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The keyboard is a chiclet affair, and is thoroughly okay. The picture tells the whole story, from the somewhat undersized keys to the shallow travel. I put up decent typing speeds on it, but there was definitely some disconcerting flex and for a computer that has extra width, it makes me wonder why they didn’t use the extra dimension to increase the size of the keys a bit. I understand that Toshiba probably buys one keyboard for most of the Satellite line, but it still detracts from the unique strengths afforded to the form factor and feels like a missed opportunity.
The trackpad isn’t what you’d call expansive, and it has the same hollow flex that used to be prevalent on all trackpads. It feels like a trackpad from 2009, transported to a modern laptop. That may have been acceptable a few months ago, but now the U845W has Windows 8 with battery like dell Inspiron E1505 battery , dell Inspiron 1501 battery , dell GD761 battery , dell KD476 battery , dell TD347 battery , dell Inspiron 1000 battery , dell Inspiron 2200 battery , dell 312-0292 battery , dell INSPIRON 2600 battery , dell INSPIRON 2650 battery , dell 1X793 battery , dell C1295 battery , a operating system built for touch, and it’s not adequate. At all. The Synaptics trackpad was never a joy when floating through Microsoft’s Modern UI, and multitouch gestures never worked well at first. For instance, Windows 8 really wants you to use a sweeping gesture on the right side of the trackpad to open up a search bar or link to the Modern UI. I looked up how to do the gesture, and even practiced, but it wasn’t me. The trackpad was frustrating to use and pretty much a dealbreaker by itself.
On an unrelated note, the trackpad simply stopped working after a few days of use. It wouldn’t track the cursor anywhere. I’m not sure whether it’s a driver issue or a hardware issue, but either way it doesn’t bode well for Toshiba. I plugged in a mouse immediately, which was an improvement over the trackpad when it was working, to say nothing of the ability to control the computer again.
The port selection on the U845W hues pretty closely to industry standards, and I’ve got no problems here. On the left side, there’s a gigabit Ethernet jack, a place for a Kensington cable lock, and two USB 3.0 ports. On the right side, there’s an HDMI port, a microphone and headphone jack, and the place for the power connector. It’s pretty standard, but 2 USB 3.0 ports is better than one.
I’m about to cover this in the screen section, but when you plug in your laptop through the HDMI port you see how silly the extra screen is. The movie looks great mirrored on an HDTV, because it’s what we’re used to watching content on. If you’re mirroring, the U845W screen has two silly bars on the sides. Sure, the screen allows you to avoid silly bars on the top and bottom, but what are you going to be watching more often: 16:9 content or 21:9 content?