Toshiba Satellite P755D: Middle of the Road, With Blu-ray and Good Sound

02.04.2012
The Toshiba Satellite P755D is a decent multimedia laptop, with a Blu-ray drive, Harman/Kardon stereo speakers, and a 15.6-inch widescreen high-def display. This "high-performance" model in Toshiba's "everyday value" Satellite line lists for $700 (as of April 2, 2012). Its quad-core won't set any speed records, however.

Toshiba pays attention to multimedia. The Dolby Advanced and Waves MaxxAudio systems produce great sound even at high volume, both from the speakers and over earphones. An HDMI port lets you hook up to your HDTV to play Blu-ray movies, too. Regrettably, the 15.6-inch display has a relatively low resolution of 1366 by 768--and since the screen is mirror-shiny, avoiding reflections is hard.

The microphone port has a potentially handy feature called Toshiba Sleep and Music, which lets you play your MP3 player through the laptop's speakers, even when the laptop itself is powered off. In addition, you can charge your digital devices through the USB Sleep and Charge port, which also operates even when the laptop is turned off, though it will drain the battery unless you've plugged the laptop into the wall.

Ports are plentiful, including VGA, ethernet, three USB connections and one port with the aforementioned Sleep and Charge, headphone and microphone jacks, a security lock slot, and a memory-card reader (on the front edge). The P755D also comes with Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0. The 640GB hard drive has a "Toshiba HDD Protection" impact sensor that automatically parks the drive head to protect the hard-drive surface from damage should you bump the laptop. A pop-up warns you if the machine is bumped and the heads are being parked; you will be surprised how easily you can provoke it into action.

Across the top of the keyboard are the power button and touch-sensitive buttons for wireless, the Eco power-saving utility, speaker on/off, and volume control.

The keyboard is nice: Its smooth, large, black keys are reasonably responsive, though their descent is not as deep as on a more expensive Dell Inspiron, for example. The multitouch touchpad is tricky to use--whenever I accidentally touched it with two fingers, the cursor froze, and each time I had to take a moment to figure out what was wrong. The touchpad buttons are a bit stiff, too. A button turns on a light for the control buttons across the top of the keyboard, as well as a light bar across the top of the touchpad, but the rest of the keyboard is not backlit.