Toshiba Satellite T-130 13K review: CULV laptop

Despite the hype sometimes a netbook just won't hack it. Lucky then, there's a new kid in town - the CULV notebook. It may not sound catchy but if you want portability, power and affordability, then Toshiba has a machine for you. We review the Toshiba Satellite T-130.

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Toshiba T-130

IT Pro Verdict

Ergonomically, it is an improvement over a netbook, and we appreciate the lengthy battery life, but the unresponsive mouse buttons and a lack of raw speed blunt it's appeal a little. We'd recommend going for the Satellite Pro version, with its faster processor and Windows 7 Professional.

What do you do about a problem like the netbook? Sure, they've taken the world by storm, but as we've mentioned before, it seems that a great many people are buying them without realising that they aren't small laptops that are ready for anything.

As such, manufacturers are pushing a new category - the CULV laptop. Admittedly, that's not much of a name for a category, but as the netbook confusion has proved, saddling devices with labels can just be confusing. The selling point of the CULV laptop is that they're slightly bigger than netbooks, and as such can accommodate larger screens and more usable keyboards, while offering better battery life and more performance. At the same time, it's all done without the high expense of miniaturisation you'll get from the likes of the Toshiba Portege R600. While that starts at 1,149, the T130 starts at 399.

The Toshiba T-130 that we have in front of us is an example of this increasingly popular form factor, yet costs just 469 including VAT from Toshiba's website.

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It's available in both consumer and business flavours, with the choice of processor the differentiating factor. The Pros get Celeron or Core 2 Solo Intel processors, while the consumer models have Core 2 Solo or Pentium processors, and the 1.3GHz SU2700 inside our review sample comes under this latter brand. While this is a brand that's been around for around 15 years, the processor inside is actually based on Intel's Penyrn core from 2007, so you're not being saddled with mid-nineties technology.

The key facet of the Core 2 Solo, is the single core-processor (the clue's in the name), which does seem a little old school. This means that if you are the multi tasking type this probably isn't the machine for you. As it turned out, our machine managed to turn in a score of 0.52 in our benchmarks. This is actually only slightly faster than you'll see from a netbook, so it's a little disappointing in that respect.

Benny Har-Even
Benny Har-Even

Benny Har-Even is a twenty-year stalwart of technology journalism who is passionate about all areas of the industry, but telecoms and mobile and home entertainment are among his chief interests. He has written for many of the leading tech publications in the UK, such as PC Pro and Wired, and previously held the position of technology editor at ITPro before regularly contributing as a freelancer.

Known affectionately as a ‘geek’ to his friends, his passion has seen him land opportunities to speak about technology on BBC television broadcasts, as well as a number of speaking engagements at industry events.