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The basic styling of the Toshiba AV502U series befits its low price.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

When we say the entry-level Toshiba AV502U series can produce relatively deep black levels, the key word is "relatively." It's perhaps more accurate to say that its shade of black outdoes most other less-expensive, lower resolution, small-screen LCDs we've seen by a narrow margin. It does fall short of the competition in terms of maintaining accurate color at every brightness level, however, and it will look best if you avoid feeding it any 1080i sources. Speaking of looks, the AV502U is also among the most boring-looking TVs we've seen when it's turned off, and that's saying something. Those caveats aside, this little LCD does do slightly better blacks for less, and that might be enough for bargain hunters.

Read the full review of the Toshiba AV502U series.

Toshiba AV502U series--photos

The all-important holiday season is here, and with it the inevitable confusion about how to find the best deals on desktops and laptops. In order to help cut through the clutter, we are once again scouring the shelves of big retail stores to find boxed versions of popular PCs, from entry-level systems starting at $349 to Core i7 powerhouses.

The difference from our normal lineup of reviews is that this roundup is concerned with the specific retail models offered by brick-and-mortar stores. These are similar to those you'd be able to configure online from companies such as Dell and HP, but may have slightly different names and features. Even better, thanks to deep holiday discounts, they can sometimes be a better deal than buying direct from a PC maker.

One way to use this guide is to pick up a Sunday newspaper sales circular (which will list the retail-specific models names of computers on sale), and check here for a review before heading out to the store.

We've got all the entire list of models in our retail review roundup below, and we'll update this page with ratings and live links as the systems get reviewed over the next several weeks.

(Note: Apple's desktops and laptops, while popular holiday items, are the same whether purchased direct from Apple or in a store. You can find recent Apple products reviewed or profiled here: latest Apple MacBooks; latest Apple iMacs; latest Apple Mac Minis.)

See more news, reviews, and recommendations in our Laptops and Desktops sections.

Just the other day here at the CNET N.Y. offices, a co-worker IMed me with a question from his uncle, who was shopping for an affordable laptop for his niece. Should he consider buying a laptop he saw on sale recently, which had a large screen and a DVD burner, for only $350?

I had a feeling the laptop in question was similar to the Toshiba L455-S5975, and it turns out I was basically right. For ultracheap laptop bargains, there are two ways to go: buy a small, cheap Netbook, or go with a full-size low-end laptop sporting a processor such as an Intel Celeron 900.

Either way, you're not getting a lot of processing power. To get something more significant, you need to climb up to around $500 and go with either a dual-core thin-and-light or a cheap Core 2 Duo or equivalent laptop, such as the Toshiba Satellite T135-S1309 (we reviewed the similarly configured but more expensive T135-S1310 here).

For around $300, though, 10-inch Netbooks like the Dell Mini 10v provide nice portability and design, but lack an optical disc drive or a full-size keyboard/screen, and tend to have less RAM and smaller hard drives.

The Toshiba Satellite L455-S5975, which we reviewed as part of our holiday retail laptop roundup, falls in the other camp. It has a bright, large 15.6-inch screen, a full-size tapered keyboard, and a DVD-burning drive. It also has a decent amount of hard drive space at 250GB.

But that's where the advantages end. With an underpowered single-horsepower Celeron, it can't achieve most of what you'd like a big-screen laptop to do in the first place, such as play back high-quality full-screen streaming video. It also lacks a Webcam, something many Netbooks have, which is nice for students who use webchat or Skype (although a USB plug-in can also do the trick). Most importantly, however, its battery life ran at under two hours, which is worse than any Netbook.

For portability and battery life, a Netbook is still the better choice. But if you really need that optical drive and feel like you can't live without a really large screen (in other words, you're looking to plant this on your desk and not travel much), something like the L455-S5975 might be a decent second computer for a household looking to save a little cash. But if it were us, we'd save a couple hundred more and go with something that doesn't look like it escaped from the year 2000. At least you can rest easy that everything comes with Windows 7 now, Netbooks included.

Read the rest of our Toshiba L455-S5975 review.

Toshiba Satellite L455-S5975

A firmware upgrade for early models of the Toshiba SV670U is now available.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

When I reviewed the Toshiba SV670U series nearly two months ago, the review was based on the second of two review samples. Let's call them T1 and T2.

Why the need for a second sample? T1 suffered from a pretty glaring problem in my opinion. In certain scenes, parts of the local dimming LED backlight would flash intermittently and at random. Here's how I put it in my original draft of the review:

The Toshiba had a propensity to interrupt dark areas with brief flashes of brightness that were confined to small zones on the screen. The instance we noticed first was during the demonstration sequence from "Digital Video Essentials: HD Basics" (around the 2:50 mark).

When the computer-generated plants fade in from black, flashes appeared in the lower left and upper left of the black background as the overall brightness of the scene increased. When watching "Austin Stevens, Snakemaster" on Discovery HD Theater, we saw brighter flashes, akin to blooming, in the darkness around Austin's head as he leaned toward the light in a cave.

During "Watchmen" the flashes also appeared occasionally and for no reason we could discern. In the initial fight, for example, the lower-left corner flashed briefly just as the Comedian's blood drips down onto the smiley-face pin. A zoom in to President Nixon created another flash in the lower right. Our guess is that LED elements were lighting when they're not supposed to.

When we talked to Toshiba about what we saw, the company insisted on sending T2, which didn't suffer from the flashing issue. We mentioned the problem with T1 in the review, telling readers we'd update the situation when we knew more.

Now we do. ... Read more

Check your processor: the much better dual-core T135-S1310.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

I had a hard time coming up with a title to this post: Intel processors are confusing? Dual-core ultra-low-voltage processors make a difference? How about, what a difference a config makes? All could apply to the Toshiba Satellite T135, a Windows 7 thin-and-light that we've reviewed two configurations of here at CNET. Although similar in design and shape, the small shift from an SU2700 to an SU4100 Intel Pentium processor in the slightly more expensive Satellite T135-S1310 makes a world of difference. Here's why it's worth a look.

First of all, the Intel Pentium SU4100 in the T135-S1310 is a dual-core processor. The SU2700 in the previously reviewed laptop, the T135-S1300, isn't. You wouldn't know the difference from the "Pentium Inside" sticker below the keyboard, but the dual-core T135-S1310 is far better at multitasking, and also gave a significant boost in dedicated media tests like our iTunes benchmark. For all intents and purposes, it behaves much like an ultra-low-voltage Core 2 Duo processor.

What do you get in the T135-S1310? For just $100 more than the S1300, the S1310 includes an extra 80GB of hard drive space, an extra gig of RAM at a faster speed, Bluetooth, and the far better SU4100 processor. Throw in $10 for a red or white paint job, or stay at $699 for the black config. Either way, with the mere change of a number, the Toshiba T135-S1310 has suddenly become a highly recommended budget thin-and-light with Windows 7 Home Premium preinstalled and excellent battery life. Just make sure you get this model, and not the very similar-looking (and similar-named) Toshiba T135-S1300.

We still don't like the keyboard very much, though.

Read the rest of our review.

Toshiba Satellite T135-S1310: Windows 7 thin-and-light

All-in-one desktops and laptops are among the first PCs with Windows 7.

With the launch of Windows 7, computer shoppers are emerging from a dark period when newly purchased desktops and laptops would arrive with an already archaic operating system. Even with the promise of a free upgrade, it made sense for most to wait until systems started shipping with the new OS.

If you're eager to hit the ground running, we've already reviewed several Windows 7 PCs, from big names such as Lenovo, Toshiba, and HP. Click on the gallery below to check out each one, including the massive Toshiba Qosmio X505, the touch-screen Lenovo T400s, and the HP Touchsmart 600 all-in-one.

This collection represents the very first wave of Windows 7 computers, but after October 22, it'll be rare to find a Vista or XP desktop or laptop for sale anywhere.

Click here to see all the Windows 7 laptop and desktop reviews

Windows 7: the first wave of system reviews

The Samsung UN46B7000--one of the newly entertained Samsung HDTVs.

(Credit: CBS Interactive)

Samsung announced on Wednesday that on-demand video services from Blockbuster and Amazon are coming to some of its home entertainment products.

Blockbuster OnDemand, which allows people to rent or purchase video content on a one-off basis, is now available on some of Samsung's high-definition TVs, Blu-ray players, and home theater systems.

According to Samsung, the service will be offered on its Series 650 and above LCD and plasma HDTVs, as well as its Series 7000 and above LED HDTVs. Blockbuster OnDemand will be available to owners of the Samsung BD-P1600, BD-P3600, and BD-P4600 Blu-ray players, as well as the company's HT-BD1250, HT-BD3252, HT-BD7200, and HT-BD8200 Blu-ray home theater systems. The company said that the service is available now through a firmware upgrade.

As part of the rollout, Blockbuster OnDemand content can be streamed across multiple Blockbuster-enabled devices in the home. According to the company, users who order a particular movie can start watching it on one Samsung product in their home and continue watching it on another supported Samsung device.

For its part, Blockbuster has had a busy week. On Tuesday, the company announced that its OnDemand service was finally made available on TiVo DVRs. Like the service on TiVo, Samsung equipment owners can expect to pay between $2.99 and $3.99 for movie rentals. Blockbuster charges between $7.99 and $19.99 for film purchases.

As part of the deal, Blockbuster will start selling Samsung Blu-ray players that feature the company's OnDemand service in "thousands of corporate-owned stores and participating franchise stores." Blockbuster also said on Tuesday that it will also start selling TiVo DVRs in its stores.

But Samsung didn't stop there. The company also announced on Wednesday that Amazon Video On Demand will be offered to owners of Samsung LCD and plasma HDTVs that are series 650 and above, and LED HDTVs that are series 7000 and above. To get the service, users will need to download the Amazon Video On Demand widget using their television's Internet@TV content service.

Samsung said that once the user downloads the Amazon Video On Demand widget, they will be able to access Amazon's more than 50,000 movies and television shows. Amazon's widget joins already-available widgets from Twitter, Yahoo, YouTube, and others, the company said.

A growing trend?
The fact that Samsung has added Blockbuster's and Amazon's video services to its HDTVs shouldn't come as a surprise; it's competing in a marketplace where integrated entertainment is becoming the norm.

Earlier this year, LG announced the launch of two broadband-equipped HDTVs--the 47-inch 47LH50 and the 50-inch 50PS80--that feature the company's NetCast Entertainment Access. That service gives users the ability to access Netflix's streaming library of movies and TV shows. Toshiba is also getting in on the trend.

Toshiba Satellite T135-S1300: single-core CPU inside.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

We have a bit of a beef with a trend that's currently happening in full-size (by that we mean 13-inch and above) thin-and-light laptops, the machines that as of late have shaved thickness at the expense of optical drives and often processor power. While the battery life on thin-and-lights generally exceeds expectations, the compromise that's often been used is incorporating a single-core ultra-low-voltage processor, which provides marginally better performance than the Atom processor on any Netbook.

Unfortunately, thin-and-lights are more expensive than Netbooks--often by several hundred dollars at the least--and other than increased screen size, they run the risk of not showing much extra value when going single-core. Even worse, it's hard for consumers to tell when their thin-and-light has a single-core or dual-core CPU inside. Thin-and-light laptops may look similar, but they're not all made the same. It's a deceptive world out there, especially since many thin-and-lights trade performance for a stylishly thin chassis, all while marketing a mainstream look that suggests performance equal to other notebooks.

The $599 Toshiba T135-S1300 is part of Toshiba's new T100 line of optical-drive-free thin-and-lights, losing thickness in exchange for a portable design competitive with products such as the Asus UL30A-A1 and the Acer Timeline 3810T. It's set to debut on October 22, when Windows 7 launches its way onto retail shelves and into PCs everywhere.

Unfortunately, while the design tries hard, it simply doesn't provide the power that its Windows 7-running, HDMI-port-toting countenance suggests. This is not a multimedia machine on a budget: rather, it's a slim but underpowered single-core 13.3-inch laptop.

That's not to say we aren't excited about Toshiba's long-term decision to slim down its laptops and enter the world of thin-and-lights, and in other configurations, the T100 series could provide better value. But right now, we were left a little in the cold.

Read the rest of our review of the Toshiba Satellite T135-S1300.

(Credit: Toshiba)

Ever heard of a super computer in an HDTV? Toshiba has released fresh juicy details on its Cell processor-powered LCD TV ahead of the Ceatec 2009 tech fair in Japan.

The Cell Regza 55X1 is an LED-backlit panel with local dimming that delivers class-leading 5 million:1 dynamic contrast and an ultra-high (serious overkill of) 1,250cd/m2 brightness. Other performance-oriented functions include a 240Hz motion enhancement, Cell Platform Super Resolution technology for improved standard-definition video upscaling, and a bottom sound bar driven by seven speakers.

Photos: Toshiba's Cell Regza TV

Best of all, we haven't even touched on the most exciting parts. How do eight windows for displaying different channels, 3TB onboard storage for time shifting and video recording and an Opera-based Web browser sound? Having said that, the Cell Regza 55X1 is priced well out of the reach of most consumers with its shocking $11,115 tag, according to Gizmodo. Another limitation for many of us: the Cell Regza 55X1 is currently slated only for release in Japan (in early December).

With so much power at Toshiba's disposal, the Japanese company has also lined up other future Cell TVs ranging from a 3D version to a 4K model that upconverts 1080p content such as Blu-rays to a whopping 3,840x2,160 resolution.

(Source: Crave Asia)