Notebook Hunter

For $695 the 13.3in Toshiba Satellite L730/018 is a good value solution for those needing the power of a basic notebook in a reasonably portable package. At 2.1kg it's on the heavy side for an ultraportable, but considering that spec equivalent basic notebooks weigh 2.5kg and upwards it's clear that there's a big difference in portability. The L730 has a 2nd Gen Intel Core i5 and 4GB of RAM, which is plenty for most modern software. Notably the L730 has a DVD burner, a not often used but still handy feature that most ultraportables omit.

Processor
The L730 features a 2nd Gen Intel Core i5-2410M (2.3GHz), a mid-range processor that will have no problems with productivity applications and most intensive software. It can burst up to 2.9GHz using Turbo Boost 2.0 Technology if a particularly demanding program is running.

Graphics
The L730 has an integrated graphics solution called Intel HD Graphics 3000. It’s on par with a low-end dedicated graphics card, and is sufficient for modern games at the lowest settings.

RAM
4GB of RAM is the minimum for reasonable system performance under its Windows 7 Home Premium operating system and is enough to run several programs at once quite smoothly.

Storage
It has a large 640GB hard disk drive, which is large enough for important files along with plenty of programs and documents.

Screen
The L730 sports a 14in (1,366x768 resolution) gloss screen. The gloss screen does make outdoor usage a bit of a struggle, but stay out of direct sunlight and it’s still fine.

Portability
The L730 has good portability, because it weighs 2.1kg and is 36.9mm thick. It'll be easy to carry around.

See the Toshiba Satellite L730/018 in the Notebook Hunter database here.

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