The Toshiba Satellite A200-195. I first saw this product on the comet website, as i was looking for my first laptop to use at home and at school, the price looked good for the specification of the laptop. So what do you get for that price:
A Dual Core Processor that runs at 1.73 GHz (like having a 3.46 GHz pentium 4) A huge 2GB of high performance RAM (667 mhz DDR2) A decent 120GB hard drive An integrated DVD-RW A 15.4" Bright Widescreen Excellent WiFi and wired Internet An amazing up to 4 Hours battery life (I have only got upto 3:45 Hours, if you were to run linux you could get it upto 5 hours) Windows Vista Home Premium A very very good sound system
The main thing i was looking for was a good battery life. I had a choice of this Toshiba (4 Hours) , an Apple Macbook that cost twice as much (6 Hours), a Sony Vaio almost 3 times as much (10 hours).
I would have gone for the Macbook if i had the money, but on a budget this was the best one, it was also one of the best looking one too.
But one thing i don't like about this laptop is the weight. I use this at school (6th Form) and is quite a big lump to carry round. This laptop But for £530 can you complain? There is also the fact of the back cover,despite it looking great, it does get covered in finger marks.
Next, the speed. This won't break the speed record, but is great for doing daily things like surfing the Internet, but with the 2GB of RAM, it makes a big difference in speed. Vista on its own takes up a little bit more than 600MB of RAM, which leaves you with 1.4GB to do anything you want. If your the person who has several memory hungry programs open, this is perfect for you.
The hard drive. I did say that it has a 120GB storage capacity, but Vista on its own takes up almost 10GB, which still leaves you with around 110GB.
The screen is 15.4" with Brightscreen. You could have this running on 0% brightness for most the time, which helps the battery life greatly. You only need the brightness on in a bright room or when watching a movie.
Now, the software included. You do get the usual DVD playing software which i haven't used yet, you also get a couple of programs that are good for adjusting certain settings like Configfree. I gidn't find much use for some of them so i just removed them. It is not packed with software like Dell which comed preloaded with junk software that you never use.
The WiFi, now one of the most important parts of a laptop and i must say is it excellent, it even comes with a small external switch so you can switch it off to save that precious battery life.
Next, the sound. I tried playing a DVD on the laptop, and the sound was very impressive. It has two speakers next to the screen on opposite ends of the laptop to give the best sound. Not like with most laptops, there is only one and that is inside the computer that gives bad sound quality.
Overall the laptop is excellent value for money but is more of a desktop replacement considering the size. Would recommend to anyone with a budget of around £500 looking for a decent laptop
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(+) 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!
Sep 17th, 2007
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