Toshiba Satellite T135 Win 7 CULV Notebook Review

Name: Toshiba Satellite T135 Win 7 CULV Notebook Review - Page 6
Brand: Toshiba

by Jennifer Johnson — Thursday, November 05, 2009, 10:30 AM EDT

Futuremark PCMark Vantage

To continue our testing, we will use Futuremark's PCMark Vantage benchmarking suite, which takes a broad look at all aspects of the machine and gives a general idea of how it performs in a variety of day-to-day situations.

Futuremark PCMark Vantage

'Memories', HDD, Gaming and Communications

Futuremark PCMark Vantage 'Memories' Test Description:
Memories 1 - Two simultaneous tasks. CPU image manipulation and HDD – importing pictures to Windows Photo Gallery
Memories 2 - Two simultaneous tasks. GPU image manipulation and HDD – video editing using Windows Movie Maker
Memories 3 - Video transcoding – DV to WMV9 - Transcoding from DV (720x480p 35.38Mbps) to a portable player (SD WMV9 320x240p 1.0 Mbps). Uses two cores if available.
Memories 4 - Video transcoding – VC-1 to WMV9 -Transcoding from media server archive (HD VC-1 1280x720p 11 Mbps) to a portable player (SD WMV9 320x240p 1.0 Mbps)

We expect this to be pretty typical: The T135's CPU isn't going to match up to the 2.1GHz and 2.4GHz processors of two of our test machines, but it does compete well against the similarly priced and configured Asus UL30A.

Futuremark PCMark Vantage 'Hard Disk Drive' Test Description:
HDD 1 - Windows Defender
HDD 2 - Gaming
HDD 3 - Importing pictures to Windows Photo Gallery
HDD 4 - Windows start up
HDD 5 - Video editing using Windows Movie Maker
HDD 6 - Windows Media Center
HDD 7 - Adding music to Windows Media Player
HDD 8 - Application loading

Although the T135's 5400RPM drive may not be quite as zippy as the one found in the Asus UL30A, it still held its own and beat out the Toshiba Satellite in our comparison.

Futuremark PCMark Vantage 'Gaming' Test Description:
Gaming 1 - GPU gaming - Performing basic GPU (graphics processing unit) tasks utilizing PS (pixel shader) 2.0 and VS (vertex shader) 2.0 operations found in most 3D games using DX (DirectX) 9. This test utilizes SM(shader model) 3.0 (if available) performance optimizations which do affect visual quality.
Gaming 2 - HDD gaming
Gaming 3 - Two simultaneous tasks. Data decompression - Loading compressed level from hard drive and decompressing it into system memory. CPU gaming -Executing heavy AI path finding algorithms. Uses all available cores up to 16 cores.
Gaming 4 - Three simultaneous tasks. GPU gaming- Performing basic GPU (graphics processing unit) tasks utilizing PS(pixel shader) 2.0 and VS (vertex shader) 2.0 operations found in most3D games using DX (DirectX) 9. This test utilizes SM (shader model) 3.0(if available) performance optimizations which do affect visual quality. CPU gaming - Executing heavy AI path finding algorithms. Uses all available cores up to 16 cores and HDD – gaming

We said it earlier: The T135 isn't built to be a gaming machine. As expected, it falls behind the competition here, but it's also a lower priced, lower voltage, and more portable notebook than the Dell and Toshiba models.

Futuremark PCMark Vantage 'Communications' Test Description:
Communications 1 - Three simultaneous tasks. Data encryption – CNG AES CBC. Data compression. Web page rendering – pictures - Opens a web page with many large pictures.
Communications 2 - Three simultaneous tasks. Web page rendering – favorites group parallel - Opens various news pages from IE Favorites in separate tabs and closes them one by one. Data decryption – CNG AES CBC. HDD – Windows Defender
Communications 3 - Windows Mail – searching - Searches mails for words in the message body, subject and sender.
Communications 4 - Two simultaneous tasks. Data encryption – CNG AES CBC. Audio transcoding – WMA to WMA - Measures audio transcoding performance in VOIP usage.

In the communications test, the T135 beat the Asus UL30A and came very close to matching the 2.1GHz Toshiba A305. The still more expensive Studio XPS 13 may have scored the best compared to the others, but you'll also pay for this added performance.