Toshiba Satellite L645-S4102

Toshiba Satellite L645-S4102

You can find better-performing and longer-lasting laptops than the Toshiba Satellite L645-S4102, which is on sale at Best Buy, but this laptop's price ($529.99 list) strikes a nice balance between extreme-budget models and the slightly more costly, slightly more powerful laptops that start hitting just above $600. If absolute performance is a concern, you may want to scour your sofa cushions to see if you can dredge up another $70 or so to afford the noticeably more impressive Acer Aspire AS5742-6475 ($599.99 list, 4 stars). If that's not a possibility, the L645-S4102 should be able to meet your everyday needs with little serious trouble. Except for two patches of textured finish, one just above the keyboard and the other on the touchpad, and a glossy black bezel around the 14-inch, 1,366-by-768 display, the L645-S4102 is remarkably unremarkable in terms of its appearance. It's covered in glossy "Helios Gray" (about the color of the sky during a bad daytime thunderstorm) with a faint swirl pattern visible throughout, in no way striking. The keys on the matte black keyboard are all flat, square, and standard in style (no chiclets here), though they are sufficiently spaced and offer passably springy feedback for the fingers.