Toshiba Satellite L30-11D

My Toshiba Satellite laptop has some impressive features, and I am quite glad I made the purchase to buy it. Even though it did not burn a massive hole in my pocket,doesn't meet it is rubbish, it's not and I have included below my thoughts and opinions.

IS THIS LAPTOP FOR YOU?

This laptop may be for you if you travel in the car a fair bit as a passenger, or work from home. It may also be useful if you have a family who ...
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The Toshiba Satellite L30-11D has:

INTEL CELERON M PROCESSOR 370:

This processor is designed specifically for laptops, providing a good standard of mobile-optimised processor technology, good performance and good value for money.
Giving 1.5GHz of speed, this is one of the fastest processors for laptops (which is always a good thing!) and it has a 400 MHz FSB. The FSB is short for 'Front ... more

My Toshiba Satellite laptop has some impressive features, and I am quite glad I made the purchase to buy it. Even though it did not burn a massive hole in my pocket,doesn't meet it is rubbish, it's not and I have included below my thoughts and opinions.

IS THIS LAPTOP FOR YOU?

This laptop may be for you if you travel in the car a fair bit as a passenger, or work from home. It may also be useful if you have a family who regurlly use the Internet, or computer. Good for those who work from home, or even at work, with this laptop. Good for saing room around the house without big storage, and bulky cabinets. Also a good idea to get one for kids for homework, quick to use, and reliable.

If yes to any of those then maybe this is the laptop to you, and by reading the review below, you may want one of these laptops.

With a 40GB hard drive this great and does not struggle to hold alot of information, which include music, pictures, videos documents and programs.

SPECIFICATIONS:

I am not the sort of person who is highly interested in numbers, and codes for electronics, but I do try and keep up with the new gear and electronics

The Toshiba Satellite L30-11D has:

INTEL CELERON M PROCESSOR 370:

This processor is designed specifically for laptops, providing a good standard of mobile-optimised processor technology, good performance and good value for money.
Giving 1.5GHz of speed, this is one of the fastest processors for laptops (which is always a good thing!) and it has a 400 MHz FSB. The FSB is short for 'Front Side Bus' and basically it links all the components together on the motherboard of a computer (you learn something new everyday!). The 400 part before the FSB is the speed of it.

The final thing the processor provides is a 1MB L2 cache. L2 cache stands for Level 2 cache and that is basically something that speeds up the processing of commonly used data. This in turn boosts the systems performance and makes you a happy camper because you aren't waiting years for something to load up!

A 15.4" XGA TFT LCD:

You may not know what LCD, TFT, or XGA means....

XGA is extended graphics. TFT is a Thin film transistor which is the highest quality of colour in LC displays and finally LCD is the LC Display (Liquid Crystal Display) and that refers to the way we see what's on our screen what is mean is that it has good graphics and it has a 15 inch screen.

40 GB HARD DRIVE:

I am not a computer geek when it comes to numbers, and memory, but I do know that 40GB is alot, especailly for a laptop which is very small and compact. With a computer, you would probably get more, this is because there is alot more room in the tower, but with a laptop, think of all the room it's got to cram all of the important wires and information. Hardly any room is there? But this laptop does not fail to let you down either.

DVD DUAL DOUBLE LAYER:

This laptop doesn't have a floppy disk drive. In my opinion, floppy discs will probably become a thing of the pas, just like music casettes. Instead this laptop has a DVD player/recorder. A very nice bit of equiptment. On it you can watch DVDs, as well as copy. Listen to CDs, as well as copy, and look at data on CD or DVD, and make as many copies as you like, onto other discs with its writer.

512MB DDR2:

This is how much memory the laptop has and the DDR2 is the latest computer memory technology (that I know of). You can upgrade the memory if you want but I am not sure on how far you can go up to, what is the maximum and all of the technical information.

Toshiba enables you to manage and create backups for the information that is on your data, restore all of the data and information from previous archives and reinstall original drivers and applications. It is always a good idea to create backups every so often, if it be a storage device such as a memory stick, or DVD or CD discs. This is to prevent loosing all of your information, incase your laptop breaks or looses your information.

PCI EXPRESS:

This is four times faster than traditional PCI's.

BATTERY LIFE:

The battery should last for around an hour. It does not have one of the best batteries, but worked great when plugged in to a mains.

WEIGHT:

This laptop weighs 2.0kg and is easy to transport from one place to another. It is best to keep it in a laptop case or bag to prevent it being damaged on the inside as well as the outside.

PERSONAL OPINIONS ON....

I have included more detail on the items above, and what I think of them, and how they compare to other laptops.

1) SPEED

I got this laptop, and when I switched it on for the first time, It loaded the the XP start screen in around 25 seconds, which is not bad. But I have had this laptop for nearlly a year now, and it still takes around 25 seconds to load, which is really good. It has not slowed down, even though I have loads of music, photos, videos, movies, and data all on this laptop. In my opinion, I thought that this would slow it down, and thought that it would not be this quick every time.

When I am logged on, and on my desktop (background), I can click programs and they will instantly come up. I was amazed at how quick this laptop will be. The programs do not take long to load up either, not everything can be instant, especially when you have alot of your items on the laptop, such as music, and videos. This can tend to slow your laptop down, but not dramaticly. This is not really that noticable.

2) BATTERY LIFE

This is the only laptops downfall. The battery is not as great as the others, but I think that the more that you spend the better your battery will be. I don't tend to use it outsde of the house so I just tend to keep it plugged in to the mains. I rarely use it not connected to the mains. The battery lasts just over an hour, but if you want to use it on the go like in the car, then you can buy a charger that goes into the car lighter into your laptop. I haven't bought one of these but they do look really good, at an affordable price at around £10 too.

3) LOOKS

I love the look of my laptop. I am not just saying it because it is the one I have. I like mobile phones which are black, just like this laptop, it gives it a professional look and feel. Alot of websites are coming in black, and grey colours which are good looking. The laptop is quite sleek, and compact. The colour does add a whole new character to the laptop, and in my opinion would not look right in another colour. It has patches of silver on the touch mouse, and where you can switch the laptop on and off.

4) MOUSE

The laptop does not come with a mouse, for a very simple reason. There is a built-in mouse. Not on the inside, but infront of the keyboard is a small pad which is around 5cm x 5cm square. Under that are two silver buttons which looks similar to a regular mouse.The pad is touch sensitive which did take a while to get used to, but after a week or so of using the laptop, I was away and forgot how to use a normal mouse. To click you can justtap the touch sensitive pad, or if youd prefer you can click the buttons next to the pad. If you'd prefer you can plug a regular wired mouse into one of the many USB ports on the laptop. By doing this, you will be able to use a regular mouse, some prefer this, but some like trying out new things such as the touch sensitive pad. You can also use wireless mice, which means you will have to plug a small device into the USB port, which looks quite like pen drive storage device, the size of a lighter. Then when that is plugged in, you will be able to use a wireless mouse, without any problems. These require batteries, but may need replacing once every month, some require AAA and some require AA. Check that you can buy the batteries where you are before you buy the wireless mouse first.

A word of warning about the touch pad and the way the mouse is on the laptop, your rists may hurt after using this, often known as RSI, so if you find yourself getting pains in your rists, I do advice that you get a regular mouse. This does not ruin your experience of having a laptop. Many people use wireless mice, and other mice instead of the touch pads.

5) GAMING + LAPTOP

You can plug joysticks into the USB ports if you wish but I do not think that this website has been designed for gaming, but you can play games on this laptop. I have played a few games on the laptop, including DVD games, and PC CD Rom games. This may be a good time to use a wired or wireless mouse if you have one.

6) GRAPHICS

The graphics on this laptop are great. Games, videos and flash doctuments look amazing. The sharpness of the picture is just magnificent and how clear it is.

7) USING THE WEB

I am very impressed with this laptop. I use the web everyday for talking to friends, and even for work. When I got the laptop, I could not wait for it to be connected wirelessly to the Internet. After a day of having my laptop, I was connected to the internet, with no wires. It was a whole new thing for me, I had never gone wireless before, and thought it was amazing. I could go all around my house with it, in the garden, even n the front doorstep while in the garden. It is really really usefull and I found it to be so useful. Now when you go away places like hotels, you can connect to complimentary internet, where you can use the hotels internet.

8) ON THE MOVE

You can take laptops anywhere. Trains, cars, even on holiday. I have seen many people at popular holiday destinations looking at the pictures they had taken during the day on their laptop. Having a laptop is the next step in the future, and more and more people are getting them. Technology is growing.

PRICE:

This cost me £350 from PC World which is quite good for a laptop, considering most you buy are around £400 - £600. I thought this was good, as I use it every day, so I had to make sure it was the one that I wanted, and a laptop that I would be happy with and it has not really let me down since I bought it in November 2006.

OVERALL OPINION:

I have found that buying this laptop has really changed the way I work on the computer. Before I had this laptop, I was using an old desktop which had had it. I am so happy now I can suft the net and do everything like download music and view images, everything I did on the desktop, but faster and better, and still a year on, not a problem. 

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