The Toshiba Satellite P10 is a high-end multimedia machine. Because of that, it isn't properly portable. Yes it comes in a portable casing, after all it is a laptop, yet combine all the elements together and like its 17-inch brother, this unit's going nowhere fast.

Our quick take

To gain the most from this laptop you have to sit down and decide what you want out of it. If you just want it to sit at home, be a replacement for the desktop unit so that you can put it away when you have guests this will certainly serve all your multimedia needs. If however you are a heavy traveller and want to take this with you wherever you go, then you might want to spend some time down the gym first as it weighs so much. This is a great machine that really is only let down by its sheer weight and a noisy fan.

Toshiba Satellite P10 - 3.5 / 5

FORAGAINST
  • Plenty of inputs and outputs
  • fast
  • Large 15.4in screen
  • Very heavy
  • Noisy fan

The first thing you notice if you do plan to use this as your portable one stop shop is the weight, at 3.62Kg plus powerpack and all the extras you'll be lugging around roughly 4 bags of sugar over your shoulder making this not your ideal travel buddy unless you mean to get fit. That combined with the host of extra bolt-ons such as the TV tuner, remote control for the media centre and the battery pack that seems almost as large as the laptop and this machine doesn't win any prizes for being on the slim side either.

However if portability isn't an issue what you get is a machine that offers plenty. The range comes in with a variety of options however we tested the top of the range the - Satellite P10-804.

The unit we tested came with Windows Media Centre on it and therefore also came with the additional television tuner to give you access to watching television. The tuner is connected to the P10 via a USB cable and powered, annoyingly, but its own power supply resulting in yet another charger to have to carry around with you. Using Media Centre the television side of things was very quick and simple as it is on other players and the choice of putting it in a laptop seems to make more sense than perhaps a desktop machine in your living room.

Intel's 3Ghz processor and 512Mb of Ram is the chief specification. That combined with a 60Gb hard drive, a CD/DVD writer and a 64Mb Nvidia GeForce™ FX Go5600 and you've got a machine that is better than most desktop models found the average home.

The screen is a 15.4-inch TFT widescreen and its perfect for watching DVD's or television when you don't have a television with DVD player in the room

As with other Toshiba models, this unit came with Wi-Fi connectivity, which is operated via a switch on the side of the unit. A quick flick and you're up and running and in tests we have no trouble connecting to the wireless networks we were near. Reception received was very good.

Failing Wi-Fi the unit offers plenty of connectivity options: line-in, Ethernet, parallel, S-video out, Firewire, SD Card slot, headphone, 3 USB sockets and 2 PC Card slots.

To recap

Really only for the home user short on space rather than the frequent traveller