Llano in the Wild: Toshiba's Satellite L775D-S7206
by Dustin Sklavos on August 12, 2011 12:45 AM ESTConclusion: Price Above All Else
I won't lie, I was looking forward to doing this review as an opportunity to weigh in with my peers on Llano, and that's largely because I do think we've been a bit unfair to it and I see the value in it. Jarred's concern regarding AMD's Fusion APUs is a fair one: released right now they're alright, but they're really a year or two late. It's true, but I'm not convinced it's entirely fair. I'm a huge fan of Brazos because to me it soundly and squarely beats and replaces Atom, at least in the form of the E-350, and this is something we've needed for a long time.
Llano is a bit different. First, as I said before, it doesn't belong on the desktop. It just doesn't. For the price of a decent Llano chip and accompanying motherboard, you can get a comparable Athlon II X4, motherboard, and strong dedicated GPU. As a builder there are just too many alternatives, and worse, there are still no Mini-ITX motherboards for it to at least consider shining in. Hybrid CrossFire is also severely handicapped with it's lack of DX9 support, almost to the point where I wonder why AMD even bothered. Jarred did receive a BIOS update to the original Llano laptop that addressed most of the corruption issues experienced in our not-for-release hardware, but with Llano already having more GPU than CPU power, Hybrid CrossFire merely puts an even greater load on the anemic Stars CPU. We're running some additional testing of Hybrid CrossFire and will discuss the results in the near future, but let's just say it's not quite worthy of the praises some are singing.
Despite some flaws and the weak processor core, however, Llano carves out its own niche in the mobile space, a space where AMD has desperately needed a winner. It's not the winner we were looking for, but it does something else entirely. On a budget but still want something portable you can play Left 4 Dead 2 on? Now we're talking. Llano helps democratize PC gaming and lowers the price of entry. When I was stuck in a godawful lecture at school I'd've killed for a Llano-equipped notebook that could run something like Guild Wars on the battery with good performance. There is a market for this, and while I think prices could stand to be a little lower and industry support for AMD products could always be better, you're just not going to beat the value proposition. Llano is a great alternative south of $700, and absolutely thrives south of $600.
Where the Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7206 comes in is simple: there is a cross-section of needs that get met by this product. I know a lot of people aren't fans of notebooks this big, but since travelling to CES I've been able to recognize their value: I used a big, comfortable desktop replacement in the hotel room, and I took my ThinkPad X100e with me on the show floor. I don't like Toshiba's styling, and I don't like the corners cut (10/100 ethernet and no USB 3.0? Seriously?), but I do like seeing a 17" Blu-ray equipped notebook with a spacious hard drive that can still game for under $700.
Office Depot has the similar L775D-S7226 on instant rebate for $599 right now, with the only difference between the S7226 and S7206 being the lack of Bluetooth support on the former. There's something of a price premium with this form factor, and a visit to NewEgg proves you'd be hard-pressed to find a good alternative to what Toshiba offers with this notebook. The price is right, and the performance is exactly adequate. While the Stars cores in the A6-3400M are hopelessly long in the tooth, they still offer enough oomph to handle most tasks, and the A6 can even play less demanding games at the notebook's native 900p. On top of that, it's quiet, cool, and offers decent battery life.
Is the L775D-S7206 a homerun? No. But if you're part of the niche that can take advantage of its combination of features, and you know who you are, it's going to be tough to do much better than this.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
74 Comments
View All Comments
Rookierookie - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
Pricing this at $699 brings this into competition with the Dell XPS 15, which starts at $799 with i5-2410M and a Nvidia GT 525M. You trade off on some utilities, but it's basically a much faster laptop for about $100 more.At $599 this becomes a much more attractive option.
nitrousoxide - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
No, for that $100 you can get an SSD. And it feels "much faster" than the XPS 15 with HDD.prdola0 - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
SSD with usable size for $100? No. Not really. XPS 15 is a much better choice.JGabriel - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
Dustin Sklavos @ Top: "I do honestly think two faster AMD cores would've been a better call than four slow cores"
For low-end home users, the most common problem I've seen is thread clutter. We're talking about people who aren't very tech literate, and load up their machines with tons of little tech gewgaws to tell them the weather, list headlines, perform animations when they get mail, make their mouse cursor "cute", and so on.
I suspect this is one of AMD's target markets for Llano. If so, one can see the argument in favor of more slow cores over few fewer fast ones. These are people who don't need to get anything done quickly, they just need a lot of low-demand things done simultaneously.
jfelano - Monday, August 15, 2011 - link
It will be $599ckryan - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
The contrast ratio chart shows that laptop screens are usually not very good. Not that its newsworthy, but how do manufacturers expect to keep selling even midrange laptops when you can get a tablet with a bitchin screen and better battery life. Not that the two devices roles are interchangeable for many tasks, but I for one won't be buying another laptop until screens get better.damianrobertjones - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
It is a shame that the Radiance (HP Envy line) screen maker went out of business! madnessLordConrad - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
As someone who wears glasses, I personally like my screens with a slightly lower resolution because everything is natively larger. I know you can adjust font and icon sizes in Windows, or simply change the resolution, but I consider these changes to be a last resort option. I loved my last HP dv7 laptop, it was a bit bulky but it had a beautiful 1440x900 screen that was just right for my eyesight. My current laptop is a slightly smaller and less bulky dv6 with a 1366x768 screen, which is also perfect for my eyesight. With both laptops I had the option to get a higher resolution screen, which they probably don't include on the review systems you get.Just keep in mind that not everyone has 20/20 (or better) vision.
Dustin Sklavos - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
Actually my eyesight is pretty dire, too.The thing is, high resolution screens seem to tend to produce better color, better contrast, and better viewing angles. I'd take one of those at a lower-than-native resolution at this point, just because they LOOK better.
ckryan - Friday, August 12, 2011 - link
My eyesight is pretty good, and I no longer prefer maximum DPI. A 1920X1200 display is great at 24", but in a 15" laptop it's definitely not for everyone. I told a family member not to get one as an upgrade in a Dell Vostro a couple years ago; She runs it at half the native resolution. It is a pretty good TN screen, much better than the other options, but just way to fine pitched. I'm to the point where I will happily take a better panel display at a lower res than a much higher TN panel. It would be different if WIndows was better about scaling, but you can only do so much by adjusting DPI display settings.Still, I'm pretty serious about not buying another laptop until I can get a display in the style to which I'm accustomed these days. Whenever I pick up my laptop I die a little on the inside. The viewing angles are terrible, black level is absurdly high, contrast is low, and this is the upgraded panel in the Dell D630 14" I'm using. At least I have the docking bay for it.