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- Average user rating:
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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3.0 stars
"Good "lap"top but has design flaws"
Pros: Powerful, big and clear display
Cons: Battery and design quirks
Summary: Even though the P35-S609 is large and heavy, I wouldn't criticize it for that since I knew I wanted to have more of a portable desktop setup than a sleek road warrior machine. For that, the P35-S609 is very good. I never felt like it was inadequate compared to a laptop and felt the size and weight was on par with others with its screen size. The screen is great and I can use it for hours without feeling the eyestrain that I get from other smaller screens. The sound quality from the harmon/kardon speakers is rather impressive with decent range and clarity. The processor runs great for pretty much all the applications I use and don't feel it lacking in power.
All that being said, I've had the laptop for over 3 years now and I think I would go another way in the future. It was my first laptop and having used this one, I'll be looking for one that's more portable and most importantly, less power hungry for those times I want to be untethered. This machine eats battery and puts out a lot of heat, but that was to be expected with the P4 processor. The battery has pretty much gone dead now and can't keep the laptop running for more than 10 minutes unplugged - an inherent problem for this model? There are cooling issues as I've had the laptop overheat on a few occasions. I found that by propping up the base and allowing more airflow from the fans, it avoided the overheating problem. Speaking of the fans, they seem inadequate because they work hard - which is audibly apparant. My fans sound terrible now and grind as if the bearings are already worn. I discovered they're like mini vacuum cleaners and sucked up all the dust around them. Blowing or vacuuming the dust out seems to help the fans run smoother.
Minor design quirks are mostly about the keyboard and touchpad. I don't understand why Toshiba didn't take advantage of the all the extra area on the base since the screen is large. The keyboard is designed and laid out somewhat awkward as if they were trying to jam the keys in a smaller space. I think this might be more of a signature Toshiba thing though. The touchpad is fustratingly small and I often scroll through the windows by accident because my fingers drifted into the scroll area. I got used to it, but it shouldn't have been the case.
I guess for my next laptop, I should do a little more hands-on testing before buying.
