Weighing just over 5.7 pounds and measuring at 13 by 10.2 by 8.3 inches this is a moderately portable laptop. The exterior is clad in Toshiba's refined, faux-brushed black finish with subtle branding and understatement. The large 15.6 inch widescreen display sports a standard 1366 by 768 pixel resolution which is fairly common in budget laptops.
Powered by a dual-core Intel Celeron processor with 4 GB of RAM the C55-A1D5 runs most programs and games without issue. The hard drive has a 500 GB capacity which is low but should be enough for most users.
The CPU is more than capable of handling most tasks but a quad-core processor would have been better for gaming. Still, it performs better than comparable Asus laptops in our tests.
We tested this system with PCMark Vantage and its Entertainment benchmark which simulates a wide range of operations and applications to test overall performance. The result was an excellent score of 2,055. This places the Toshiba just ahead of Asus's A56CB (ULV), despite the latter's quad-core processor.
In terms of bloatware we found very few annoying apps on the system aside from a couple of Toshiba-branded utilities that are likely to go uninstalled. These include FreshPaint, CyberLink PowerDVD and the iHeartRadio app. We also found a trial version of McAfee Internet Security Suite which, once activated, will demand fee-based registration within days. Fortunately, this is easily replaceable with Microsoft's free Security Essentials. Unlike some other budget laptops, this unit has two full-sized USB 2.0 ports and a standard HDMI port for connecting external monitors and HDTVs.