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CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 02/21/2003
- Updated on: 11/06/2009
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 The area around the mouse buttons heats up after extended use. |
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With a 12.9-by-11.3-inch footprint, the simple and sophisticated Satellite Pro 6100 is slightly larger than the WinBook J4 but smaller than the Sony VAIO PCG-GRX600 and the Gateway 600XL, both of which have larger screens. Thicker in the back than at the front, the Satellite's wedge profile varies from 1.5 to 1.7 inches, making the Toshiba one of the thinnest desktop replacements. Plus, at 6.8 pounds, it weighs about 1.5 pounds less than the WinBook J4 and about 2 pounds less than the Sony VAIO PCG-GRX600. Add the 12-ounce AC adapter, and the Satellite Pro 6100's travel weight rises to a manageable 7.5 pounds. The system lacks a floppy drive, and its modular bay can be left empty to cut the weight by nearly 8 ounces.
The system's beautiful 15-inch screen has a native resolution of 1,600x1,200 pixels, which shows video in pinpoint sharpness. It can also pump out an astounding 2,048x1,536-resolution video on an external monitor in 16-bit color.
The combination of the system's Yamaha YMF753 audio chip and pair of speakers above the keyboard results in loud, vibrant sound, but the Satellite Pro 6100 lacks the subwoofer seen on its smaller cousin, the similarly designed Satellite 5100 series. The Satellite Pro 6100 has a convenient thumbwheel volume control, and the audio plugs are up front for easy connections.
 The keyboard is easy to master. |
 The 15-inch screen has a 1,600x1,200 native resolution. |
Beneath the speakers, you'll find a comfortable keyboard with big, 19.2mm keys. While typing was easy to master in our keyboard tests, the keys have only 2mm of depth to them. (Shallow keys aren't as comfortable as longer-throw keys. This is what separates a notebook keyboard from a desktop one; typical desktops have about 3.5mm to 4mm of travel, while the best notebooks have 3mm.) With a pointing stick and mouse buttons, the cursor was easy to control, too, although the area around the mouse buttons heats up after extended use.
With a price tag exceeding $2,500, the Satellite Pro 6100 will run you more than some of its peers, but the Toshiba bundles a DVD-rewritable drive and dual-mode data radio. If value is your prime concern, wait a few months for the cost of the DVD-RW drive to go down. The system can attach to a basic port replicator ($99) that includes numerous slots: serial, parallel, external monitor, PS/2, FireWire, audio, phone line, Ethernet, and a pair for USB 1.1, as well as a DVI connector to an external LCD.
The Satellite Pro 6100 is unique in that it includes nearly everything you'd hope for in a desktop-replacement notebook, plus a few pleasant surprises. To start, you'll get the DVD-RW optical drive, which can burn DVD-R and DVD-RW media, although its 1X speed isn't too impressive. The drive is rated at 8X, 16X, 10X, and 24X at reading DVDs, reading and writing CD-Rs, reading and writing CD-RWs, and reading CD-ROMs respectively.
If that's not enough, the Satellite Pro 6100 covers the wireless bases with a combo 802.11a and 802.11b data radio, so you can rest assured that you'll have the right equipment to tap into the wireless LAN at home, work, the airline club, or your favorite Starbucks. In our tests, the wireless range was also impressive: 81 feet in 802.11a mode and 108 feet in 802.11b.
 The DVD-rewritable drive is on the left. |
 The USB ports are the slower 1.1 variety. |
This notebook's port selection, on the other hand, is good but not great. While many of the Satellite Pro 6100's competitors are now offering four faster USB 2.0 ports, the Toshiba lacks FireWire and comes with only a pair of USB 1.1 ports. Otherwise, the 6100's remaining ports do the trick, with outlets for composite video, serial, parallel, and an external monitor. Wired communications are covered with a built-in 100Mbps LAN and a V.92 modem. To top it off, the system has two PC Card slots. There's also the bonus of a Secure Data slot for those who use a digital camera or an MP3 player on the road.
When you buy this notebook online, you can't pick and choose components as you might with Dell or IBM. But you will get to select from three Satellite Pro 6100 models in the line. At the bottom, the $1,458 basic model houses a 1.8GHz Pentium processor, 256MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a lower-resolution 15-inch screen. In the middle, the 2GHz system sells for $1,857 and ups the hard drive to 60GB and the memory to 512MB. The model we tested, which includes a 2.2GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, a DVD-RW drive, and a 15-inch XUGA screen, costs more than $2,500.
In addition to Windows XP Pro, the Satellite Pro 6100 comes with a good assortment of software, from Toshiba's excellent battery utility to Intuit Quicken Basic to Norton AntiVirus. For $10, you can add two applications from a long list.
Mobile application performance
Compared to other 2.2GHz Pentium 4-M systems we've tested, the 2.2GHz Satellite Pro 6100 placed well above average in our mobile performance tests. Although the Satellite Pro 6100 didn't place first in this test group of desktop replacements, the difference in score between the three models was negligible. The Toshiba finished just five points behind the Gateway 600XL, which would not add up to any real-world performance difference.
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Mobile application performance Longer bars indicate better performance |
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SysMark2002 performance
With a score of 188, the Satellite Pro 6100's overall SysMark2002 performance was slightly above average compared to that of other 2.2GHz Pentium 4 systems we've tested, and its Internet-content-creation score was high enough for a comfortable first place in this test group. It scored about the same as the Gateway 600XL in office productivity. The Satellite Pro 6100 offers above-average maximum performance that will leave most satisfied.
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Maximum application performance test Longer bars indicate better performance
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To measure maximum notebook application performance, CNET Labs uses BAPCo's SysMark2002, an industry-standard benchmark. Using off-the-shelf applications, SysMark measures a desktop's performance using office-productivity applications (such as Microsoft Office and McAfee VirusScan) and Internet-content-creation applications (such as Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Dreamweaver).
3D graphics performance
The Satellite Pro 6100's 32MB Nvidia GeForce4 420 didn't have the raw power and RAM to compete with the Gateway 600XL and its ATI Mobility M7 with 64MB of RAM. However, the Toshiba's 3D performance is nothing to sneeze at; it scored comfortably above average for a 2.2GHz Pentium 4 system.
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3D graphics performance test Longer bars indicate better performance |
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To measure 3D graphics performance, CNET Labs uses Futuremark's 3DMark2001 SE. We use 3DMark to measure desktop-replacement notebook performance with the DirectX 8.1 interface at the 32-bit color setting and a resolution of 1,024x768.
Find out more about how we test notebook systems.
System configurations:
Compaq Presario 3000
Windows XP Home; 2GHz Intel Pentium 4-M; 448MB DDR SDRAM 266MHz; SIS M650 64MB (shared); Toshiba MK4018GAP 40GB 4,200rpm
Gateway 600XL
Windows XP Professional; 2.2GHz Intel Pentium 4; 512MB DDR SDRAM 266MHz; ATI Mobility M7 64MB; IBM Travelstar 40GN 40GB 4,200rpm
Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100
Windows XP Professional; 2.2GHz Intel Pentium 4-M; 512MB DDR SDRAM 266MHz; Nvidia GeForce4 420 32MB; Toshiba MK6021GAS 60GB 4,200rpm
Even for a big machine that likely won't spend much time on an airline-seat tray, the Satellite Pro 6100 had anemic battery life. In CNET Labs' tests, this notebook's 10.8V, 4,000mAh battery just couldn't compensate for its power-hungry 2.2GHz Pentium 4-M. Each of the other systems in this test group included batteries that were able to keep their respective processors in check. As a result, both the Gateway 600XL (with an 11.1V, 5,700mAh battery) and the Compaq Presario 3000 (14.8V, 5,800mAh) beat the Satellite Pro. We suggest getting the Toshiba SelectBay nine-cell battery pack, which sells for $169 (minus a $30 mail-in rebate) and adds 3,000mAh of capacity, or about an extra hour of use.
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MobileMark2002 battery-life test Time is measured in minutes; longer bars indicate better performance |
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To measure mobile application performance and battery life, CNET Labs uses BAPCo's MobileMark2002. MobileMark measures both applications performance and battery life concurrently using a number of popular applications (Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft Excel 2002, Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, Microsoft Outlook 2002, Netscape Communicator 6.0, WinZip Computing WinZip 8.0, McAfee VirusScan 5.13, Adobe Photoshop 6.0.1, and Macromedia Flash 5.0).
System configurations:
Compaq Presario 3000
Windows XP Home; 2GHz Intel Pentium 4-M; 448MB DDR SDRAM 266MHz; SIS M650 64MB (shared); Toshiba MK4018GAP 40GB 4,200rpm
Gateway 600XL
Windows XP Professional; 2.2GHz Intel Pentium 4; 512MB DDR SDRAM 266MHz; ATI Mobility M7 64MB; IBM Travelstar 40GN 40GB 4,200rpm
Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100
Windows XP Professional; 2.2GHz Intel Pentium 4-M; 512MB DDR SDRAM 266MHz; Nvidia GeForce4 420 32MB; Toshiba MK6021GAS 60GB 4,200rpm
The Satellite Pro 6100's scant one-year warranty is not enough for a business system of this complexity, so the $129 upgrade to three-year coverage is a must-buy option. However, other aspects of Toshiba's service and support are impressive. The company stands behind its systems with a 24-hour-a-day help line, e-mail response from technicians, and a troubleshooting chat room on Toshiba's Web site. You'll also find a wide array of assistance on Toshiba's Web site, from warranty aid to driver downloads. Unfortunately, the site's Ask Iris interactive-response system needs some work. When we asked it an easy question ("How do you turn on the Bluetooth radio?"), it delivered 15 unrelated answers, with the correct--though incomplete--solution at the bottom of the list.
Sadly, the Satellite Pro 6100's manual also comes up short. Neither the printed version nor the electronic file comes in the box, so the first thing you'll need to do when setting up the machine is download the manual. On the positive side, the compressed file was easy to find, self-extracted quickly, and left an icon on the desktop. Inside the 300-page tome, you'll find a lot of detail and good tips on setup and use, but there's no spec sheet and scant info on how to use the DVD-RW drive or the wireless LAN software.
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