Toshiba Satellite C55-B5300 250-Dollar 15.6″ Laptop
The Toshiba Satellite C55-B5300 is a classic full-size laptop computer with an extremely low price tag of $250. There isn’t anything special about this laptop, as expected at the price point. However, the C55-B5300 can be a useful computing tool in your house, office, or dorm room. Besides support for all programs running on the latest generation of Windows 0S, the laptop offers a 15.6-inch 1366-by-768 pixel display and a full-size keyboard with numeric pad and trackpad. High pixel density, touchscreen, and keyboard backight are missing, but the notebook anyway brings more productivity comfort than the tablets with similar price tags. If you need a device for just movie watching and web browsing, you might be satisfied with some of the cheap Android tablets, but when it comes to Excel spreadsheet editing, email typing, or similar work, full-size Windows laptops have a great advantage. The C55-B5300 is among the cheapest of them.
It’s outfitted with a DVD writer, stereo speakers, webcam, tree USB ports, HDMI and VGA video outputs, Wi-Fi and Ethernet LAN Internet connections, and a multimedia card reader. Overall, a standard 2014 budget notebook feature set.
Performance-wise, the included Intel Celeron N2840 dual-core processor is a very basic chip. It’s only a tad faster than the more widely adopted N2830. More about its performance can be found here, and the N2840 will complete tasks at only slightly faster speed. They can handle Windows and non-demanding web and office operations plus multimedia consumption, but don’t have sufficient potential for complex stuff like video editing or high-resolution gaming. The N2830 has similar performance to the Intel Atom processors found in the affordable Windows tablets. They belong to the same “Bay Trail” processor family anyway. The C55-B5300 has 4GB of RAM memory, double the size of RAM in the common Atom-powered tablets. Hard drive is 500GB large. This is a common size among the inexpensive notebooks. If you’re generally interested in this notebook, but want beefier components, you can check out some of the other Satellite C55 series models with the same design.
The battery is a 4-cell unit. The manufacturer hasn’t disclosed info on battery life, but given the laptop has a 4-cell battery and the power efficient “Bay Trail” processor, it safe to assume it will last about 5 hours or more.
Specifications of the Toshiba Satellite C55-B5300
Here are the specs of the Toshiba Satellite C55-B5300 with descriptions of its features. For comparison against other laptops, you can use the "Compare Specs" button.
| Brand | Toshiba |
|---|---|
| Screen Size | 15.6-inch This is by far the most popular laptop screen size. It provides a lot of screen real estate, while avoiding bulkiness of the 17.3" laptops. |
| Screen Resolution | 1366x768 pixels HD This is an entry-level screen resolution, oftentimes found on budget laptops. It doesn't deliver picture sharpness and space on the screen like the Full HD or higher resolution laptop displays do. |
| Touchscreen | No This laptop doesn't support touchscreen input. |
| Other Display Specs | TN type Displays based on the old TN technology lack wide viewing angles you can find on IPS screens. The colors may look washed out or inverted at certain viewing angles. |
| Processor (CPU) | Intel Celeron N2830 dual-core 2.16-2.41GHz 1MB cache (User Benchmark CPU score: 12) |
| Graphics (GPU) | Intel HD integrated graphics of low-end CPUs (only for the lightest gaming) |
| System Memory (RAM) Size | 4GB RAM 4GB is a small RAM size for computing in 2023. For smooth operation of a laptop during everyday tasks, at least 8GB is recommended. |
| Data Storage | 500GB HDD This is a very good capacity, but HDD is a slow type of storage. |
| DVD Optical Drive | DVD writer |
| Keyboard & Input | Non-backlit keyboard with dedicated number pad The keyboard has a separate numeric pad on the right side of the keyboard, but it has no keyboard backlight. Touchpad with separate physical click buttons The touchpad features physical left and right click buttons, as opposed to click buttons integrated into the touchpad surface. |
| Speakers & Audio | Stereo speakers As usual, the device features a pair of built-in stereo speakers. |
| Camera | Front-facing web camera Laptops usually feature a frontal webcam located on the display bezel. This laptop is no exception. |
| Wi-Fi Wireless | 802.11N 802.11N is an old Wi-Fi standard, precursor of the 802.11AC and the latest 802.11AX with improved data transfer speeds and connectivity. 802.11N is rarely used in modern laptops. |
| Ethernet Network Port | Yes This laptop has an Ethernet LAN port for wired internet and networking connectivity. |
| Bluetooth | No This laptop has no built-in Bluetooth module. |
| Mobile broadband (4G LTE) | No |
| USB Ports | 2 x USB 2.0 + 1 x USB 3.0 A total of three full-size Type A USB ports. |
| Video Output Ports | 1 x HDMI + 1 x VGA HDMI is a widely used digital video output port. You can find HDMI-in ports on most computer monitors and TVs. VGA is an old analog type of video connectivity used on older computers, monitors, TVs, and projectors. |
| Media Card Reader | SD card reader The laptop has a slot for full-size SD memory cards, used in many digital cameras. You can also use microSD cards with a card adapter. |
| Battery | 4-cell lithium-ion |
| Weight | 4.9 pounds |
| Height | 1.1" |
| Width | 15" |
| Depth | 10.2" |
| Windows Version | Windows 8.1 Windows 8.1 is eligible for free upgrade to Windows 10 Home. Check Windows.com for more info. |
| Warranty | 1-year A typical laptop warranty. |
User Reviews and Q&A on the Toshiba Satellite C55-B5300
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4 out of 5
King –
i like but it should have bluetooth on it or a software to download it
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Angelo Cuevas Ongue –
I like it. 🙂
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bill –
Is HDD > SSD upgrade possible?
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John –
yes, i did it on mine
4 out of 5
Chip –
Oops, forgot to rate. Very good basic laptop at a Chromebook price, was $228 at Best Buy.
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Chip –
No DVD.(The current version has DVD. Laptoping) Got one 2 weeks ago for my daughter’s 10th BD, she loves it; I offered to return it for a more powerful unit, but she said no, “this one is fine” (she was upgraded from a 7 year old Toshiba with an Intel T2080 processor). No probs with wireless LAN, gets 36MB in our home’s “dead zone”! Will look to pick up one for my son’s BD in November. Unit is not user upgradeable according to Toshiba.Notify me of replies Unwatch this thread