Notebook Hunter

It seems the Good Guys have quickly responded to Officeworks’ special last week on the Samsung QX310-S01AU. Enter the Toshiba Satellite U500/018 for $949, an amazing deal given the RRP is $1,799. At this price it’s a bargain, since it has similar specs to the QX310 while having a twice as large 640GB hard drive and a slew of business notebook features useful even for non-business users.

Those business features are Windows 7 Professional, a more versatile version of Windows 7 Home Premium that offers more tweaking options, accessibility and other features. There’s also a fingerprint scanner for those concerned with security and a shock prevention system that detects if your notebook is being dropped and locks the moving bits of the hard drive to minimise fall damage.

Running the show is a an Intel Core i5-430M (2.26GHz) processor that is up to the task of running most moderately intensive productivity applications. The specs also include 4GB of RAM to help multi-tasking with programs and a low-end but still helpful NVIDIA GeForce 310M graphics card. It’s enough to run new games like StarCraft 2 smoothly at low settings, which isn’t bad for a notebook that weighs 2.1kg.

While light, the U500 is a bit thick; it measures 38.2mm thick, 230.6mm deep and 317mm wide. That thickness is explained by the storage though; there’s a whopping 640GB on offer, which is unusual for an ultraportable.

See the Toshiba Satellite U500/018 in the Notebook Hunter database here.

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