Good value for money but not perfect
 Oct 17th, 2007 (Jan 25th, 2008)
Advantages:
Decent spec . including decent memory, card reader, DVD writer etc . , quite light and portable
Disadvantages:
See review
Recommendable:
Yes
Detailed rating:
Speed
Look & Feel
Comfort & Portability
Robustness & Durability
Value For Money
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  IzzyS
About me:
Thanks for all r/r/c's everyone! Roll on the summer, say I! im off to Croatia and Slovenia to stay w...
Member since:27.07.2006
Reviews:224
Members who trust:83
Review rated by 33 Ciao members on average: exceptional 
This review received a counterstatement by a party concerned
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** 4th edit/update - January 25th 08 - IMPORTANT - Yup, here I am again! ok I feel its only fair to add this... the laptop became unstable within Vista *again* earlier this week. While I was trying to upload an image to Photobucket, it came up with a message saying 'Windows Explorer has stopped working' which lead to the system tray/toolbar etc. disappearing and then it said 'Windows Explorer is restarting' and basically as soon as it was back again, it disappeared again and entered this vicious cycle. I was not best pleased given I had somewhere else to be soon but anyway, my dad thankfully agreed to have another look at it and it turns out that it seems this problem was due to Windows Vista and not the hardware itself. If you do a search for this fault, it appears to be a bug within the Vista user account control... and to fix it, my dad found that he could get back into Windows through using Safe mode (if you just shut it down and started it up again, it didn't let you access the taskbar, hence it was unusable by me until my dad looked into it) and he managed to back up my files through MS DOS I believe. Through either that or Safe Mode I believe, he was able to create a new user account and then move all my documents over to that and it seems to have totally fixed the problem... at least its working at the moment anyway. He says that when he looked up the Windows Explorer fault through Google on another computer, there's an awful lot about this happening, so it shouldn't be a problem just for this particular laptop but could happen to anyone who has/uses Windows Vista (my version being Home Premium).
Having explored things, my dad is pretty sure that there isn't anything particularly wrong, hardware wise, with the laptop and is suspicious that all the problems so far have been due to security glitches and other faults within Windows, so I feel perhaps I was a little harsh in my ratings and what I say for it... but for an, at best high intermediate IT user or whatever you wanna call me lol, its very hard to know for sure where the problems lie, if there are Toshiba related hardware faults... the major fault last year wasn't as simple to fix as this one is but my dad still seems pretty sure everything has been due to Windows, not Toshiba (grrr Microsoft!) so I feel I should say that here... can't really prove it but thats what im told and my dad is quite knowledgeable, certainly more than I am, when it comes to such things... he thinks that hardware wise, I have a very good computer. So, I guess make of that what you will! also someone contacted me through my guestbook to say they thought the problems could all have been due to Windows too and not Toshiba, I think... so... there you go! ill 'up' the rating to 3 stars (ie satisfactory) and say its a shame we don't tend to get a choice which operating system new laptops/computers come pre-loaded with. Vista is too new, be careful if you get it with a new computer; regular backups seem like a good idea, put it that way! (as they are anyway but you know what I mean). Okay, update over lol (sorry this is a long and probably pretty confusing review...). I guess if I find out that im wrong with what I say here *sigh* it'll be time for yet another update but I seriously hope what we think is right... im only saying what I've been told, so, sorry for the confusion folks and many thanks again for the great ratings and the diamond - cheers, sorry this is a nightmare to review properly! ** 3rd edit - November 19th 07 - I'm back to using this laptop and so far its worked ok, if not a little slow at times. I think my impression of the build quality of this model has been pretty much irrevocably damaged but there you go, this is what happens! anyway I thought it may be worth bringing to your attention as potential buyers, that I have found mention online that Toshiba are currently running a scheme which applies for laptops within Toshiba's range bought between now and 24th December 2007. If you buy one of their laptops between now and then and register it for this scheme, then within the first year of purchase (or 3 years if you buy extended warranty), if your laptop breaks down, they'll fix it or swap it AND refund you the full price of the laptop - now that, I think, is a great deal (though yes they should be reliable in the first place but still), now I wish this scheme was running when I bought my laptop, I'd be asking for a full refund and would be £499.99 better off again! how frustrating that they offer this now and not when I bought it... hmmmm... oh well, I thought it was worth mentioning and thanks again everyone who rated this review so highly! btw if you want more info. about this offer, go to www.toshiba.co.uk and you should see a banner ad for the scheme there, it only runs between now and December 24th though and you have to specifically register for the scheme and prove when you bought your laptop, to be able to claim under it... oh and also you have to register for this scheme within 7 days of having purchased it and while its in the right time frame (between now and December 24th).
** 2nd edit - November 7th 07 - *sigh* ok I hope im not overly confusing everything and many thanks for all the 'E' ratings this review has got and for letting it be a diamond review, I feel honoured! The update is a few days late but basically whats ended up happening is that my dad checked my receipt for the laptop, it turns out that the store wouldn't take it back as its over 28 days since I purchased it and so we had to contact the manufacturer directly. A fair amount of time was spent on the phone and I'm lucky my dad knows a few things about this sort of stuff and it seems that we may be able to save it - with the help of the technical help from Toshiba's helpline, it now appears to be running alright. We're keeping a close eye on it and ive lost all my documents/files but its been switched on and checked for about 3 days in a row now and it appears to be functioning correctly. I'm suspicious since even the technical Toshiba guys couldn't say whether the fault had been due to a virus, hardware or software or what, which doesn't leave me feeling exactly as if I can trust that it'll not end up doing what it did again... so we're taking it a step at a time but it appears to have recovered. You'd really have to ask my dad for the technical details of what seems to have saved it, the last I knew even the product recovery CD wasn't working but somehow with help over the phone, he appears to have saved it, at least temporarily. He also said that if it does suddenly die again and we can't get it back at all, then the next thing to do will be to arrange for Toshiba to collect it at a time that will suit us. I'm suspicious though, after the basic one year warranty what happens if it conks out, like 13 months after purchase? but all the same, its a bit confusing I know but it now appears to be semi fixed... at least temporarily, stay tuned I guess, I can only update with what happens as it happens! ive been busy so sorry I didn't edit this earlier and thanks again for all ratings, all im doing is giving my own experiences...
**Edit - Warning! I'm updating this review on November 3rd 2007 to say that today I experienced a problem where the laptop wouldn't fully 'boot up' properly, Vista would load but the keyboard keys wouldn't respond on screen and I couldn't get the start bar to load, instead if you place the cursor on the taskbar it just shows the 'busy' icon and basically I got a few error messages about security options not being properly initialised or something similar and its turned out to be what me and my dad presume to be a hard disk fault. The product recovery CD was used and it seemed to recover when that was used but then it crashed again later today and we can't get it to work at all, so its going back to the shop - definately keep your receipt for this , this is why you don't want to buy such things from a mail order company! I would say now that im even more suspicious about the build quality of this, though the brand name is good, my particular unit clearly was never fully 'right', so this is possibly not a good choice, though again spec. wise I do think its very good, just my unit apparently isn't any good much past a month or so really! (I bought it in late September), so im now re-rating this as poor, due to my personal experience, with at least 1 star for the good spec. it had when it was working and 1 star for it being a supposedly good brand.** Original review
I've had this laptop for a few weeks now and have been pretty satisfied with it, so I thought I'd share my thoughts and opinions on it and let people know what they get for their money, from a person who knows a fair bit of IT but is by no means a full expert. Okay so to start with, what made me interested in buying this model in particular and why was it that I even needed to get a laptop/what were my reasons to buy this? well, my old laptop, which I have also done a review on (a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo L series laptop which I got as a present in 2004), was becoming noticeably more slow when starting up and shutting down and it lacked a couple of things that I was keen on getting, such as a DVD writer drive. Also there were a couple of glitches on it which I was keen to get rid of, put it that way, like a glitch where the monitor would sometimes not light up if the lid was moved much, anyway you can read about all of that on my old review on that laptop.
Now I decided that this laptop seemed to be a good replacement from what I read about it on Currys website. There it is or was advertised, this is in late September
(not long ago but I have had it for a few weeks to know roughly what I think of it and I'll edit this later if anything else happens), for a very reasonable price of £499.99. Now you've probably seen ads on the TV for other stores selling budget laptops for less than this but what made me feel that this provided real value for money was the spec (specification) that you get for the price. There are a number of things going for this model, from the 2GB RAM, which means that video editing and playback among other things can be done quicker and easier and 2GB is about the most you get in any laptop thats anywhere near a reasonable price, for a home computer anyway, to the processor, an Intel Pentium 'Dual Core' processor, the 'Dual Core' type or name being the current sort of term that most people look for, the two most well known types of processors that are on the market and this is from someone who only lightly researches this stuff but as far as I can see the two processors to look for, for a good quality one, by a big name like Intel, would be Dual Core or Core 2 Duo. A Dual Core processor, in fairly simple terms, is like two small processors put together, so the bottom line is that the more powerful a Dual Core processor you have, the easier and the more programs you can have running and using at the same time, of course us women are well known for being good multitaskers, so its good to have the computer following suit - we can use that to our advantage, right? ;-) lol! (another note for those that are interested, yes this has a Dual Core processor but yes it isn't one of the best, as you may expect for the price this sells at (c. £500-£550 as of October 2007), its actually a T2080 genuine Intel dual core processor with each of the two mini-processors offering 1.73Ghz, if that helps, but either way its still genuine Intel Dual Core for £500, before I hadn't seen any Dual Core laptops with decent RAM and a good size hard drive for under £600, so its still a good deal in my eyes, even though this is the most budget Dual Core processor Intel provide, or so I believe(?)). Other things I read on the webpage that it comes with, that also made me feel that this would be particularly good, especially for the price, were a 160GB hard drive (where most around that price only offer 80 or 120GB) (its also worth noting that I found after getting it up and running, that this is split into 2 hard drives, c: containing 74.5GB and e: containing 73GB, according to what it says on Vista) and a DVD rewriter drive, so you can burn over 4GB of data onto the one disk and using the pre-installed OS (operating system), you can even burn DVD movies out of video files you have, so that you can watch these on your own home DVD player and so on (also its worth noting that I have used the DVD rewriter drive to write to DVD-R disks and that worked fine, also its easy to drag and drop files to be burnt, Vista makes it pretty easy to burn to DVD, so thats easy enough to figure out I thought. Also its a double layer rewriter so it can write to double layered DVD disks that offer more space per disc than single layered ones), as well as this it comes wireless ready, so you don't have to plug in and use up an extra USB port with a network card, it also has a decent size screen and apart from what it said on the shops website, my dad had recommended buying specifically a Toshiba, as he thought that they were very light and portable laptops and had always thought of them as being a good name for reliable electronics, so that also went in its favour. There are other good things about this model but I'll go into those later. One other thing to mention is that it has an Intel GMA graphics/video card which has a maximum of 256mb dedicated memory, this is what Vista uses to show all the snazzy 3D tiling and other stuff like that, as I mention further on. This is a good feature too, as other laptops I'd noticed only offer around 128mb dedicated graphics/video memory, so again I felt like this was a good deal and its another Intel product, so its not a card by a 'cheaper' or lesser well know manufacturer, so again I felt that this was good.
Anyway it was the good spec of this model and the fact that it was offered at what, to me, was a very reasonable price and that it was available at a high street store (always preferable, incase it breaks down within the basic one year warranty so you can drive back to the shop rather than take ages to package it up and pay to mail it back anywhere!), really made it decide that this was what I wanted. When I asked about it in store, I was shown the display model and the guy working at the store also commented that he agreed that its good value for money, though whether he's paid to say that I don't know! I had a good look at the display model and was still quite impressed, it has a nice silver finish around the keyboad and touch pad area, with a shiny black finish at the top past the keyboard with the two small speakers and the miscellaneous function keys (power on, media center, play/pause and other DVD player buttons) and around the screen/monitor. It didn't look massive but it didn't look like it was too small either, so I was happy with it. Though I did notice something which I was a little suspicious about (and my suspicions have been rightly justified), thats the fact that the monitor is very glossy/shiny and would attract alot of dust, which is a bit awkward to clean off it. I have to admit, since purchasing it, well ive only had it for a few weeks but when I switch it off or before I turn it on, if you look at the screen oh the number of visible finger marks and traces of dust you see *eek* quick, get picture on the screen so its at least partially disguised! I think a definate recommendation, if you decide to go for this laptop, would be to buy some good anti-static screen wipes.
Also its worth knowing that when the lid is put down on it, you get the same sort of glossy/shiny texture on the top with the brand name 'Toshiba' very proudly looking splattered along the middle of it. This also shows up alot of fingerprints I must say! a big no no I did only a day or so after getting it, which I realised soon was a bad idea, was to get a general duster (a new one at that with no dust really on it) and try and clean the worst off the screen/monitor with it but I soon noticed it was leaving behind more yellow marks (from the duster) than it was picking up grey dust or clearing fingerprints! so there's a basic tip I suppose... Anyway so I was lucky and when I agreed that I wanted to purchase it, the guy in the store checked stock and confirmed that there was one in stock, so I was able to purchase it there and then. I was lucky I was with my parents, my dad was able to carry the box out to the car, I might have struggled, unfortunately it doesn't have one of those plastic handles that some boxes have. Still, I got it back to the house in one piece and it was fairly simple to get up and running. It comes pre installed with the near brand new Windows OS Vista Home Premium, which is something I could probably do a whole other review on (and perhaps I will) but to be honest I don't think I've discovered all of it yet, so I'll just cover the main basics here. It makes the most of a decently powered machine, this is why you need the 2GB RAM really! I'd heard from my boss at work that really you need 2GB of RAM for Vista to run very smoothly and it requires a minimum of 1GB, so I can imagine it would run a bit slow without the 2GB. Also you need to have some dedicated graphics memory through a graphics or video card, for Vista to work, which is because Vista utilises alot of video capabilities, with snazzy 3D tiling and stuff... it might be snazzy and look good but im not entirely impressed with it, in terms of it having quite alot of compatability programs and older, previous programs or files that I'd used for ages and liked with no problems before, now don't work with Vista - cheers Microsoft(!).
- Vista - With Vista, as I mentioned before you get alot more in the way of graphics and video stuff, one of the main things that people will show off when going on about Vista is what I believe is called 3D tiling, this works by pressing the wndows button (usually between the 'FN' button on a laptop and the 'alt' key near the spacebar) and pressing the tab key (above 'caps lock') at the same time. When you do this, you'll see all the programs you have running displayed like, well, 3D tiles basically! or thin squares, which can be navigated around by pressing and unpressing the tab key.
Another main difference with Vista is the start bar, so beware that it doesn't say 'start' anymore and instead you have a blue circle with the Windows sort of four colour flag logo, thats the Vista start bar, click on that and you'll see that its quite different than it looked on Windows XP or 98 and 95.... however, im pleasantly surprised, having learnt the basics of how to operate this. The main thing to mention is that although you can't find the old categories such as 'Accessories' and 'Communication' or what-not, finding programs and files is alot simpler and quicker I feel (though I know my hard drive isn't near full yet but it works fine from the experience I have of it so far), all you have to do is to instead of search through all the categories, just type in. where it says 'start search', under the 'all programs' option, the name of the file or program that you want... so you could search for 'DVD' where it says 'start search' and it will search through your entire hard drive(s) for any file, favourites/history (from IE Internet Explorer)or program that matches your search through its name. If you want something basic like notepad or wordpad, simply type 'wordpad' or 'notepad' into there and it'll show up and you just click on where it says that under programs and it'll load on screen, its as simple as that! The sidebar and the gadgets it offers you can/may also be of some use. I like that you can add one notes gadget which appears like a post it note on your desktop and you can type notes to yourself which will show up if you shut the system down and restart it... I don't know if I'll get used to using that though, I tend to stick to read post it notes in real life that I can see when my laptop isn't switched on! other gadgets on the sidebar include an analogue clock and a mini slideshow box/gadget... im sure there's lots of info. about the Vista sidebar and gadgets on the internet if you want to know more, try looking it up on Google.
Vista Home Premium is a good version as it has some nice extras thrown in that the home basic version doesn't have. The main one that im aware of is the inclusion of whats called Windows Media Center, something im not entirely clued up in and haven't spent much time with I must admit but I know that it does have it and it basically lets you organise and play TV, movies, music and pictures. Don't ask me the ins and outs of this, im sure there's plenty of information you could find on the internet if your specifically interested in this and this review is more about the laptop in general but to me, it looks like something thats a good thing to have and could come in handy, in time, so its a plus point. Vista certainly seems to have many different options in terms of using your digital media files (ie vid files, audio files, graphics and so on) in a way that incorporates it with other digital entertainment equipment, like I say you can use a program that comes with this version of Vista, called Windows DVD Maker, that allows you to select general video files and create DVD menus and then burn it onto a DVD disk using the built in DVD rewriter, so you can then play that DVD onto a general DVD player (it should work on most modern players though some DVD players can be fussy about playing recorded DVD disks in general, check your players manual first maybe). - Other Programs -
As well as this, you also get other programs that are pre-installed onto this laptop, non Vista programs such as ULead MovieFactory for Toshiba, which seems to me, having had a quick look at it, that it does basically the same as Windows DVD Maker, though it seems to have editing options which may vary from that provided on the Windows equivalent program. Of course you also get Windows Movie Maker, which also came with Windows 2000 and Windows XP, Vista provides a more updated version which is very similar to previous versions, you can import media files and edit and split clips and save it as another video file etc. There's another program called Desktop SMS which comes with the latop, which, yup lets you send text messages to mobiles from your laptop. I believe it works through Outlook or whichever email system you use, its not something I think I'd use alot though... you also get InterVideo WinDVD for Toshiba, which I looked forward to having already had a previous version of WinDVD on my old laptop. However I was a little disappointed with this version of WinDVD, it feels alot more like a 'bare bones' version and disappointingly for me, it features no screen cap option, which I used to use before. However, if you do want that, you can download the VLC Media Player as freeware online and that does let you play DVDs and other video files and capture screen caps from them, so you can get around that problem that way. You also get a few other miscellaneous Toshiba uilities, none of which I'd say are particularly worth mentioning, the products and services one is just trying to flog extra accessories and warranties etc. and I haven't much looked at the others, they don't really interest me to be totally honest! you also get the chance to take up a 90 day/3 months free trial of Norton Internet Security 2007, though I decided to uninstall it as I don't want to get nagging messages pushing me to fully purchase it and I use my own security programs (like spybot search and destroy and AVG Free Edition which is a totally free virus scanner, save yourself some money and get those kind of freeware programs instead - just check for reviews first to be sure its not too dodgy but those programs should be fine and are well known).
Also you get the users manual for the laptop and for setting up wireless etc. provided on the laptop as .pdf (Adobe Acrobat reader) files. I got my dad to set up the wireless aspect of it and it didn't take long for it to search and pick up the signal and connect to our home network, its pretty easy to do and caused no real problems for me/us, so I was happy with that.
- Built in Card Reader/Ports etc - Another handy aspect of this machine is that it features a small but very useful card reader, which can be found at the front of the device, almost hiding away next to the microphone and headphone sockets (under the main lights that tell you how its plugged in or if its charging or if the processor is in use etc.). It can read the following formats - SD, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, MultiMediaCard, xD-Picture Card, so its handy as it means that I don't have to install all my digital cameras or other equipment, if I just want to get some photos or other files that are stored on these devices through one of those kind of memory cards, I can simply insert the memory card into the card reader and it quickly loads on Vista and will let me view and copy files from the card onto the laptop that way, I've tried it with a couple of different capacity SD cards that I used with a digital camera and it worked fine, this is a useful and handy feature! as well as the 4 USB 2.0 ports, as I've noticed that alot of newer laptops seem to come with fewer USB ports than they used to, heck knows why considering how popular and how many USB devices there are on the market but before hand I'd only seen other laptops advertised as having 3 USB ports and this one has 4, so thats also handy, plus I don't need my wireless network card anymore since its wirless ready so that frees up an extra USB port too!
- Other ports etc - Other ports you get include one firewire one I believe , also TV out for showing your vid files etc. on your TV, one for connecting a mouse to it and one for a network card. See the specification info. Ciao lists for more detailed information on this, I'm not totally aware of anything other than what I've listed, as I said im afraid im no real professional on all this stuff!
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Pictures of Toshiba Equium A200-15I
Look & Feel/Design -The design is quite cool, it looks pretty sleek and modern. I like the blue 'Equium' sort of name or logo on the bottom left of the laptop that lights up in blue whenever the laptop is on. The top of the lid with 'Toshiba' written over it is quite cool but it does tend to pick up alot of fingerprint marks, see the photos below this review to see what I mean (and rememebr ive only had this laptop for a few weeks).
- Portability - I have noticed that it is fairly light and easy to carry around, it isn't too heavy though as always be careful with this sort of item, you don't want to drop it! also be aware of the potential battery problem if you plan to move this about too much, see below for info. on that
- Anything else, spec. wise, to note? - This model doesn't come with a built in webcam, unlike some of the other Toshiba laptops, even though I notice its mentioned on the Ciao webpage about this model, it isn't included im afraid, so that isn't relevant.
- Documentation/Extras that come in the box with the laptop -
When the box containing the laptop was opened, I found I got the following -
1 x Universal mains adapter and power cord (to attach to the mains adapter) 1 x Cable for modem & whats labelled as 'tele-adapter'
1 x Product recover DVD 1 x Users manual - Its about 60 pages long and covers mainly just the basics. Its not a particularly in depth manual I'd say but you can find out extra info. or ask for it online anyway. The user manual explains what all the features are on all sides/angels of it, it explains how to get it set up for the first time, covering the basics of connecting it to the mains, opening it up and turning it on and so on, with some figures to help illustrate things. It also explains the benefits of each of Vistas different modes for shutting down or partial shut downs, ie sleep mode, hibernation mode, automatic hibernation mode and so on. It also explains what the system recovery options are, as well as providing some operating basics and some troubleshooting information. The last part covers what to do if your computer is stolen. The manual is a bit bland looking, on white with no flashy cover and could be accidentally thrown out but thats probably why its also pre-installed on the laptop as a .pdf file, so if you do throw it out don't worry, you can get it back and print it off from your computer (under program files -> TOSHIBA -> Manuals)
1 x Quick start pull out brochure - this shows you the laptop and explains what each feature is and what the icons represent, it shows what components you should have that come with the laptop (listed here) and it gives tips on what to do before moving the laptop, as well as listing the 'HotKeys' (which use the 'FN' key as I mention below) 1 x Instruction Manual for Safety and Comfort - This is a thinner, about 20 page booklet that covers the safe use of the laptop, components and accessories and it covers the basics in terms of using a good working posture and typing style, as well as giving additional tips (such as to take regular breaks when using the laptop alot so your eyes can readjust and so on). It includes a safety checklist to make you check if your using your laptop properly.
1 x Toshiba International Limited Warranty for Notebooks - Pretty basic limited warranty information booklet, in alot of languages, the English part is just 2 pages (out of about 23). There's also 3 blank pages labelled 'notes' though quite what you'd need to note there regarding the warranty I don't know... 1 x Norton Internet Security 2007 promotional flyer - To encourage you to use the 90 day trial and subsequently pay for the use of the package afterwards, of course (though its up to you if you do or not, you don't have to!)
1 x Toshiba & the 'Tech Guys' Provision of Hardware and Software Support information sheet - Mentioned in more detail below under 'What help or support is there?', this details how to get in touch with the 'Tech Guys' if you need help with hardware or software issues 1 x Windows Vista Home Premium Quick Start Guide - This explains some of the basic differences that you'll find on Vista Home Premium compared to earlier versions of Windows, it explains how to set it up incase your upgrading from an older version of Windows and it covers the main features within Vista Home Premium
1 x Windows Anytime Upgrade DVD - This allows you to upgrade your version of Windows Vista from Home Premium to Ultimate, if you really want to get the extra features then perhaps this may interest you, though it would probably take up extra hard disk space and its not free, you'd have to pay for the upgrade. Some of the things you get with Vista Ultimate include a remote desktop, shadow copy backup, and Windows complete PC backup and restore. Now onto mention of the not so good stuff....
-This sounds too good to be true, is it? what are the problems/faults this comes with? - Well, to be totally honest, I haven't had a completely uneventful first few weeks, I must say! so be aware, this I don't think is the perfect laptop by any means. I know I did think that perhaps its best to wait until I've had this for a good few months or even years before properly reviewing it but then I noticed nobody had done a review on it and to be totally honest again, with the amount of electricals I have that have decided to stop working (a portable DVD player and MP3 player to name a couple), I could do with the extra money to be entirely frank! also for those seeing this machine being advertised and wanting to know without being scared of being tol too much 'techy talk' in the shops, I thought it would help to do this review and point out where I feel some problems may come from.
Now having done a bit of research on my old laptop the night before I purchased this, I found mention of a potential problem with a graphics card which is used on one of Toshibas other range of laptop's, not the Equium range but the Satellite Pro range I believe, if you have one of the dodgy cards then your lucky if it works after the one year warranty is up and can render the whole machine useless, so that was a little off putting... however I did check what this model comes with and its a generic Intel card, which im sure is in alot of other laptops as well, my dad reckoned if its a general Intel one it should be fine, so it SHOULD be, though I'd feel like I wasn't being honest if I didn't admit that I have encountered a video hardware fault error that Windows has reported. This quite worried me but I have been assured that by updating the graphics/video card driver, it should fix the problem and I did that by checking windows update, where I found the update for the driver and it installed and did it all for me through the Windows Update really, without me even having to extract the file to any folder, so that qas quick and easy. Since then, luckily *fingers crossed* I haven't had any such faults reported and it seems to run fine, so im hopeful that was just a slight glitch. Also be aware that Vista is a new operating system and may cause problems like this on any machine really, I can't be 100% sure that its a problem specifically with the card or that its a Toshiba specific fault, I don't know enough tecnically really but if anything does happen, I can, luckily, contact the 'Tech Guys' as I got a sheet all about that with the laptop, they can be contacted if you have technical problems and I live close enough to the shop I got it, to be able to take it back if necessary. The other sort of main problem or thing that it does that I've noticed is with the battery. I was not best pleased, put it that way, when, a week and a half ago, on Friday evening I lifted the lid up and pressed the power button and uh-oh! nothing happened. No lights showed up (which is the clue really to fix this), no whirring in the background - nothing. Which was great considering I was trying to figure out what to do considering my MP3 Player had also recently broken down... I'd only had it for 6 days when this happened but I wasn't best happy! luckilky I used my old laptop to ask online about this and some nice guy was good enough to suggest something which miraculously fixed the problem! thank heck for people like them lol basically what happened was that the battery somehow got slightly loose and to fix it, I had to open the battery compartment underneath the laptop, take it out and put it back in, then press the 'power' button and ta-da! the lights came on, it was home again... this then happened again the following day but having dne the same thing, it fixed it again. Somewhat strangely, in over a week, its never done it again. I don't move it too much so it shouldn't get too loose but its an easy enough fix anyway, so im not too bothered. Be aware that if this happens, you do have to take the battery out and in even if your running it off mains, I did that and it still wouldn't start up and why it relies on the battery working properly to run it even if its clearly being powered through mains, I have no idea. My dad suggested that maybe its a slightly cheap battery or slightly glitchy battery, rather than the laptop itself, which, if so, isn't so bad as you can buy replacement batteries... as long as that fix/solution works, im really not worried about it but obviously I'd rather it doesn't do that and it is something I feel is worth mentioning. Also I realised how to tell before trying to switch it on, that its this problem, is if you check that the plug light is showing, as that tells you that it knows its connected by mains and should be able to power up alright, whereas when the battery is loose then that light doesn't show up, so you know to turn it over and take the battery out and put it back in, so watch out for that.
If it happens again and the battery is taken out and in again and that doesn't work then obviously I think it'll be back to the shop with receipt in hand I go! im also wary that I had that video hardware error, if anything similar happens I'll be sure to report it to the guys at Toshiba and check online for any fixes and for advice etc., though I do think that this sort of thing may be a Vista problem and I don't feel like I can really say that its the graphics card thats entirely faulty or to blame, either way the error message was all I got and it didn't stop me using the laptop actually... On occasion some programs cause it to do some volatile things but again I'm fairly sure this is a Vista problem, where older programs can run with alot of difficulties in Vista no matter what desktop or laptop model you have. I have decided to uninstall the programs that were oldest and ive re-installed newer ones that do seem to work better, the worst thats happened with this sort of thing so far was once the screen went funny and it loaded a blue screen saying it had to shut down and restart to recover from an error and then when Vista reloads it says it recovered from an unexpected error, I am trying to be careful to only really run Vista compliant or compatible programs or at the minimum programs that were made for XP as their fairly new and are slightly more likely to work than older ones made for Windows 95 or 98 and so on...
The other thing I've noticed is a fairly minor glitch, when trying to adjust the brightness setting by pressing the 'FN' button, sometimes it shows the toolbar or row of icons that show the different settings you can adjust by using the button with the F keys but other times it doesn't show you the row of icons and you have to *shock horro* look at the keys yourself to see which button to press. It can be a little slow to react as well, I'd also bare in mind that it is advertised as having 'TruBrite' screen/monitor and that I agree with, when its at its brightest, it could make your eyes water put it that way, so you want to be able to adjust the brightness! I have queried this on the manufacturers community support forums online (where other users of Toshiba laptops/computers can post and share info. and help others with problems with theirs) and I've been told what it is that controls this and I know where to look for updates if it does cause problems, so it sounds like it might be fixable but its really not that big a worry or a problem for me really... ok so the row of icons ocassionally don't show up when I press and hold the 'FN' button and also sometimes it takes a few presses of the less brightness button and 'FN' button before it dims but it always gets there in the end, so im not too worried. I'm just glad the monitor doesn't appear to have the glitch my old laptop has/had, the screen works no matter what angle its at pretty much, which is a definate good thing!
The keys on the keyboard were quite clunky and took a while to get used to but I think it was because it was new, now I don't have to press quite as hard for the letters to show up on screen and I (at least hope!) my posts on message boards etc. have fewer spelling mistakes than they used to which I noticed when I first started using this lol I think their just a bit stiff to start with, they all work I just tend to press them lightly but they are a bit mores responsive now. I don't think there's anything else worth mentioning, in general I'd say that the positives outweigh the negatives, you can solve or at least temporarily, the glitches it has if you ask for help online or can search online, so its not too bad. I think most laptops aren't perfect and all probably have some faults of some kind, maybe im being a bit kind to it in that respect but I've used it quite alot already and alot of the time its booted up and loaded quickly (within 1 minute max.) and done what I've needed it to do and shut down quickly too, which is fine.
If anything else happens, I'll be sure to edit the review and alert you about these - its up to you to decide if its worth purchasing any extra warranties that shops like Currys tend to try and push, though I believe they quoted me £70-£80 for this and I just thought no, I always take good care of my items and items like these always have a basic 1 year warranty anyway, so I decided against that... im always suspicious about the terms and conditions of such extended warranties anyway. - What help or support is there? -
Well, if you purchase this laptop from one of the DSGi plc group of companies (this includes Dixons, Currys and PC World), then you get the option of getting help with hardware and software issues from 'The Tech Guys'. Woo exciting stuff eh? lol they provide help with hardware and software support for the computer itself and also with Windows (ie the Vista Home Premium operating system you get with it). You can use this help by accessing their website at http://support.thetechguys.com/, where you'll find help on basic stuff like looking after your laptop and protecting it against viruses and it gives basic examples of ways you can get the most out of the system in general, you can also use the email service to raise a query with one of the trained technicians, or you can contact them through telephone, there's a PC repair line and PC Software phone line. These aren't free numbers but their not premium either. You get a piece of paper that details all this information when you buy the laptop from the stores mentioned above. As well as this, you can also access the Toshiba website for information on their range of notebooks, options and services, and you can also find the support forums there, where you can ask for help if you have problems with the laptop, this can be found by clicking on the 'Support & Downloads' tab then clicking on 'Toshiba Support Forum' under the 'troubleshooting' section of links. There are quite a few other links under 'troubleshooting', so there's a fair amount of useful stuff there... oh and you can find all this at their website which is here:- http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/
Apart from that, of course you have your one year warranty and so if it becomes unuseable or develops a major fault withon one year of having legally purchased it from a store, you can give it back to the store and ask for a refund or replacement. For smaller faults, I find that if the manufacturers site doesn't have any helpful info., doing a search on Google can cme up with some interesting stuff... some Windows errors, for instance, are much more well known and common than you might think and fixes can be found fairly quickly, so its always worth checking there. Thats all I'm aware of though and I would also say its worth mentioning that if your looking for info. specifically about a Toshiba related problem or otherwise post on the Toshiba Europe support forum (and there are forums specifically for this range of laptops, ie the Equium series), don't expect a very quick reply. I've noticed that it can take a few days to get replies there, so if its an urgent problem, try the Tech Guys phone line, that may be quicker...
- Conclusions - To conclude, as far as the spec. is concerned, this is a very good laptop, expecially for the laptop. It provides plenty of memory and has many handy features such as 4 USB ports, a card reader, wireless built-in, a DVD rewriter and so on. Vista does take some getting used to and I can't say that I particularly love it, especially when it won't let me use my old programs that worked fine on XP but thats hardly a fault of this particular model or Toshiba in general.
There are some glitches with this model, heck I've had my laptop for just under 3 weeks and yet just see how much I typed about negatives so no I wouldn't call it a complete wonder machine or anything like that, in fact I'd recommend that anyone who purchases on keeps an eye on it and definately keeps the receipt just incase! I do believe that problems and glitches occur on practically all lpatops and so far there have been solutions for all problems so far, I try and be careful with it and keep an eye out for any other things that may develop into problems but in general, its not too bad. Not perfect but not awful either.... I can't comment on how well it'll last long term but it hasn't had any errors or problems in a week or so and I guess I can't get past the fact that I seem to get so much and made from decent manufacturers (Intel, Microsoft etc.) for my money, so I feel that it still should be seen as a decent purchase, just keep the receipt and keep an eye out for any problems and with the support mentioned above, you should be able to fix any problems and if not, you always have your one year warranty to use. Obviously if it goes kerput after this, then I guess its just bad luck... but thats the risk you potentially take with anything electrical that you don't want to feel ripped off with by buying an extended warranty. What I've detailed here are all my experiences and knowledge of this particular laptop model covering the first few weeks of ownership, if anything major happens (it totally breaks down or another big glitch happens) then ill be sure to edit the review and add this to warn others but otherwise, I still see it as being a pretty good deal, worth bearing in mind for anyone with a budget of around £500-£550 wanting a decent powerful laptop with good memory and media capabilities.
I think the value for money is excellent but thats depending on whether the reliability and durability lasts, if it suddenly breaks down then obviously I will change my opinion but I don't really see that as happening (I hope). Finally, check out my photos of the laptop below, I tried to take photos to show what it looks like (obviously) and to illustrate the fingerprint marks and so on, remember its still pretty new but basically this is what its like.
I hope this review and the photos (I know some are fuzzy but its the best I could do) help you make your mind up as to whether this would be a good computing/laptop solution for you and any and all ratings and comments are gratefully received, thank you for reading.
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by (30%):
15.03.2008 21:53
Great review, congrats on your well deserved diamond
22.02.2008 21:56
wow...totally exhaustive review!
11.01.2008 21:17
Excellent great Brilliant