Not on the same level as the Satellite P, but close enough

Mar 7, 2012 15:44 GMT  ·  By

All the notebook announcements of the past few weeks may have left people wondering what in the world happened to all the AMD mobile processors.

It so happens that Toshiba's Satellite L series of notebooks actually puts the Sunnyvale, California-based company's processors to work for once.

The same goes for AMD's graphics: the notebooks use Radeon HD Series GPUs instead of NVIDIA GPUs like the P series.

There are five of them: Satellite L855 (15.6-inch screen), Satellite L875 details (17.3 inches), Satellite L830 (13.3 inches), Satellite L850 (15.6 inches) and Satellite L870 (17.3 inches).

The L855 and L875 pair their Intel/AMD chips with AMD graphics (up to 2 GB memory) and LCDs of HD resolution (1,366 x 768 pixels) or 1600 x 900 pixels (only on the L875).

Hard drives give them up to 1TB of storage space, while a Blu-ray drive or SuperMulti DVD unit covers the optical storage side.

Furthermore, Toshiba implemented Gigabit Ethernet (on Intel machines) or Fast Ethernet (on AMD laptops).

Other specs include HD webcams, HDMI, USB 3.0, USB 2.0 with sleep and charge, SRS Premium Sound HD and Premium Speaker design.

The L830, L850 and L870 get much the same as above, although they only get HD screens, except for the L870 that has the other, better option (1,600 x 900 pixels). They also have lots of color options (blue, silver, white, red or black gloss).

All in all, the Satellite L series is much more varied than the Satellite P in terms of design elements and performance, but not as powerful.

Unfortunately, like before, there are no pricing details, which means that we will have to wait until they launch to actually get an idea of how convenient they are to buy. Shipments are supposed to start in the second quarter, which can mean anything from next month to June, 2012.