PROS:
VERY LIGHT! I'm surprised that with the size of this, it is not heavy at all.
Beautiful ScreenThe colors and video look great!
Pretty good battery life-I watched a full movie on one charge, and a few hours of regular internet surfing and work.
Pretty thin-for the price, I thought Toshiba would put this hardware in a clunky package... I was wrong.
Stays cool-my last laptop got pretty hot, especially when burning CD's or other heavy stuffthis one barely gets warm!
CONS:
Keys on the keyboardWhat you think you'd see on a kids laptop, plasticy and clunky. C'mon Toshiba-is it that much more expensive to put somewhat nice keys on this thing?
Speakers-terrible.... perhaps I was spoiled by my last laptop-they are almost handheld radio quality.
Other than that, I'm pretty happy with this purchase. Also considering this price, it really cant be beat (If you don't mind the cons).
**********UPDATE*********** MAR 2011
I am still pleased with the laptop. No major performance issues yet.
However, I have another con that I MUST add. Quite frankly I am disappointed that Toshiba, who are not exactly novices in the laptop field, would do this. There are NO USB ports on the right side. This might not seem like a big deal, but if you want to use a mouse (not everybody likes the touch pad), you have to buy one with a long cord, or a wireless mouse. My retractable cord mini-mouse was useless with this laptop-too short.
Your USB cords get jumbled up because they are all in one place on the front left side. I would have bought another laptop at a comparable price if I knew that. Well, there ya go. Thx!
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
Bought this laptop at bestbuy in store, paid 349 plus tax. Brought it home pluged in and charged battery, inserted my cd from our existing router, and it basically set itself up to pick up router. Set up a couple usernames for family members and off we went to the internet, without a hitch, cheap and easy to operate, so far. We have a nice desktop dell in downstairs family room but was gettin old to run down and check something out fast, downstairs. So we were lookin for something decent size screen, fast speed, ,easy to operate and setup, we can have some portability around the house. This is a nice laptop so far, kids 8 & 11 have found it easy to operate and can keep an eye on what they are into, when it is in the kitchen. So far so good, cheap, easy to operate and portable, just what we wanted.Best Deals for Toshiba Satellite C655-S5082 15.6" widescreen Laptop (Trax Texture
There are two ways to judge this laptop; first relative to its competition as an entry level laptop that is basically the first step above a netbook, secondly relative to its price value.Listed here at $396 the verdict on price value is easy-wait and shop around. There are a host of laptops one step above this (athlon II dual core/3 gig ram/3 usb) that can be had in the $350-$400 range with just a little shopping around.
Now flip the context to entry-level value and the tale becomes a bit more interesting. My impressions of this are still somewhat brief as I am using it essentially as a loaner so I'd have something at my apt. while my regular laptop is in the process of being replaced due to faulty hardware. Judging it from the price range my parents found this at (289.99) this holds up much better.
The hardware is very basic, a 2GHZ single-core Intel Celeron processor with 2 gigs of RAM, 250 Gig Hard drive, 2 USB ports, and that's about it. It does have a few luxuries however that make it quite nice in the basic laptop department.
1.LED+low power processor+ only 2 gigs of RAM= Solid battery life. I have not taken this to the duration of the battery, but after about an hour of browsing the internet on battery alone without lowering display brightness or taking any other power-conserving steps the machine still had an estimated 4 hours of battery life remaining. The low power usage also means this machine has so far ran extremely cool compared to the two other laptops I've owned.
2.Nice keyboard-My first laptop was an older Toshiba Satellite that served me well for about two years but had a somewhat cramped-feeling keyboard considering it had a 15.4'' display and 10-key. This one doesn';t have as nice a feel as my HP, but still is fairly nice and the 10-key is an added bonus.
3.Installed software-In addition to the now standard 64-bit Windows 7 they also included a nice feature of making Office 2010 not simply a short-term trial, but instead adding a stripped-down basic version of word and excel that has no expiration date, treating the full version of office more like an update.
Final verdict (aka tldr version)--
Given these aspects of the machine mentioned above this is not going to be supplanting anyone's desktop or higher-end laptop any time soon, and listed at $396 on Amazon much better machines can be found for the price. But in the right sale (say just at or under $300) and setting this could be the perfect machine for someone looking for a budget machine to fill basic needs (web-browsing, word processing, playing music--assuming a small investment in speakers) or someone looking for a cheap secondary machine to take on the road with them and as as a netbook with improved display/keyboard and no need for an external cd/dvd player.
Honest reviews on Toshiba Satellite C655-S5082 15.6" widescreen Laptop (Trax Texture
I decided to get this @bestbuy after helping my mom shop for a laptop for my brother before Christmas. Works great for everyday computing/school and video converting. Was disappointed in volume loudness so I did some snooping and found a fix.Right click on the speaker icon in the lower right area of the taskbar. (next to the power and internet connection icon)
Click "Playback Devices",
Click on "Speakers" to highlight it,
Then click "Properties"
Then the "Enhancements" Tab
Then check "Loudness Equalization"
then Apply and OK
Worked for me and increased volume to a much better level.
Hope that helps those that this issue annoys.
Overall the best laptop for the price ($299) once the loudness issue is addressed.
Webcam and mic would have been nice but I usually never use the webcam on my desktop. I have a "Sony Electret Condenser microphone ECM-DS70P" I bought off eBay for 99 cents+ shipping that works awesome with Google Voice when plugged into the mic input. Easy fix that is small and portable.
What's great about it: Low price, Toshiba/Japanese reliability, Fast, Widescreen
What's not so great: Webcam and mic would have been nice but not needed.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Toshiba Satellite C655-S5082 15.6" widescreen Laptop (Trax Texture
While I do have some issues with this laptop, for the price, it is definitely worth it. I got it as my laptop to take with me to college my freshman year of college. Also bought a desktop, but wanted an inexpensive laptop for the portability. I weighed my options and got the toshiba satellite c655.I'm not going to waste anyone's time so I'll get down to the pros and cons of this laptop.
Pros:
-Size is perfect to fit in a backpack or briefcase, absolutely no problems there.
-2 USB port, an SD port, and an ethernet port. (Standard on most laptops)
-The mouse pad!!! (It has multi-touch technology similar to a mac. 2 finger scroll to scroll up or down and pinch to shrink or enlarge.)
-decent battery life, an hour and a half when power saver mode is off.
-The keyboard feels nice, keys are soft, but do not feel fragile.
-It has a number pad. (I could never have a computer without one.)
Cons:
-Download time is atrocious. (Took me 15 hours to download software for a class when my roommate had it in under 2.)
-The multi-touch can be unresponsive, but I still love it.
-As far as I've seen, there is no way to adjust the sound on the keyboard, you have to open the speaker settings
-There is not enough contrast between the mouse sensor and the laptop casing. (I often think I'm not touching the mouse sensor, when it turns out that I'm writing a paper and all of a sudden I'm typing halfway across the page.
Neither pro nor con:
-I think Toshiba cut the price on the laptop by putting an average processor into an outstanding laptop. This makes performance very slow compared to my desktop. (I didn't want to spend the money on a more expensive laptop, so am I at fault here? I think so, not Toshiba)
All in all, I am very satisfied with the performance of this computer. There are a few minor problems, but for the price, I doubt you'll find a better buy. Toshiba makes phenomenal laptops, and I am a happy customer.
Would give it 5 stars, except that I am rating Amazon's product, not the laptop itself. I got it on sale at BestBuy for a cheaper price, and this was over 6 months ago. If Amazon dropped their price on this, I would certainly bump the rating to 5 stars in a heartbeat.
No comments:
Post a Comment