Toshiba Satellite L350-12N

This review is for the Toshiba Satellite L350-20G.

Design
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One of the key reasons for my purchase of this laptop was because of the colour. You have this solid black colour and on the screen and the backing you have this shinier colour which is fantastic.

On the front of the laptop you have the latches which open the laptop and they are very easy to use and will open the laptop instantly without any ...
...the front panel you have got the wireless connector switch which is quite large and not that hard to miss.

Down the left hand side you have got memory card slot and a USB connection. On the right hand side you have the CD Rom section which is easy to see and next to this you have got another USB connection and the charger connection.
On the back you have another USB connection and an Ethernet port to connect to the internet. You ... more

This review is for the Toshiba Satellite L350-20G.

Design
------------
One of the key reasons for my purchase of this laptop was because of the colour. You have this solid black colour and on the screen and the backing you have this shinier colour which is fantastic.

On the front of the laptop you have the latches which open the laptop and they are very easy to use and will open the laptop instantly without any hassle at all. On the outside of the laptop on the front panel you have got the wireless connector switch which is quite large and not that hard to miss.

Down the left hand side you have got memory card slot and a USB connection. On the right hand side you have the CD Rom section which is easy to see and next to this you have got another USB connection and the charger connection.
On the back you have another USB connection and an Ethernet port to connect to the internet. You have along the front of the laptop the wireless connection which is just a simple switch and also the speaker and audio connections which you use for the speakers.

Overall there are 2 Ethernet connections for this laptop one down the left hand side and another on the back so either way you are having convenience depending on which place you would prefer the Ethernet cable to be placed.

On the inside of the laptop you have some silver buttons at the top and one is the power button and the other one is the fan button which does nothing at all. The keys on the keyboard are black with silver digits imprinted onto them to give them depth. The touch pad is black and at the front just below the keys. You have plenty of room to rest your hands when typing with this laptop which is also a key design feature.

Setup
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The setup process is fairly easy to use for this laptop. You begin by pressing the power button and you are given details of the laptop and then it takes you after five minutes to the screen which tells you to set up the windows Vista package.
You need to type in your name, the date and other key information. The most important information is you setting up a profile and a password which you need to remember. Once you have done all this which can take a short amount of time your computer will restart and when it loads back up it tells you it is going through stage 1 of 3 in installing all the software it feels it needs.

After every step is complete you will find the laptop will restart and then load back up again. On the final 3rd time it will load up to the username section and ask you to log into the system with the details you supplied earlier on.

Once the system finally loads up into the computer itself you are given random pop ups which welcome you to the system and some give you a guided tour of the computer and what it offers you. You will find that the antivirus you have is Norton but only for 90 days before the subscription runs out and that will run a scan on the computer and let you know of any problems.

You then have got to try and understand the computer and it will ask you to do backup discs. The backup discs are essential because if the computer has major problems in the future where the computer fails to work accordingly you will need the backup discs to set the computer back to settings which worked before.
Once you have done this you are then complete and ready to explore the computer and have plenty of fun.

Features
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This laptop weighs 3.15kg in weight and to be honest the laptop seems top heavy. You will notice that the top of the laptop where the screen is, is much heavier then the bottom part of the laptop is which is not great.

This laptop is 39.8cm in Width, 29.2cm in Depth and 4.3cm in Height, this laptop is going to be slighter bigger in the sizes because it is a 17 inch laptop so this is going to be slightly bigger in measurements compared to a smaller laptop. Overall it is a very good size and will fit in many laptop bags.

The maximum screen resolution for this laptop is 2048x1536 which is fantastic and one of the best you can possibly get for any laptop.

There is 160 GB of memory on this computer which is separated over 2 hard drives so this is fairly good how it is spread but I would imagine that some people would prefer a much bigger memory limit on this laptop.

There is a 2mb cache which again is very good most laptops have just 1mb cache and with it being 2mb cache means the computer runs better.
The processor itself is only 1.66 GHz and I have to admit I think it lets the computer down slightly. You have fantastic values for everything else but the overall processor sort of lets it down a bit.

There is 4GB DDR Ram which means the computer runs very fast. The higher the DDR Ram the better the speed of the computer and this speed is fantastic.
The laptop has 3 USB ports which is good; you could use one for a mouse, another for an external hard drive and another for perhaps downloading music onto a walkman, so there are good possibilities there.
The battery life is 2 hours and 45 mins and I think overall that is not the best at all and could do with improving.

The graphics card has 256mb dedicated for the graphics and a further 900mb shared graphics so overall you are getting a large figure for the graphics and it shows with this laptop for sure.
You also have a memory card holder which can have SD cards, memory sticks, multi media cards and more all used inside to work on the laptop.

Key Parts
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The mouse pad is the most obviously key parts to any sort of laptop and the mouse pad for this laptop is very easy to use. The mouse pad is smooth and easy to control the icon on the screen when you are using it. The buttons underneath are extremely quiet and do not make that annoying clicking sound every time you press on them.

The sound on the laptop is absolutely fantastic and the good part is even when you have the volume controls on the computer lowered to about half way they still generate enough volume for everyone in a room to hear what you’re playing. I have found also that if you wanted to try and use videos online it sounds even better than if you have a video you have downloaded before and began playing that one instead.
The screen is 17 inches which is fantastic size and the overall capability of this laptop having widescreen features is fantastic. I have to say sometimes on the widescreen format you do find it stretching the image it is displaying slightly too much, but overall a fantastic key part to this laptop.

The wireless feature was another huge reason why I purchased this laptop and I find that with the wireless connection it is very easy to use and you can find wireless device fairly easily with this laptop. The problem is when you are typing on the computer your hand only needs to touch the switch gentle and you are then taken off the wireless as the switch has been turned off. So there is a slight issue there but it is a good feature to have.

The graphics card is a really good one. You have the potential for HD graphics on the laptop itself which sounds impressive and it is. The graphics are always displayed with crisp images and state of the art HD quality and even when you play games you notice how good they are with this laptop, so the graphics card is a huge bonus

The dual layer DVD rewriting drive is definitely a great feature as well. I think the speed at which this device can rip music or other items to a disc for storage is very good and one of the other reasons this item is definitely worth purchasing. Please not this is not a blu-ray DVD player.

Good Points
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The laptop is very easy to setup which is certainly a good point to have. The way it allows you to know step by step what is going on and what will happen is a huge benefit especially to the new users of laptops who are unsure of what is going on with the initial power up.

I think the features are good for what they include. You have superb graphics which are definitely going to be the highlight of the computer for me. I like playing the odd game here and there and some laptops struggle to keep them going and the graphics looking good and this laptop manages to do that.

The actual laptop in terms of speed is superb, and when you want to load an application up they instantly pop up and they are so easy to use as well. I think when you have a laptop which is fast it saves you frustration and makes you aware of a great purchase decision you made.

The laptops colour is good as well and I say that because it doesn't look so dirty and it looks more stylish. I do not like the boring silver laptops and I find they are everywhere and this laptop being black adds more style to the laptop and much more appeal to potential buyers.

The sound is fantastic and I find that I can hear music without the addition of speakers added on the side so the sound is very strong and extremely easy to use so that certainly is a great feature to have overall as well.

I find the buttons very nice as well they seem to go down when pressed very easily and none of them feel stiff or to solid to move and they are easy to clean as well. If you happen to find you want to clean the keys for any reason you can remove them and clean them very quickly and place them back as well in the same positions quite simply.

The final good point I like is how the connections are all scattered round the laptop. You do not have all the connections on one side of the laptop which makes it much easier to use. You have the USB connections in a few locations and you have room to have extra connections if they wanted to place any more there.

Bad Points
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I think the biggest problem is the heat. The laptop does not get warm underneath but where you place your hand to rest on the laptop itself, which has this area for you to do that, the heat you can feel is immense and you end up picking your hand up because you get to warm. I think they could have put something there to protect you and not encourage you to get burnt.

I think the battery life is poor. The battery has life for 2 and half hours and I find if you use wireless internet then the battery life is just 45 minutes at most. The wireless internet rips into the battery and makes it very weak extremely quickly so that is a major issue for this laptop the overall battery life you receive.

The laptop does not have a good antivirus either so after 90 days you will need to find a new antivirus so I would advise seeing if you can get an offer on antivirus when you purchase the laptop as this is key for when you are online.

The wireless connection which continues to go on and off all the time is frustrating as well and if you are downloading something important or sending an email you might accidentally turn off the wireless switch without realising and lose work so that is another small issue with the laptop.

Summary
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I would say the laptop definitely has features which are worthwhile and some which are not. The webcam is something which you can solve by purchasing your own so instantly you can make this bad point disappears.

Sadly the battery is bad but I think with the great graphics, speed and overall style of the laptop you will find it a huge benefit for any purpose you might need it for.
I got this laptop for £350 of Amazon just recently as a backup to my original and it is still priced on other websites for this price tag which is in my view a very good price overall.

© Tink-er-bell
 

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