| Pros Fast, relatively lightweight, beefy hard drive, built-in 802.11b, good tech support Cons Fit and finish somewhat rough, fuzzy text, lower RAM capabilities than advertised, no diskette The Bottom Line I might reconsider this purchase and spend a few bucks more on a better machine. |
| Full Review |
| After owning a 450 Mhz IBM ThinkPad, I decided it was time to upgrade to something faster. I liked my IBM and wanted to stick with that brand, but as I explored different machines, I found the Toshiba Satellite Pro 6000 had the best specs for the dollar. It came with a 40 gig hard drive, 256 meg of RAM, 15" display, CD/R-DVD, built-in Ethernet, modem, 802.11(b) and Bluetooth connectivity. A comparable ThinkPad was close to $1,000 more, so I bought the Toshiba. In addition to the specs mentioned above, the machine had Windows XP Professional, Quicken 2001, Norton Antivirus, Easy CD Creator Basic for making CD's, SPANWorks 200 and some Toshiba utilities installed. It also included a set of 5 CD's for system recovery and application drivers. (View the complete specs at http://www.csd.toshiba.com.) Not included in the package was a 3.5-inch diskette drive, which I would have expected but I guess they are becoming less useful with the propagation of writeable CD's. Since most of the people with whom I'll be sharing files don't have that capability, I will have to depend on e-mail and on-line storage for file exchanges. Out of the Box When I unwrapped the machine and turned it on, I was able to quickly get connectivity to my SMC 802.11(b) WAP. The laptop found it and connected on the first try. I've had no problems whatsoever with it since then. I’ve also brought the machine into my office and connected it via an Ethernet cable with no problems. It switches back and forth effortlessly between wireless and wired connections . I haven't tried the Bluetooth or modem connections. As I emptied the box, a single-page leaflet fell out that was an addendum to the documentation. It informed me that rather than the advertised capacity of 1 Gig of RAM, the machine will only hold 512 Meg. This was certainly a disappointment. NOTE: Since I wrote this review, I spoke with Toshiba tech support and they assured me that the computer would handle 1 gig of RAM. I ordered two 512 meg DIMMS and it does indeed work. The only downside is that the machine holds only two DIMMS so I now have the original two DIMMS that I'll have to sell on eBay. I would recommend that anyone purchasing this machine get it with 1 gig of RAM installed. Speed As you would expect, the machine is far faster than my old IBM. Windows loads much quicker and applications start up faster as well. I didn't have a chance to do a benchmark comparison, but my guess is that this box is fully 4X faster than my old ThinkPad. Display The 15" screen is noticeably larger than my old 14.1". The graphics are bright and fairly crisp. My only complaint with the display is that on-screen text appears slightly fuzzy and is a bit uncomfortable to look at. I've gotten used-to it, but whenever I look at a different machine, I'm reminded of how text SHOULD appear. It's a minor issue, but a constant one. Note: Since writing this review, I turned off XP's font smoothing and the screen text looks much better. In-Use I often sit on the couch or in a chair with the machine on my lap while I work. The Toshiba is relatively light-weight (about 6.5 Lbs.) and sits comfortably - at first. After a few minutes, the bottom gets really hot and I have to position it so that a portion of it is not in contact with my lap. It's not a big deal, and I guess it's to be expected with a 1.2 Gigahertz CPU. I've run the battery for as long as two hours without having to plug the machine in. My guess is that it wouldn't last much longer, but I'm happy with that. Layout, Fit and Finish Overall, the machine feels solid and well made, but I have a couple of minor gripes. First, the keyboard layout takes a bit of getting used-to. There is only one Ctrl key on the left-hand side of the keyboard. If you're used-to pressing Ctrl on the right side of the spacebar, this will take some adjustment. Also, the Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, Insert and Delete keys are scattered around in, to my mind, a completely unintuitive fashion. After a month of using this machine, I still have to search for them. Another minor complaint is with the case. It isn't flat and when it's set on a flat surface, it rocks like a chair with one leg that's shorter than the others. Also, the latch doesn't catch solidly when I close the cover. I have to be sure to finesse it just so, or it won't completely close. Support Finally, I'd like to give a plug to Toshiba's tech support. When I had trouble installing a piece of software, I was able to reach a technician fairly quickly. He was familiar with the problem I was having and he immediately walked me through a change in the registry, which took care of it. Update After about six months of using the machine as my primary computer, I started having trouble shutting it down. It would just freeze and I'd have to pop the battery and unplug it in order to get it to turn off. After a while, I couldn't get it to power up and I had to send it off to Toshiba. It turned out that they had to replace the motherboard. Because they didn't have one in-stock, it took more than three weeks for me to get my computer back. To me, this was an unacceptably long period to wait for a repair. I was lucky to have a backup machine, but I would not want to risk such a long wait again. I Contrast this with a similar situation that I had with my IBM Thinkpad. They had the machine back in my hands within 5 days. I'll be sticking with Big Blue in the future. |
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