Superb value
Written: May 02 '02 (Updated Aug 11 '02)
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Pros: Unmatched value, good support, quick, surprisingly solid build quality
Cons: Lack of built-in NIC, short battery life when playing dvds
The Bottom Line: The large screen portable DVD playback function alone is worth the price. The Toshiba Satellite 1005-s157 is the ideal budget notebook computer for students.
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| kickstop's Full Review: Toshiba Satellite 1005-S157 (PS100U-0012HX) PC Not... |
Hardware:
I saw a few inaccuracies in another review on this unit and want to clear them up. This Toshiba unit uses a Tualatin-core Celeron processor which runs on 133mhz front side bus and has 256KB of L2 cache(I've confirmed this with various utilities such as WCPUID). The major differences between this Celeron and the Pentium III-M is that the Celeron does not have the extensive SpeedStep feature and extra L2 (256KB vs 512KB). There may be other differences that I am not aware of, but these differences will most likely not show up in real world performance for most users.
The 830MG motherboard chipset provides integrated graphics. The 2D performance is as fast as any other modern video card. The 3D performance is surprisingly decent for a low cost integrated solution. It is quite slower than the Geforce2Go, Radeon 7500, or Geforce4Go graphics on higher end laptops. That said, it performs surprisingly well in the games I've played on the laptop (Black and White, JediKnight2, Homeworld/Cataclysm, Warcraft III). The image quality is very good (no tears or glitches) and the drivers seem stable. Because the 830MG graphics uses 8-32megs(8-48megs if there's more than 256megs RAM present)of system memory that is dynamically controlled by the Intel video drivers, the PC133 memory bandwidth limits the fillrate. The upper end of 3D playability is generally 800x600@32bit, 1024x768@16bit. Fortunately the stretching of 800x600 resolution to fit the LCD panel still retains considerable detail. If you want more information about the 830MG chipset/graphics, check out Intel's technical white papers. Apparently the graphics use tile rendering!
UPDATE: Also check Intel's website for the latest video drivers. Toshiba doesn't seem to have any motivation to post updated drivers on their support site (probably in an effort to limit the variance of conditions they have to deal with during tech support). Intel has released no less than 5 driver revisions since I bought the laptop. Each revision has noticeably increased the stability of the drivers without any significant sacrifice of video performance.
The unit comes with 256megs of PC133 CL2 SDRAM on a single DIMM. This is nice since XP really needs more than 128 to run decently (IMHO, XP needs 256megs of RAM just to run itself). There's an open DIMM slot that can take another 256megs DIMM for maximum 512megs of RAM. The system runs considerably faster with 512megs of RAM.
The TFT screen is very good. Some fonts look better than others on the screen, but the detail in graphics is excellent. The maximum brightness is sufficient for seeing screen outdoors, but eyestrain will still result for any prolonged use in the sun. My screen had a single red dead pixel on the lower left. Toshiba allowed screen to be replaced at local authorized repair center. New screen is flawless.
The unit lacks built-in ethernet, IR, serial port, and PS/2 port. I could have really used ethernet (and IR) but PCCARD NIC works fine in the unit. The PCCARD/Cardbus (2xTypeII) are on the right side of unit. There are 3 USB1.1 ports, two in the back and one on the right side (convenient for mice and frequently swapped devices).
The modular bay on the system is a nice expansion option. Toshiba offers HDDs, CDRW, and CDRW/DVD drives that can be used in this bay instead of the default DVD drive.
The ALPS Glidepoint Touchpad can be configured for virtual horizontal and vertical scrollwheels as well as shortcut taps.
The HDD is rather small at 15GB, but at least it can be swapped out with standard laptop HDD. The recovery CDs should make resetting new HDD to factory software preinstall easy.
The battery is perhaps the weakest point of the system. It is NiMH, and lasts under 2 hours when playing a DVD. This means that most movies won't play on a single charge. The battery lasts noticeably longer doing less intensive activities like web browsing and word processing.
The hardware volume control is a nice feature all notebook computers should have (yes, I know quite a few modern systems have it). It allows adjustment without interrupting programs to access software controls.
Software:
The unit comes with Windows XP Home. The stability is welcomed, but XP is bloated with Microsoft stuff that I don't want such as MSN. It takes a while to remove all this junk. I would have preferred Windows XP Professional for more flexible networking features.
The DVD player is a reasonably recent oem version of WinDVD. The image quality and performance is excellent (except for the caption feature). The player lacks audio options and an "always on top" option, but it is a good preinstalled player. (Note: PowerDVD XP 4.0 Deluxe works fine on this laptop)
The rest of the preinstalled software is more or less junk in my opinion. I don't like the feel of Lotus Millenium Suite, but at least it's there in case the user doesn't want to shell out for MS Office.
Intangibles:
The laptop has a surprisingly solid and rigid feel. It does not look flashy, but it isn't ugly either. The keyboard is roomy and is relatively quiet. Key travel is fine. The unit is feels heavier than it actually is. I don't think I'd want to travel a lot with this unit after being used to my 1.75lbs Toshiba Libretto.
Toshiba's technical support is above average. The Toshiba website is excellent source of detailed information. The included worldwide warrantee is nice, and the option of using local authorized repair depots is great. The local authorized repair center I use (cpurepair) has superior customer service quality.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 599.00
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
kickstop
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Reviews written: 2
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