon speakers are, as ever, solid, putting out good clear high-end sound and acceptables mid-range, without the tinniness in the high end you'd expect from such small units. Obviously, they don't have a subwoofer built in, so the bass notes can only ever be acceptable.

Though it doesn't run particularly hot, the Satellite P50T B-11D does get noisy quickly - it's much louder than my desktop PC within thirty second of turning on, even when idle. I couldn't find way a way to turn the fan down easily either, so this static buzz is a persistent annoyance. Thankfully, it doesn't run particularly hot, so you can continue to use it on your lap.

Bundled software

As always, there is a ton of bundled software to explore, most of which you'll want to uninstall immediately, like the pretty pointless Symbaloo. (Or Windows 8, but you'll have to live with that until 10 is released.) The notable absence, considering that focus on Chroma Tune, is of any bundled photoshop software. The P55T is supposed to come with some

• Chroma Tune: A small colour-balancing app that promises to provide absolutely accurate colour for films and images - as long as they've been encoded with certain Technicolor standards. The software also lets you choose a particular colour setting, to match particular types of content, or profiles for when you load other software.


• Symbaloo - an internet desktop that you can access from anywhere.


• The McAfee Central security suite is more immediately valuable, but only starts with a month's subscription, and is prone to irritating pop-ups.


• An Amazon button on the start bar allows you to search their store immediately - like you needed another reason to spend money there.


• The inclusion of Evernote is a mixed blessing - if you're already using it, it's essential, but the closed system means that new users might want to start with Google Keep instead.


• Cyberlink MediaShow 6 is useful for organising and editing your software and videos, and this version has a touch interface.


• Toshiba have loaded on a few bespoke applications as well. The Toshiba Media Player is otherwise unremarkable but has touch integration so works well for browsing your library.


• The Toshiba Desktop Assist app gives you easy access to all those elements that you used to have easy access to before you installed Windows 8, as well as some handy applications for managing your PC's health and changing how the system starts up. It's all helpful, if a bit more kibble.

Verdict

We liked

That display is the heart of the P50t, and it certainly does the job. You can't tell the pixels apart, despite the larger screen and, on mains power, it's colourful and responsive. Indeed, it might be one of the most colourful screens we've seen.

Windows 8 seems to work well with it, with icons still being a reasonable size, but other programs don't automatically adjust, leaving you hunting the screen for the tiniest windows. The build is good, with the cool metal finish holding up well to pressure and twisting. The combination of a Blu-ray player and a 4K display make it a laptop for movie fans who travel, but don't expect it to go for too long before having to reach for the mains.

We disliked

This laptop doesn't like running on battery power - it doesn't last long and it has a very dim screen whilst it's doing it. Compared to the MacBook Pro's eight hour battery life, 2 hours 23 minutes is extremely poor. And the screen is too glossy, which is problematic for high light environments.

While the build is good, the several plastic parts detract from its perception as a complete luxury product. That constant fan noise, whilst not loud, is an irritant. And the locations of the various ports will make it messy in use.

Finally, those benchmarks don't match its price point. The HP ZBook 17 G2 is a similar price and destroys the Toshiba in every benchmark going. The graphics chip is weak so only suited to low-spec gaming, and especially not at the 4K resolution - something just over 720p seems better suited to running games smoothly

Final verdict

With its short battery life and its poor screen brightness on battery, this is effectively a desktop replacement. Despite that, it's not particularly heavy, perhaps due to the use of plastic instead of metal in much of the edging.

We can't really claim to be happy with its benchmarks. Running anything intensive at the screen's native resolution is going to try this machine and we're concerned about the apparent lack of multi-threading on two of our benchmarks. These won't affect many core tasks, given the solid graphics card in support, but it does worry us about how this laptop will age.

Despite those concerns, this is a solid offering. If you're not interested in the touchscreen, then the 4K version of the Dell Precision M3800 might be a good alternative for $200 / £100 more. If you're not that bothered about the 4K and want power, then the HP ZBook 17 G2 blows the benchmarks of anything else out of the water, even if shares a similarly poor battery. And if you're after a UHD screen with a long battery life, the 15" retina MacBook Pro is expensive but reliable.

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