Toshiba Satellite P200-155 > Reviews (10)

Yesterday was a busy day, I received a visit from a nice guy from IT who set up a remote log in to the works IT network for me and delivered a laptop for my work use. I was expecting a battered second hand Dell but what I have is way past any expectations. I have this gorgeous Toshiba whose capabilities totally outclass any needs I have. At my stuttering screeching request of “has this come out of my budget” I was informed that, no, it had been ordered by some other manager who had left before even receiving it and had been surplus to requirements. Well every cloud has a silver lining and it will be a splendid addition to my unit when im able to get back to work ,and much as I would like to discuss the NHS and its superb ability to let staff waste its money I’ll restrain myself and get down to the details.

Toshiba Satellite P200-155 - Core 2 Duo T5300 1.73 GHz - 17.1"
≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•​≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈

This laptop, like all Toshiba's is a very good looking machine. The casing they describe as onyx but it is dark gunmetal blue, the keyboard and interface area are all in silver giving a quite understated and professional appearance.

It has a TFT screen which is 17.1" widescreen with a resolution of 1440 x 900 (WXGA+) the screen uses a TruBrite display and the images are very bright, crisp and clear.

As you can imagine it isn’t small. Its dimensions are (w) 39.9 cm x (d) 28.8 cm x (h) 4.7 cm and it weighs 3.3 kg (7 lb 3 oz)

The pre-installed operating system is Windows Vista Premium and it has a DVD writer, Harman/Kardon stereo speakers, microphone, wireless LAN aerial and a Bluetooth aerial built in plus an integrated 1.3 Mega pixel webcam

I will go through the rest of its specifications, but please bear in mind not all of the terms mean that much to me but both the IT guy and my own geek were quite impressed.

This Toshiba Satellite has a 160GB Serial ATA-150 hard drive so it is quite spacious, It has an Intel Core 2 Duo T5300 / 1.73 GHz processor which is dual core with a data bus speed of 533 MHz. it has a Mobile Intel 945PM Express chipset. It comes with 1 GB RAM installed and will take up to 4GB. This machine now has 2 GB, the RAM being DDR II SDRAM - 667 MHz. there is a L2 Cache memory of 2 MB. This all equates to it being fast to process information and respond.
-
Its graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 - PCI Express x16 with a video memory of DDR SDRAM - 128 MB giving total available graphics memory of 527 MB. This will play games but it isn’t a gaming card so don’t expect it to play them all particularly the newer ones
-
The DVD writer: This is Toshiba's DVD SuperMulti drive, and it has Labelflash printing technology, which lets you burn high quality labels directly onto Labelflash media. It is an integrated DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM and its specifications are:
Read Speed: 24x (CD) / 8x (DVD)
Write Speed: 24x (CD) / 8x (DVD±R) / 4x (DVD±R DL)
CD / DVD Rewrite Speed: 10x (CD) / 4x (DVD±RW) / 5x (DVD-RAM)
-
Networking: Network adapter; high-speed wireless (802.

11a/g/n), Wireless NIC: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG. Data Link Protocol; Bluetooth 2.0 EDR, Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11g,
-
Telecom: Fax / modem with a max transfer rate of 56 Kbps
-
Card Reader: 6 in 1 card reader. Supported Flash Memory Cards: SD Memory Card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, MultiMediaCard, xD-Picture Card
Power: Lithium Ion battery or external power supplyAC 120/230 V ( 50/60 Hz )
Connectivity interfaces:
• 1 x display / video - VGA - 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15)
• 1 x modem - phone line - RJ-11
• 1 x network - Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX - RJ-45
• 1 x display / video - S-video output
• 1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire) - 4 PIN FireWire
• 1 x microphone - input - mini-phone 3.5mm
• 1 x headphones - output - mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm
• 4 x Hi-Speed USB - 4 PIN USB Type A
-
Other Preloaded Software:
Toshiba Disc Creator
Toshiba Users Manual
Norton Internet Security™ 2007 (includes free Internet updates for 90 days)
Ulead® DVD MovieWriter® for TOSHIBA
Toshiba Value Added Package
Supervisor Password Utility
Toshiba Assist
Toshiba Speech System
Chicony Camera Assistant Software
Toshiba Bluetooth™ Stack
ConfigFree™

Special features:
Security lock slot (cable lock not supplied),
administrator password, system password, power-on password
HD Audio support | Microsoft Windows HotStart for instant-on entertainment
integrated microphone for Voice over IP
integrated 1.3 Megapixel Video Camera for Video over IP
Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology
SM BIOS compliant
Multimedia Bar with 6 Easy Keys (Internet Browser, CD/DVD launcher, Play/Pause, Stop, Rewind, Forward)

Comes with a 1 year service and support warranty

My opinion,
≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈•≈
If you haven’t been blinded by science and are still with me! This is an excellent laptop and very versatile. The speaker system gives remarkably good sound and the screen images really are bright and crisp. They are better in strong light than on the screen of my husband’s old satellite.

The processor does create a very responsive machine that is more than capable of handling everything I want from it and could no doubt do much extra. The webcam is good and is perfect for conference calls and cuts down on the trailing periphery that accompanies laptops and the microphone performs well. I’ve never got on really well with the mouse balls on laptops so have a wireless optical mouse attached to it. There are plenty of spare ports and these are easily reached on the side rather than the back

Windows vista will take getting used to and I might do a review on it when I am more at ease with it.

On the downside, this machine weighs a ton and is more than I would want to carry about as a frequent occurrence. Using it as I am its great as it will be at work where it will also stay in one position more or less but I would be reluctant to have it as a constant travelling companion and would definitely need a trolley case rather than a shoulder bag.
This PC is also around £800 which seems an awfully large amount of money to be spent on machine that will be used in the manner I intend.

If I had been buying this I would have chosen a much more inexpensive one and one that weighed much less , but as it was of no cost to me or my unit I am happy to use it and spend the calories in lugging it about.