universiy physics student... not doing reviews (or rating) for a while, I actually do work here at b...
universiy physics student... not doing reviews (or rating) for a while, I actually do work here at bath uni!!
Member since:19.01.2004
Reviews:140
Members who trust:38
This laptop does not offer much in performance for games. However it is a very fast machine when it comes to everything else.
-------------------------- Size and Style --------------------------
This is not the smallest notebook there is. However it is still quite light. it weighs around 3.5KG. That's 3 and a half bags of sugar. But it's not designed to be carried around with you everywhere.
The main use of this laptop is as a desktop replacement model. It will do everything your desktop does, but you can move it around to anywhere in the house, or pack it away. You can take it with you when you need to do things. But it's not designed to be carried around EVERYWHERE with you.
Toshiba offer other ranges for this purpose. See their slimline notebook range.
The style of this laptop is a sleek blue one. Personally I don't care much for how my laptop looks, but this looks quite nice. It's not going to win any awards for the way it looks, but it's not horribly looking.
There is a huge advert style sticker on the wrist rest when you get it. I tried taking this off, quite a challenge to get all the sticky stuff off. But it is an annoying addition.
----------------------------------------------- Processing Power and Hardware -----------------------------------------------
This is where the strength of the A30 714 lies. It has an Intel Mobile P4 processor running at 3Ghz. The mobile chip means it's designed to be used from a battery and in a laptop. You wont get the over heating problems that you might with a standard processor which some laptops have in them.
Using Intel instead of AMD means that the machine will be faster and more reliable. However, it wont be able to handle games quite as well as it's AMD counterpart.
It also contains 512MB of DDR memory. Although right now 256MB just about does, 512 means this laptop will withstand the test of time.
DDR means double data rate. The memory is twice as fast as usual. This boosts the overall speed of the machine considerably.
The laptop also contains an on board graphics and sound chip. They share the RAM memory with the main machine. This is fine because you have 512MB to play with anyway.
The chip is not the best in the world. Another reason games are not as good on this machine. However, I've run the Sims and Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 without problems. They run the same as they do on my desktop.
---------------------------- Looks and Sound ----------------------------
This laptop uses TFT active matrix screen technology. Mine seems to run fine at a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. This is big enough for anyone's tastes.
It's a 15" screen which is slightly bigger than some other laptops. The picture quality is brilliant. There's no ghosting,
no loss of brightness or things like that. It looks pretty much the same as my CRT monitor attached to my desktop.
The sound quality is ok. There are two tiny speakers it comes out of. But I don't really play many sounds on it, it's for work purposes really. It's good enough for me, but not exactly Dolby surround sound quality.
There is the essential headphone jack and speaker jacks which will provide you with better quality. But again, the sound processor isn't the best.
----------------------------------------- Connections and Networking -----------------------------------------
I only use the USB ports for my mouse and the PCMCIA card slot for my network card. This then connects me to the printer, the scanner, the internet and everything through my desktop.
However, for those who need them, there are two USB 2.0 ports. Many people will need more, but adaptors are available. There is one PCMCIA card slot. Again, some people may require two. This is for cards which slot in to laptops. These can exchange information, or be little additional bits of hardware. Mine is a wireless network adaptor.
There's also a built in infrared port. This allows with communication between, say, the laptop and a mobile phone. After having a quick look at the back I can also see:
An Ethernet Port - To connect to broadband internet or a cabled network. A modem line port (the cable is included) An old style printer port (always useful) A Monitor Port - to connect it to your own monitor An S-Video port - to connect it to a TV
On the side there are:
Headphone Jack - to connect headphones or speakers Line In Jack - For audio equipment Microphone Jack A firewire port - in case it ever takes off A switch for the IR port (on and off)
Strangely there is a marked space for a third USB port but there is no port in there on the side!
I think these are all the ports anyone could need. However, some may disagree.
Toshiba have provided a range of their own buttons on the laptop. The keyboard is a standard layout with a very easy to use touch pad, which doesn't fail like some do if you have sweaty hands etc.
But there's also a button to start your web browser, one to start the Toshiba console (which is useless) and one for help at the top of the keyboard.
There are also play, pause, fast forward, rewind, stop and menu buttons on the bottom of the keyboard which are still able to be pressed when the lid is closed. These are, again, pretty useless. Well, I've never used them anyway.
Why can't people just leave the standard keyboard as it is? It's perfect and everything I need!
Naturally, being a laptop, there is no keypad. But you can buy them separately if you do a lot of number work.
This only has one drive at the front. This is for reading DVD's and CD's. It will also read and write to CDR's, CDRW's.
This drive is pretty fast at doing all it's jobs. It's 24 speed at reading and 10 speed at re-writing. Which is very fast indeed!
It also seems to be more reliable - read CD's more easily, than other CD drives I've used.
There's a 40GB hard drive. This should be enough for most people. Again, if you're a graphics designer you probably need more. If you have tonnes of games you will also need more. But 40GB does me fine, especially because I've got my desktop with 80GB as well!
It does NOT have a floppy drive. This is very annoying given that my school doesn't have CD drives in all their computers. However, this is pretty standard among laptops these days. So it can be forgiven.
The machine is provided with MS works 2004. Which is a collection of standard programs which any home user will need.
This includes Microsoft Word 2003. Which is the staple for any computer, ever. It also has a spreadsheet and a database component. However these are extremely limited and cut down. They are not anything like Excel or Access.
There's also a quite useful project management tool on there. Where it will manage school projects etc. for you and give you alerts when your deadlines are. Quite a nice touch.
Windows XP Service Pack 1 is provided of course. This is the best operating system I've ever come across. I've never had any problems with it at all.
You switch on, click next a few times and everything is pre-installed and up and running.
The laptop also comes with AutoRoute. This is an amazing piece of software which I've already used to plan 2 journeys. It knows every street in Europe as far as I can tell. You type a postcode and it'll find the house for you. Brilliant!
It will also plan the quickest, shortest or preferable route for you. Avoiding motorways if you so wish. It is rather surprising, I expected a cut down copy or something, but it's full on, excellent software. You can print maps which show you, turn by turn, what the roads look like. This is overkill for most journeys but a fantastic idea!
Also included is Microsoft Money 2004. This is great at keeping track of your finances if you take a bit of time to set it up. It can use the internet, with your bank, to give you accurate cash flow forecasts and tell you how your money is doing.
If you invest, it will track those too. It's a God send, and I'm only a student who isn't paying many bills at all! But it's good to manage my accounts and see where my money is going. It will also draw up budgets for you.
Also included are some of Toshiba's own little bits and pieces and other standard programs. These are not needed, they are simply rubbish.
However the power management is a great thing from Toshiba. You have 3 settings for when it's run on battery "power", "Normal", "Power save". But you can alter every little bit of them.
You can change how much power is allocated to the processor, the brightness of the screen. But you can change these attributes depending on how much power is left in the battery. So you can set power save to use more power when the battery is full than when it is half full.
This is really easy to do and a great little program on the laptop.
You can also change how it reacts when you close the lid. It can go to standby, hibernate or just stay on. I use hibernate, because by the time you've lifted the lid fully up, the computer is back up and running, it's THAT fast!
There's also the drag and drop CD Burner software. It sits on your desktop and isn't intrusive, there's 3 little boxes on the right hand side. If you find a file, or files, you want to burn to a CD, just drag them into the boxes. Then when you're finished press burn and it will burn everything you dragged. Great idea!
However, it's not the best burning software around, it doesn't support all the formats for converting music files to CD. Luckily though, Windows media player does, and will burn them for you.
This is the first time I've every been happy with the software supplied with my laptop. Of course, MS Works was quickly replaced with MS Office 2003 Professional. But MS works is actually a brilliant program, we just happened to have a slightly better one.
This has never been the strong point of any laptop. When using battery the screen goes dimmer (which you can control) and the machine starts to slow down (which you control) to try and conserve power. I've written about all this above.
However, you will get about 2 hours of battery time out of this machine. It shuts itself down and saves all the information in the RAM as soon as it gets to 5% power. Next time you start it up, it will be the same as you left it.
2 hours has been enough for me and it isn’t the usual exaggeration you get from manufacturers. It really does last 2 hours, in fact, I think I ran it for 2 and a half once.
When on battery it goes into standby and the screen switches off quicker. This is a good idea and Toshiba have done all they can to preserve battery life. However, battery technology just isn't up to the power needs of a laptop. Though I'm sure you could attach a hydrogen cell if so inclined.
---------------------------------------------------- Using the machine and Conclusion ----------------------------------------------------
I've had this for a few months now. I use it about once a day. It's great being able to do things on the move. I can go into my bedroom, downstairs, in the garden and get on with coursework.
Because I have a wireless network (see my review if you're interested in that as well) I'm also always connected to the internet wherever I am in the house.
The laptop starts up really quickly. Surprisingly quickly. Press the on button and there's no need to wait like there is with my desktop. Then it loads everything.
Opening files is quick, reliable and fantastically easy. There are no complaints with this laptop at all from me! It has increased the speed at which I work, it has increased the number of places I can work.
Installing software is also very very quick. I managed to get MS Office on the machine within 10 minutes. A task which took an hour on my desktop!
It's also an extremely reliable machine, it never crashes, it never has any problems whatsoever. I've installed quite a bit and no errors have come up.
The instruction manual is pretty good. They offer quick start guides with colourful pictures and good descriptions. I think it would be easy for any beginner to use this laptop.
I would recommend this to anyone but the hardened gamer who only wants to play games. Anything graphic intensive takes a little longer to load and apparently isn't the best of quality. Though, not being a purist, I don't notice this at all.
Toshiba also do a range of more budget models, all with the same great software and similar hardware. There is a laptop in their range for everyones needs, the styling will also suit anyone, not too flashy, not too boring.
Processor Type: Pentium 4 M Processor Manufacturer: Intel Processor speed: 3 GHz Memory: 512 MB RAM Technology: DDR RAM Hard Drive Formatted Capacity: 40 GB Optical Storage: CD-RW / DVD-ROM combo CD / DVD Read Speed: 24x CD / DVD Rewrite Speed: 10x Screen Size (inches): 15 Screen Technology: TFT active matrix Modem Type: Fax / modem Networking Data Link Protocol: Ethernet Battery Technology: Lithium Ion Battery Run Time: 2 hour(s) Width: 28 cm Depth: 4.5 cm Height: 33.24 cm Weight: 3.5 kg OS Provided: Microsoft Windows XP
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!
Interesting.... I thougth about one of these when I was looking for a lap top but ended up going for an Evesham Voyager. If it's not rude to ask, how much did it cost you? Cheers Sweary.
hotrodkzn 22.04.2004 00:09
Outstanding review - fabulous laptop and I think you've covered everything.....deserves an "E" rating.
Katieshaz 16.04.2004 22:33
Great. I want a laptop for when/if I'm a commuter. A pink one.
exceptional by (17%):
very helpful by (83%):
