A cheap laptop-tablet hybrid, but you get what you pay for.
The Satellite Click 2 is the latest in a line of Windows 8.1 laptops from Toshiba that double up as a tablet. This two-in-one hybrid seems very reasonable at a shade under £500, but look closer and the Click 2 isn’t as good value as it first appears.
As a laptop, the Click 2 weighs 2.1kg, which is light enough to be carried around without much effort. Just over half of this weight is in the screen, so when it’s detached to use on its own, you’re carrying a hefty 1.1kg tablet. This is very heavy for a tablet and - combined with its chunky dimensions - makes it awkward and uncomfortable to hold and use.
This bulk also makes docking and undocking the tablet to and from the keyboard a little fiddly. You have to be fairly precise when slotting the two together, although once docked it does at least felt sturdy as a laptop. USB 2.0 and micro HDMI ports, as well as a full-size SD card slot, are built into the tablet part. The keyboard dock adds a USB 3.0 port, but no Ethernet port or second battery.
Tablet use isn’t helped by the modest 1366x768-pixel resolution of the 13in screen. Although it looks fine at arm’s length when used as a laptop, under closer scrutiny in tablet mode the fuzzy outlines of the text is instantly noticeable, while the washed-out colours are disappointing.
All this could be forgiven if the Click 2 had power to bum and was comfortable to use, but it’s let down by its performance and keyboard. While the keys are large, they lack sufficient travel and feedback, so typing is fiddly and spelling errors all too easy to make. The large touchpad is smooth and accurate, but the buttons built into the bottom of the pad feel pretty stiff.
Although the 4 GB of memory and quad-core Intel Pentium N3530 processor sound impressive, they’re actually not. This particular Pentium is in reality a rebranded Atom processor and it crawled through our benchmark tests, making the Click 2 one of the slowest computers we’ve seen in recent years. Running multiple programs simultaneously was frustratingly slow and the Click 2 would sometimes even struggle to keep up with our typing.
One of the Click 2’s few selling points is battery life. It lasted just over nine hours in our laptop-battery test, which involved continuously scrolling through a page of text. It lasted just under eight hours in our tablet-battery test, which plays videos on a loop until the battery is drained. Although these scores aren’t the best we’ve seen, they are respectable.
The Satellite Click 2 may be cheap, but it is flawed in far too many ways for us to recommend. It’s one to avoid.
SPECIFICATIONS: 2.16GHz Intel Pentium N3530 quad-core processor • 4GB memory • 500GB hard drive • 13.3in 1366x768-pixel touchscreen • Intel integrated graphics chip • Windows 8.1 • 1.1kg (2.1kg when docked) • 14x331x215mm (23x331x245mm when docked) (HxWxD) • One-year warranty
VERDICT: Its hefty weight slow performance and flawed keyboard make this hybrid poor value.