Toshiba C55-A5309 Satellite-Series Budget Laptop with Extras for $330+

The Toshiba C55-A5309 model from the budget-class C55 Satellite series is an important low-cost laptop on the US market right now, because it’s a part of an attractive product bundle at Best Buy.

With a mediocre 15.6-inch 1366×768 non-touch display, the lower-end Intel Pentium 2020M dual-core processor, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and $330 price tag with extras included, the C55-A5309 is a typical run-of-the-mill affordable Windows 8 notebook PC. For the price, you get the laptop, a Logitech mouse, sleeve, Titanium anti-virus software, and a flash drive. Adding Microsoft’s Office Home & Student 2013 suite to the mix increases the overall price to $450, while adding a printer to all of these increases it to $550.

The CPU isn’t a speed demon, but it can tackle everyday tasks like web surfing, social networking, office document creation, and full HD video playback with ease. A shortcoming due to reliance on the 2020M is weak gaming performance, because the CPU sports the old and watered down Intel HD integrated GPU. Also, the chip isn’t optimized for complex tasks like video or photo editing, so if you do a lot of these you should take a look at some of the laptops with the Intel Core i5 or above.

4GB RAM and 500GB HDD are in line with the CPU class. These are also average and widely adopted among full-size laptops and enable normal operation of the system.

If you still read and write DVDs and CDs, the included DVD±RW/CD-RW optical drive will come handy. Rounding off an ordinary nature of the C55-A5309, let’s mention its standard features, like stereo speakers, a 720p webcam, wireless Wi-Fi network support, wired Ethernet network adapter, HDMI and VGA video outputs, three USB ports (1 x USB 3.0 + 2 x 2.0), and a multi-format digital card reader.

The notebook sports a tile-style keyboard with numeric pad and non-glossy finish in black color. It hasn’t been designed with portability in mind. It weighs 5.4 pounds and is 1.4″ thick. It’s not an ideal travel companion, but it doesn’t stand out from the average 15.6-incher in terms of bulkiness.

When it comes to bundled extras, it’s worth noting that the included Logitech M185 is a wireless optical mouse, the Targus Debossed sleeve is made of water-resistant neoprene material, and the Toshiba TransMemory USB stick has 8GB capacity. Titanium Internet Security 2014 is delivered in a form of a free-of-charge 3-user 6-month subscription. Microsoft Office 2013 Home and Student Edition 2013 is $140 when sold separately, while in the C55-A5309 bundle it adds $120 to the overall price of the package. Finally, the offered printer is the Canon PIXMA MX452 inkjet with wireless functionality. It’s interesting to note here that the printer is separately sold for $80 at Best Buy, while in the bundle it is $100. Therefore, buying it stand-alone will cost you $20 less.

Some will argue that the Toshiba C55-A5309 is too bland and indeed it retains much of the simplicity of the older C855-series. Also, it doesn’t have some useful features like touch-screen or keyboard backlight, but overall there’s not much to complain about if you consider its extremely cheap price and included extras.