Consumers on a budget have to be careful where they spend their cash when buying a new notebook. The Toshiba Satellite L505-ES5018 isn’t going to dazzle you by any means, but for those whose needs are basic, this $587 mainstream system ($529 through Best Buy) gets the job done with a modicum of style. However, a last-generation processor and poor battery life means that your money can be better spent elsewhere, even if you want to stick with Toshiba.

Editors’ Note:Portions of this review were taken from our earlier review of the Toshiba Satellite L505-S5966.

Design

For a sub-$600 system, the Satellite L505 is attractive but not exactly striking. Its lid and keyboard deck sport Toshiba’s Fusion Finish with a grey Breeze pattern—essentially, lines running diagonally across the system. Both the lid and deck are glossy, but the neutral color hides fingerprints. The design is carried across the touchpad, making it all but invisible when viewed from certain angles. While this is a clever touch, the fact that it is also flush with the deck had us looking for it a little harder than we should have. The keyboard and bezel are a matte black that contrasts nicely with the rest of the chassis.

At 15.1 x 10.2 x 1.6 inches and an even 6 pounds, the Satellite L505 isn’t exactly travel-friendly, but it’s a reasonable size and weight for a 15.6-inch system. Still, the HP G62t is a svelter 5.4 pounds.

Unlike the L505-S5966, there are no media playback buttons above the keyboard; a power button is all you get. Toshiba continues to use an old-school volume wheel, which in this case is on the front edge of the chassis.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The gritty matte silver keyboard on the L505 matches the deck, and provided very good feedback, although we did notice it had a bit of flex. Thanks to the wide 15.6-inch screen, Toshiba was also able to cram a full number pad to the right without sacrificing the size of the keyboard.

The touchpad is generously sized, and its slightly rough surface resulted in almost no friction when moving our finger across it. As we mentioned previously, however, its nearly seamless blending with the surrounding deck sometimes made it difficult to locate. The silver mouse buttons below were huge and crisp.

Display and Audio

The 15.6-inch screen on the L505 was suitably bright, and its resolution of 1366 x 768 is more than adequate for its size. However, the viewing angles could have been better; we had to tilt the display back further than we normally do in order for it not to appear washed out. When set at the ideal angle, though, watching movies on the 16:9 aspect ratio display was enjoyable. When watching clips from Saturday Night Live, colors were bright and crisp, and blacks were deep.

The stereo speakers on the top of the deck were moderately loud and had decent separation while watching movies. As we expected in this price range, bass was virtually nonexistent on Notorious B.I.G’s “Big Poppa.”

Ports and Webcam

Arrayed along the right side of the Satellite L505 are two USB ports, modem, and a Kensington lock slot; on the left is VGA out, Ethernet, headphone and mic, and an eSATA port that doubles as USB; unfortunately, this port doesn’t include Toshiba’s Sleep-and-Charge technology. Also lacking is an HDMI port, which is far from a deal-breaker, but can be found on such competitors as the HP G62t.

A 1.3-megapixel webcam and microphone above the display provided passable images in a video chat over Skype; while a little drab, a caller could make out the color of our eyes. However, there was a bit of motion blur when we waved our hand about two feet away from the webcam.