The T7400 processor in the Satellite Pro P100 is close to top of the Core 2 Duo mobile line with 4MB cache and a clock speed of 2.16GHz. In a similar fashion to other notebook makers, Toshiba has taken an older product’s specifications and upgraded it by dropping in a Merom chip. And that isn’t a bad thing, for Toshiba has chosen a high-end laptop for the T7400. 1GB of DDR2 memory, a 17in WXGA display and a GeForce Go 7600 mean that most computing tasks are of a similar level of performance to that you’d expect from most desktop systems.

A look at Core 2 Duo laptops showed how the 945GM chipset’s low memory throughput proved a bottleneck to overall performance. Intel desktop chipsets are superior to the 945GM because of faster FSB of 1066MHz, and support for faster 800MHz DDR2 memory. With Intel’s T-series of mobile Core 2 Duo CPUs you get the same boost in CPU power as their ‘E’ desktop counterparts. The difference is that the Merom line works with half the TDP of the Conroe and the range of frequencies on offer is lower.

Extra capacity

Toshiba’s sensible decision to use 1GB of memory in the Satellite Pro P100 means that the processor’s performance will not be held back by constant swap file access, as is often the case with laptops. These days, the extra capacity should be treated as a necessity rather than a luxury, especially if you plan to migrate to Windows Vista. Thankfully the 7600 Go has a dedicated 128MB to use, so you retain the full capacity of the system memory.

The display keeps text perfectly readable up to a maximum resolution of 1,440x900 pixels, which may not be sufficient for 1080p HD video but is fine for 720p. The chassis comes with four USB 2.0 ports, outputs for HD audio and the useful addition of both VGA and DVI outputs, supporting Nvidia’s dual head technology exactly as in desktop computers.

With the powerful mobile Core 2 Duo processor and a good graphics chipset, the benchmarks achieved in synthetic tests and games were equivalent to a well equipped mid- to high-range desktop PC. Scores did not match those achieved by desktop Core 2 Duos, though, and this can be attributed to the differences between Intel’s mobile and desktop chipsets.

Memory issues

While boasting a good specification, there are small points that Toshiba could have improved on from the original Satellite Pro P100. With a powerful chip like the T7400, 667MHz memory would have been a natural choice, but we have the slower 533MHz in this system. Likewise the hard drive could have been given a boost over the 60GB on offer. It seems Toshiba forgot that things have moved since the original Satellite Pro, and dropped the Core 2 Duo into it without other improvements.

We were hoping to see the inclusion of an HD-DVD drive in the Satellite Pro. Being a Toshiba machine it seems natural for it to support its own technology in new laptops, as Sony are doing by including Blu-ray drives in its new notebooks. With the Satellite Pro P100 you only get the usual recordable DVD formats, although DVD-RAM support will be welcome for the few who use it.

Toshiba may not have added every single possible feature to the Satellite P100 Pro, but with a Core 2 Duo processor inside this laptop offers great performance. It should comfortably run any desktop application you throw at it, from heavyweight 3D rendering tools to video encoding. The problem is that there aren’t many portable Core 2 Duo machines to compare it to yet. For £1,400 you should be getting a better hardware specification than what’s on offer, even though when it comes to straight number crunching, few laptops will rival the power of the Satellite Pro P100 and its T7400 CPU. There is one major problem though – the miserable battery life, a mere one hour 20 minutes, not even enough to allow a DVD to finish.

Although nothing’s been officially announced, at some point we expect to see a brand new line of notebooks from Toshiba with Core 2 Duos, an HD-DVD drive, higher resolution screen and better storage capacity. These will truly be all-singing and alldancing, whereas the Satellite P100 Pro with the Merom chip is merely a taster of what happens when the Core 2 Duo and portability combine.