| Laptops and Notebooks Reviews : Toshiba |
 | Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q870 TruBrite 18.4-Inch Gaming Laptop
Lightening speed but quirky -- 2010-08-20
Love the screen, great for games, movies etc. The sound is A+. The computer start-up is very fast! Most things are great especially the speed, this computer functions at warp speed which contributes to some of its quirks. I've had it for 4 months now. Two problems though #1. The plug in for the adapter is always coming loose. Move and the adapter will pop off. You are no longer charging. This can lead to unpredictability and surprise when your laptop just turns off. But don't fear I've never lost any info. The startup QUICKLY resumes where you left off. #2. The laptop mouse is touchy. I have very small hands and still when I am typing my palm may touch the pad and off I go jumping off screen, maybe even going on line when I thought I was working in Word. Who knows where my mischievious palm may lead me (I usually work with many windows open, palm touches screen moves arrow and off I go). Also, the mouse scrolls unpredictably due to the side scrolls. It can be frustrating (OOops lost that page, touched the side of the mouse pad). Overall I would purchase the laptop again now that I understand the quirks and how they happen. At first I thought wow, is this thing possessed! How in the world did that happen? Now I know and no I'm not going crazy, the laptop is just functioning at lightening speed and therefore has its quirks.
Toshiba could do better with no additional cost to the Co. -- 2010-06-15
I bought this laptop about couple of months ago, from Tiger-direct cause for some reason or another Amazon price jumped overnight on that particular laptop, and tiger offered 12 months no interest and for an additional $29.00 they guarantee they will buy back the laptop for at least 40% of the purchase price depending on the shape it's in at that time. Anyhow, this has nothing to do with he review.
The review:
I'm not gonna sit here describing the machine, the specs are well listed by the MFG. Let me start by saying that I consider myself a computer savvy, I'm not stingy when it comes to buying a good system, and I've always bought Toshiba laptops, and it seems to always be the case, the machines are beautiful well built but always have out of the box drivers issues, and stupid little bugs that arise from negligence, more than anything else, and I could imagine how frustrating it would be for the non computer savvy. I always tolerated this fact hoping that my next Toshiba won't have these minor annoying stupid bugs, such as bad Blue-tooth Driver, Bad Graphic card driver, Bluray Drive with no supporting oftware, bad BIOS that causes blue screens,only three USB outlets, etc.. etc...
As far as this system goes, I was able to upgrade the buggy BIOS, downloaded new one from Toshiba site, I got the blue-tooth headphones to work (needed to roll-back to an old driver? then about a week ago Realteck posted a driver that worked), but the most serious problem that this machine has is a bad driver for it's Graphic card, the machine and during light operations, goes blank, then wakes up with a message DISPLAY DRIVER STOPPED WORKING AND HAS RECOVERED, then comes back to life. Worst of all, is when watching a movie or doing some CAD drafting, the SCREEN OF DEATH COMES ON (The blue screen) and shuts your system down. I downloaded the latest driver NVIDIA had, still didn't work. All and all the machine with little more attention could be a five star. I do agree with the other 3 star reviewer, that the machine has a five star potential if given a good support team.
In conclusion here are the Pros and Cons of this system
PROS:
1- Machine well built, nicely designed, love the lighted keyboard.
2- Bluray drive worked great after the software update.
3- Love the off switch for the tablet.
4- Sound crisp but can use more amps.
5- There is room for another HD (Solid state if you wish)
CONS:
1- Bad graphic card driver (-1 star)
2- Bad bluetooth driver (-1/2 star)
3- 3 USB outlets not enough, 2 located where the mouse pad needs to go for right handed (-1/2 star)(external HD, mouse, ZUNE Charging, done no more USB).
4- To upgrade to 6 gig RAM you have to get rid of 2RAM to make room for 4 RAM or replace both 2GIGs with (2) 3 GIGS. Marketing BS everybody does it, I'll let it slide.
5- Have to go through BIOS to turn off the control keyboard and keypads lights and to enable the USB charge while asleep.
As for the Size, it's huge, what I would like to have done, and hat what I would do next time, is to buy a smaller 15 inch high power system and when a bigger screen is needed just plug in a dam 22 inch monitor, they are cheap enough. Buy the way the Targus 17" back-pack worked great.
UPDATE:
The BIOS and Graphic updates fixed the problems. Well that's my point why the problems were not fixed before release.
Still out of the box it is a 3 star system. Toshiba needs to start debugging it's systems before release, especially the expensive ones. Well they won't do that if everyone keeps on giving them 4 stars.
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 | Toshiba Satellite M505D-S4000 TruBrite 14.0-Inch Laptop (Black)
Disappointing -- 2010-08-24
I bought this laptop for its features and price. In that regard its a good buy. The disappointment, however, is in the use of this computer. The touchpad is far too sensitive and typing is a royal pain. Every time you start to type and the slightest brush of the touch pad and the cursor changes location and the sentences are completely incoherent. I can't recommend it just because of how aggravating it is to use. If you are incredibly patient and just want bang for your buck - buy it. I have had this laptop for 4 months, and I can honestly say I wish I had bought a different one.
This laptop was deffective. -- 2010-07-30
I bought this laptop in April and after using it for 27 days it stopped working, showing me the famous blue screen that appears on pc that use windows. I sent it to the Toshiba offices in my city, and they said that the problem it has is the board. I have been waiting for over a month, and it hasn't been solved yet, because they said that the part that was missing didn't exist. I think the service they are providing is awful, knowing that the laptop has been recently purchased and that it is supposed to have a "good" warranty.
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 | Toshiba Satellite A305-S6858 Core 2 Duo T5750 2.0GHz 4GB 320GB DVD±RW 15.4" Vista Home Premium (SP1, 64 Bit version) WiFi w/Webcam, face recognition software
Great Laptop. -- 2009-04-20
Even thought this is my first laptop and I'm known in the house to "kill" anything that is eletronic. I find this computer exteremly reliable.
It did crash on me but that was my fault. Went on the wrong sites had to many virus and malware and it blinked out. I sent the laptop back to Toshiba and they fixed it within 2 weeks.
But I like the speakers they supply a decent sound, the mouse pad will get hot in long duration, due to the design and the finish you will be able to see your fingerprints (but thats something stupid to complain about), very fast on the internet no matter what (DSL, Cabel), a lot of storage space, and the software is very user friendly and I've never had a problem with Vista. It works like a breeze.
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 | TOSHIBA Satellite L505D-LS5010 Notebook PC - AMD Athlon II Dual-Core M300 2.0GHz / 15.6" HD LCD / 4GB DDR2 / 250GB HD / DVD Super Multi / ATI Radeon 4100 / 802.11b/g WLAN / Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Powerful Laptop at a Good Price -- 2010-07-15
Pros
Cheap price (460.00 for mine with shipping)
Dual Core processor
4gb DDR2
Windows 7 x64
Plenty of inputs, but lacks a modem (shouldnt matter for much, but con for me since it is a work computer)
Cons
A bit weak in the graphic's department (Fine, unless you plan to use this for gaming)
rather weak battery life (Lowest brightness + Eco Mode gets me 2 1/2 hrs)
Does not come with Driver or restore disk!
I bought this laptop looking for something cheap and powerful, and this thing has power aplenty. Boots in around 20 seconds. It can handle WoW at max resolution, even in Dalaran without chugging, so it is capable of doing some modest gaming. If your like me and looking for a powerful laptop for under 500 dollars, I really cant recommend this laptop enough. I am starting a job as a field networking engineer, so having my own laptop was a must. I had to buy an external 56k to USB modem and a USB to DB-9 Serial converter, but I really didnt expect to find a laptop that had such old technologies standard anyway, but it is worth noting. The battery life may prove to be an issue during long class sessions or long nights on site, but at around 2 hours, it is satisfactory.
Good value -- 2010-06-11
Pros : Ram, cpu, and hard drive compliment each other well. Integrated video card is impressive: Rise of Legends and Age of Empires 3 run very well with settings at 3/4 of the max. Win7 Premium was a welcome addition (I had thought basic would certainly be installed.) Very light and reasonably quiet. Screen and keyboard take some getting used to (both are wider than standard), but are well-suited to most tasks.
Cons: Almost all the bundled software is useless and adds a significant amount of overhead to usage. Overall I spent 3 hours uninstalling and updating. Windows 7 is definitely the best Windows OS so far, but severely lags behind the most popular Linux distros, namely Ubuntu and Fedora, for everyday use and productivity.
The battery life is average: 2 to 4 hours, depending on how you use it (however it's not a big issue to me.)
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 | Toshiba Satellite M505-S4020 TruBrite 14.0-Inch Touchscreen Laptop (Black)
Disappointing -- 2010-08-24
I bought this laptop for its features and price. In that regard its a good buy. The disappointment, however, is in the use of this computer. The touchpad is far too sensitive and typing is a royal pain. Every time you start to type and the slightest brush of the touch pad and the cursor changes location and the sentences are completely incoherent. I can't recommend it just because of how aggravating it is to use. If you are incredibly patient and just want bang for your buck - buy it. I have had this laptop for 4 months, and I can honestly say I wish I had bought a different one.
This laptop was deffective. -- 2010-07-30
I bought this laptop in April and after using it for 27 days it stopped working, showing me the famous blue screen that appears on pc that use windows. I sent it to the Toshiba offices in my city, and they said that the problem it has is the board. I have been waiting for over a month, and it hasn't been solved yet, because they said that the part that was missing didn't exist. I think the service they are providing is awful, knowing that the laptop has been recently purchased and that it is supposed to have a "good" warranty.
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