This by far is the best laptop out there for the price. The AMD Athlon II x2 works perfectly and can handle a lot of tasks. Windows 7 is a amazing improvement from vista. I bought it mainly because of the expandable ram (up to 8 gb) which is great and the 320 GB HD!! An incredible value! The keyboard is very comfortable and it is very light weight for its size. The look is sleek and the screen is perfect. I like the fact that it comes with a SD slot. The touch pad has a nice feel and it responds fast and smoothly.
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I've had my laptop for just over a week so I will come update this later. So far I'm really enjoying it. It connects fast to the internet. I like the number pad on the right. The touch pad works great (though I prefer using a wireless mouse). I love the SD slot which is so much better than having to hunt down my camera cable. I like the wide screen. I like the silver color of the keyboard. About the only thing I have as a con so far is the sound isn't loud enough at times even when I have it up all the way, but that might partly be because of whatever program or application is running. I wish the battery lasted a little longer, too. I ordered a skin for the lid and a keyboard protector to keep it free of dust and debris (and cat hair). I'm hoping to upgrade the RAM, too, after Christmas.
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This will make my 3rd purchase of the Toshiba Satellite; fortunately this is a keeper for me. The other 2 purchases were gifts to family members. They both raved about their computers so when my Acer Aspire bit the dust I decided to purchase this one for myself. First and foremost, you simply cannot beat the price, exceptional value! This came as a bundle, to include a wireless optical mouse, 4 gig flash drive and a Targus case, all for under 500$. The design is slick with a beautiful silver striped finish. The keys are a nice size to where I am not hitting other keys around my fingers when I type. As others have noted, it has a numeric keypad off to the right, which is great. Running Windows 7 home premium which I love compared to Vista on my Vaio, which I really just could not get into that much, 7 is way more stable and less complicated to navigate.
It is solidly built, not too heavy, a 15.6 HD widescreen display which shows beautifully. I had a hard time installing incredimail due to it's incompatibility with Windows 7 but eventually found a version that supports it, runs great now. Smooth sailing with the mouse pad. It is heavy with programs I don't use/need but that comes with the territory. Battery life, I can't remark about that to date as I rarely use just battery power. It does have energy efficient power settings designed to preserve battery power though.
The fan is a bit noisy, but not a big deal I find that I tune that out over time anyways; I have had other machines that were much louder. I also like the placement of the power cord adapter, on the right side; I'm right handed so it works well for me as opposed to being in the rear or left side. Was able to connect to my home network smoothly and began using it right out of the box. The speakers are a bit "tinny" sounding; so far I really have no major complaints about anything else. I would highly recommend this computer for the daily task of email, surfing, word processing, games that are not heavy on the RAM, etc... It is definitely a great value from a trusted name in quality electronics. Oh yea, I did receive 2 recovery disc with my purchase.
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I wanted a laptop as a backup for my desktop and didn't need all the features of a full laptop, but more than a netbook. Although I've only had it a week (Best Buy $399), I've been spending a lot of time deciding whether I want to keep it since I have a 2 week limit to return it. It is much faster than my desktop, especially accessing the internet. Windows 7 has been a frustrating learning curve (been a heavy XP user)while in a hurry to try out features, access home network, etc. Some of the Toshiba assist programs are helpful in finding features before finding them in Win7. The system has performed very well except for a couple of lock-ups while using Intenet Explorer 8. It did seem to recover ok on reboot. The touchpad took some reading and adjusting (both computer and me) to use the features. The scroll feature is nice, but for some reason, it won't work in all windows, but clicking on the scroll bar seems to get it working in them also. It actually has 3 USB ports (one is a shared eSATA/USB port that I wouldn't have realized if saleman had not mentioned it.
Now for the surprises... the system comes with only a small printed pamphlet for instructions. Toshiba has a user guide on-line which is helpful, but does not provide any help on actually setting up wireless, being sure it is protected using WEP, or joining a home network. Good luck if you aren't a computer guru or have a neighbor/friend that is. Despite what the salesman told me, this is a 32bit system and will only boot up in 32bit Win7 mode, although the cpu is capable of 64 bit. It does not give an option for 64 bit Win 7. Toshiba tech support claims that if I add memory to 4 GB or more, then the option to "restore" to 64bit will show up, even though Toshiba site does not show this model as supporting 64 bit (due to 3GB ram or license limitation?). You might have to buy an upgrade version to gain the option of choosing 32 or 64 bit Win7, so do some checking if you want a 64 bit system. The sound/speaker system is terrible. Besides the speakers sounding like a cheap childs toy, the volume (at max "wheel" adjustment and 100% selection on sound control) is not enough to listen to music, youtube, etc. I had read reviews about poor volume and sound, but thought it couldn't really be that bad..... but it is even worse than described. Sound through earbuds/phones is ok if you don't mind having to carry them with the portable.
Although battery life is short, I have it set on "eco" setting and I get over 2 hours, maybe close to 3 hours, with light usage, such as surfing internet, reading email and help files, typing documents, etc. Since fan only intermittently up to 35% speed with this type usage, I suspect battery time would be much less than 2 hours for high cpu usage games/programs. Over 15GB hard drive is taken up with the hidden recovery partition and the video card uses ram for it's video memory. You can create recovery DVD's, but I haven't determined whether this will actually make recovery DVD's that backup your system at current state (including programs) or just copy the factory setup that is on the recovery partition.
Overall, I decided it will serve my purpose, but be sure you know what features you need. If you want to share/listen to music/youtube etc, plan on using an external speaker or earphones. If you want to utilize the capabilities of 64 bit Win7 to access more memory or run 64 bit software, plan on buying a retail upgrade version.
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I bought this laptop 12/31/09 for at . I am very pleased with my purchase! I had been looking for a laptop for net surfing and to run MS Office so I wanted more than a netbook but didn't need a top of the line machine. I had pretty much decided that an older, single core processor without an optical drive and maybe an 11-14" screen which would fit my price range and needs. I still can't believe I got this laptop for . It has an AMD dual-core processor, is very fast (faster than my desktop, at least) has a wonderful, solid feeling keyboard, beautiful 15.6" screen AND a DVR-W drive. I love the number pad for my soapmaking calculations and for MSOffice.
If there are any downsides, they would be the speakers and battery life. I'm getting about 2.5 hours of battery life but it doesn't bother me. I keep my charger plugged in at my end table and just plug it back up when it's getting low. I don't plan to take it out of the house anyway. The speakers and the volume control are mediocre at best so if you're looking for a machine for multimedia, gaming, or music, it probably wouldn't suit your needs. Unlike other reviewers, I have no problem hearing YouTube videos or audio on websites, it's just that the quality is not that good. I may invest in some external speakers at some point. I do agree with other reviewers that instructions/documentation was somewhat lacking but since mine came from Best Buy, it had been fully optimized by the Geek Squad so all I had to do was plug it in and charge it and it was ready to go.
Overall, I love this laptop!! It's a great buy...go get it!!
