Toshiba Satellite Pro A210-18M

Features
The Satellite Pro A210 provides exactly the ports and connections you would expect from a low-cost laptop, including VGA and S-Video, four USB ports, mini-FireWire, ExpressCard expansion slot, a multi-format memory card reader, modem, Ethernet and Wi-Fi. It also sports a DVD burner, stereo speakers and headphone/microphone jacks. Unsurprising for a business system, the stereo speakers produced truly flat sound -- users will need headphones to enjoy movies or music.

Also, business travelers addicted to their wireless input devices should note the laptop lacks Bluetooth, even as an option. On the plus side, we appreciated the hardware volume wheel and Wi-Fi on-off switch on the laptop's front edge.

Performance
We tested the most expensive, £489 version of the A210 range, of which there are six. It included a 2.0GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 dual-core processor, 2GB of 667MHz RAM, and integrated ATI Radeon X1200 graphics. The effects of the AMD processor were most pronounced on the Multimedia multitasking portion of our benchmarks, where it trailed its consumer-oriented sibling, the Satellite A215, as well as a field of laptops equipped with Intel's Core 2 Duo processor.

Nevertheless, the Satellite Pro A210 posted decent scores on our other tests and, like any dual-core system, should provide sufficient performance for such typical business productivity tasks as managing email, typing documents and building presentations.

When it came to our battery tests, the Satellite Pro A210 offered a slightly disappointing 1 hour 51 minutes of battery life. We would prefer to see a reasonably portable laptop like this one last beyond the 2-hour mark. That said, the Satellite Pro A210 did last 20 minutes longer than the Satellite A215. Our DVD battery drain test is particularly taxing, so you can expect a slightly longer battery life during typical use.

Gone are the days when business-focused laptops ship with three-year warranties; the Satellite Pro A210's low cost means that it's backed by just a one-year international warranty.

Conclusion
Heavy-duty multitaskers who need Intel Core 2 Duo-level performance may want to consider the similarly low-cost (but slightly smaller) Lenovo 3000 N200, while corporate buyers would be better served by the enterprise-level features found on Toshiba's more expensive Portege line.

Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday

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