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"So far, great!" on by obtrunco
Pros: Style, color and speakers. Surprisingly fast despite using a 5400 rpm HDD. Battery lasts between 4.5 to 6 hrs. 320 GB HDD. All the necessary wi-fi standards.
Cons: Fingerprints all over. Battery seems to drain exponentially IE: if battery meter starts with 7 hrs, after 15 mins of use (flash video or internet browsing) it can show between 30 to 45 mins of drain. Comes with junkware. Power adaptor often gets hot!
Summary: This is my 1st laptop. Wasn't used to it at start because I've been using a quad core desktop that I built, so I'm not used to having a new PC preloaded with stuff such as trialware like MS Office, Quickbooks and an anti-virus. I uninstalled them. Luckily I already had a full install CD of Office '07 and a current subscription to McAffee from my ISP. As I mentioned before I'm not used to a preloaded PC. I found it slow (8 sec) to fully open some programs and later realized that defragmentation was required. Initially I assumed it unnecessary since this PC was barely a week old, but there it is. So friends, I guess this goes with any preloaded computer you get... defrag it! After doing this it loads everything quick. The included power supply often gets hot! Sometimes I fear it'll melt eventually. Only thing I dislike about the processor is that it doesn't have virtualization. Also watch out with the F12 key while booting up; it'll dissable the wonderful speakers it comes with and you can only hear audio through the headphone jack. When this happened I thought it got messed up. The documentation doesn't mention anything about the F12 key doing this. Ok. Other things I like is that it has a radar like graphical representation where it shows you the nearby wi-fi spots. These spots move in an out (you at the center of course) in approximation to you depending on their signal strength as well as additional details. It's fun to watch. There's a vibration protection for the HDD when the laptop is moved with different sensitivity settings. If you're always gonna have it at your desk then if you feel like it you can lower the sensitivity setting, but what for? It doesn't hamper the performance so I'd leave it at maximum if I were you. The screen looks great and there are good options for calibrating the resolution, aspect ratio, ect.
By now I've had it for several months. 1st thing I noticed is that the PCMIA slot, it lost grip to any card inserted in there including the cover. The cover simply falls out eventhough you heard and felt it click in, but if you tip the laptop over it'll fall out. Another was the Vista SP2 update, it constantly made the sound from the speakers go away. This was remediated only by uninstalling SP2 (I did this several times and the conclusion was the same).
So I'm becoming satisfied with it. For the price range Toshiba is a brand that has more positive consumer reviews than Dell, HP, and Compaq. I RECOMEND IT HIGHLY!!!
Updated on Feb 16, 2010
And lastly but most important! This laptop is advertised to come with an 800 MHz 4 GB RAM... IT'S A LIE!!!! (at least partially). The RAM is 400 MHz. But it's ok because I'll upgrade it to a real 8GB PC2 6400 800 MHz. In conclusion, it's scary how manufacturers overhype their specs in order to make a sale. -
"Don't buy Acer Buy Toshiba A505 S6930" on by chazyd2009
Pros: After 2 Acers in less than a year I finally came to my senses. Battery life is forever, looks great, fast. You can't go wrong with this purchase...
Cons: Fingerprints but they wipe off!!!!
Summary: BUY, BUY, BUY
o' yea, the dvd burner has LabelFlash which I did'nt read in C Nets reveiw.
Updated on Oct 10, 2009 -
"Perfect back to school laptop!" on by SaraMaxine
Pros: Excellent battery life and quite fast.
Cons: Face recognition isn't very accurate.
Summary: This is a wonderful system and very user friendly. Even the critics main complaint is fingerprints on the casing, but that quite easily fixed. Worth every penny!
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"DON'T BUY ANY TOSHIBA IF YOU WANT TO USE SKYPE VIDEO!!!" on by hawaiidolfan
Pros: an otherwise decent computer
Cons: False advertising with their webcam!!! If you want to use Skype video ABSOLUTELY DO NOT BUY A TOSHIBA LAPTOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't believe the Skype video sticker!!! You're just gonna have to buy another computer!
Summary: DON'T BUY A TOSHIBA LAPTOP IF YOU INTEND TO UTILIZE THE WEBCAM!!! IT WILL GIVE YOU THE BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH AND CRASH AND RESTART YOUR COMPUTER EVERY 5 MINUTES OR SO!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just use Google and you can see that the problem has existed for more than a year and it still has not been fixed . . . but they still have the Skype video sticker on their laptops!!!
Toshiba DOES NOT even have the capability of fixing the problem according to at least 3 technicians and a person from CUSTOMER support!!! "Customer" support???!!! Really?!!!
They WILL NOT refund your money even though they have that Skype VIDEO sticker attached right next to the webcam basically telling the consumer that if you buy this laptop, you can use Skype video!!! I told the customer support representative that the sticker was basically a lie . . . false advertising used to sway consumers to buy a product that can't even deliver!
I will NEVER buy a Toshiba product again!!!!!!! I don't care if it's a DVD player, TV or any other Toshiba device!!!
Basically, their response is thank you for your hard-earned money, but what we advertised doesn't work . . . too bad!!! Furthermore, you can't get it fixed NOR can you get a refund for a defective product!!! . . . nor, will we refund the extended warranty that you purchased!!!
Buy a HP, a Lenovo, an Acer or even a Dell!! -
"Great product for your money" on by kmack0415
Pros: Great sound, HDMI out, Classy touch pad, mouse pad is perfect, not sticky like some others. nice definition between the pad its self and the chassis. Num pad is great, Battery life is GREAT, keys are nicely spaced and easy to press
Cons: As said, FINGERPRINT MAGNET! The keys are hard to see in the dark because of the glare from the screen, mic doesnt pick up the best always and the speakers being in the back facing up under the mic makes for some feed back. web cam is a bit dark
Summary: Over all I love my toshiba, its a classy computer, great screen res, great sound from the harman/kardon speakers, the shortcut touch pad is very nice without being in the way or to sensitive or not sensitive enough. the keys can get a bit annoying from the glare but overall its not a problem if you know where your keys are. 10 key num pad is great, a personal must from now on. mouse pad is very nice, finger glides nicely and isnt sticky. has a nice feature to turn off the mouse pad which is indicated by the light bar that runs across the top part of the pad. The batt life is amazing, on minimal settings ive gotten it to last 7-8 hours and on full drain about 3.5 - 4 hours. the batt gives the unit a nice slant and makes for very good cooling over all. has a nice amount of usb ports and nicely spaced, not all in one clump. the web cam is a bit dark, need to be in a well lighted room for it to work well. the mic is a bit on the weak side, and the speakers can cause a bit of feed back, not the loud annoying squeal but just that the person on the other side can hear themselves talk, but its tolerable in my personal opinion. the chassis is a bit flimzy but not to the point where it seems cheap, just not the good quality metal ones. over all i love this computer, havent had a lick of trouble with it and would highly recommend it to friends and family as it is a very well build machine for the money.
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