MY VIEWS I have been using Laptops for 6 years now and have greatly appreciated the ever expanding evolution of these machines.
My experiences began with Dell Laptops which were well made,robust and lasted well in a bustling household (dropped on floors,thrown round like frisbees) but it wasn't tell my brother-in-law brought around a spare Toshiba Portege 4000 that I discovered how quickly Laptops have progressed with technology. The machine is totally jam packed with features which include a built-in Modem,DVD Player rom,Wireless LAN card,Bluetooth,Pentium lll,latest Microsoft XP,etc..
The Toshiba Portege 4000 is half the size and weight of my trusty Dells which is definitely a strong point as it makes it so much easier carrying it around, whether it be in the house or on your travels also having a built in wireless card (no phone line cable connected to laptop) is a great asset to have, I can now stroll around with my nice shiny silver Toshiba Laptop with no nasty phone cables to trip me up (totally excellent). The general function's of this machine are very user friendly such as playing back DVD's, running and saving programs etc. Another great feature is the 12.5in LCD screen which is superb (fantastic resolution, razor sharp).
On the downside the Toshiba 4000 has a tricky mouse key that you use instead of the conventional pad or roller ball (to move the cursor) which takes sometime to adjust to. Being 3 years old now is some what old fashioned in this arena of rapid hi-tec development.
TOSHIBA UK Last week I recieved a router from my network provider, which was not helpful at all in providing installation and technical support. So I phoned up Toshiba UK who were absolutely brilliant,extremely helpful and with a little time got me wireless free.
TOSHIBA PORTEGE 4000 ( INFO ) Pentium plll 933Ghz CPU 256 Ram 30 GB Hard Disk Drive Internal DVD Drive 12.1"TFT (XGA) Display 16MB VRam (video memory) Internal 56k6 Modem 10-100 RJ45 Ethernet F-Wire Win XP Pro
SUMMARY The Toshiba Portege 4000 has probably been updated several times in the past 3 years but from the early Dell Laptops there is no match. I would recommend this Laptop if you come across one either by chance or on ebay. Toshiba as a manufacturer is now on my list of possible makes that I might purchase in the near future (tv, dvd, laptop,hi-fi) although I'm really very much a Sony fan. I'm not to sure on the price side of things as this was a gift, but always be careful if you do buy secondhand (as laptops are very tricky). 8/10 .
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
(+) cool and quite robust trackpad, good display,64-bit windows 7 (-) few connectors,dell drivers only, not realy for gameing (most models), finger print prone!