While the world is taking to smartphones and tablets more and more, a cheap and cheerful laptop will still have a place for many users. That tried and true method of mobile computing as been around for decades. The devices have gotten smaller, lighter and more lasting, but the overall principle has been the same.
The CL10-B features an 11.6-inch display with 1,366 x 768 resolution. The laptop weighs 1.1Kg making it a fairly light device. Inside we have Intel’s Celeron N2480 Dual Core CPU clocked at 2,16GHz with 2GB of RAM. Toshiba include a 32GB SSD – which the user gets around 12-14GB to usable space.
Thankfully there is an SD card slot on the side for expansion. Toshiba also include 100GB online storage with Microsoft’s OneDrive – this only last two years, but is a nice added bonus with the laptop. Connectivity includes WiFi, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, USB 3.0 and a full size HDMI connection and the aforementioned SD card slot.
The Toshiba CL10-B
The right side has the 3.5mm headphone jack, USB 2.0 slot and Kensington security lock. The left side is a little more active and has the power connector, power button with LED light, HDMI connector, USB 3.0, and SD Card slot.
Design of the laptop is pretty straight forward. There is some clear Apple Macbook design cues centering around the keyboard and color choices. Mostly Toshiba have gone for a simple design with contrasting colors. The keyboard is extremely usable with a near full size layout, without added numpad on the right.
Benchmarks
PCMark
Below are three tests from the latest edition of PCMark. Each benchmark details different set of scenarios with each giving us an idea of the type of performance we can expect from the laptop.
The low numbers are indicative of a low performing laptop. However, everything from browsing and writing to video chat will have zero issues. The entire PCMark benchmark backs that up.
3DMark
Ice Storm
Not for gaming at all is the clear message we can see from the laptop. Okay.. some light gaming with flash based/facebook games may be okay. Minecraft anyone!
Cloud Gate
Anytime of serious gaming is out of the question. Just in case anyone thought just maybe! Nope. Look away.
Battery Life
Powermark
Another great piece of software from Futuremark. PowerMark works much in the way the Home Conventional benchmark does – where it continuously runs through the same programs and content. What’s different here is we are not gauging performance of the CPU/GPU, but rather the battery life.
While we would have preferred to do the test without gameplay, as tpyically this laptop will not be suited for it in anyway. Even with it, the usage levels are seriously impressive. Nearly 5 hours battery life under load is an excellent battery life. Cutting out gameplay would give you easily get to very close to the 7 hour mark. We’re seriously impressed with the battery life – considering the laptop is very small and light.
Conclusions
The Toshiba Satellite CL10-B is a cheap and cheerful laptop. It offers no real special features beyond a slim and elegant design, but that’s also a part of its charm. The laptop is extremely light and easy to carry around and most importantly it offers a decent experience for only €250. While the extremely limited internal storage is a concern, the SD card slot and included 100GB cloud storage should mitigate these issues. The display offers a decent enough resolution, but suffers from some serious viewing angle issues. This laptop is really only meant for one person looking straight at it.
Overall the Toshiba CL10-B is an excellent offer and gives users the performance you need for browsing, video chat, and video playback. We can easily see this being popular for students who need a decent keyboard on the go. Thankfully the battery life is excellent as well. Easily obtaining over 6 hours without any heavy graphics involved.
We gladly recommend the Toshiba Satellite CL10-B, it has an elegant design with a lightweight build. Performance is surprising for a laptop this cheap and users get full advantage of a complete Windows 8 OS and keyboard for typing needs.
