Toshiba Satellite Pro L10 - Celeron M 360 1.4 GHz - 15" TFT

Author's product rating:   

Speed	Fast
Look & Feel	Excellent
Comfort & Portability	Excellent
Robustness & Durability	Excellent
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Cheap and Reliable
Disadvantages:	Wireless connection not great

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Toshiba L10 is one of the best budget laptops around, and for the price you pay, it offers so much to keep you busy.

The Toshiba L10 features an Intel Celeron M 360 1.4 GHz processor (400 MHz data bus) which can be upgraded to a faster Intel Celeron M 370 1.5 GHz should you choose to do so. I doubt you'd notice all that difference in speed and across the e-shops I've browsed there seems to be little difference price-wise between the 1.4 GHz and the 1.5 GHz models.

The notebook usually ships with either 256mb or 512mb ram, with about £30 difference in price between the two models. I opted in for the 512mb model and when comparing with my friend's 256mb version of the same system, I can safely say that I noticed a tremendous increase in general overall speed when using the computer. I'd recommend you go for the double ram. The RAM can be upgraded to a maximum of 1GB, so there's plenty of room for expansion should you choose to upgrade your system in the near future.

The IDE hard drive in the Toshiba L10 is either a 40 GB or a 60 GB hard drive. Again, this can easily be upgraded should this be too little.

In terms of optical storage, you shouldn't have a problem. Although the write speed is quite low in comparison with the modern devices, 24x24x24, this is pretty reasonable for a notebook computer. I bought the model without the DVD writer, since I already have one in my desktop PC and have so far noticed no problems with the drive. However, I have had a few problems with the drive being too 'slim' - some of my disks have sticky CD labels attached to the top and usually this prevents the CD from spinning properly so if you're intending to burn any CDs for your laptop, make sure you do not apply a CD label to the disk after writing. All other media seems to read fine.

The system features an Intel 852GM video adapter and this cannot be upgraded. This device can manage a maximum of 1024x768 with 32 True-Colour display at 60 HZ. This may seem small in comparison with other similar laptops, however 1024x768 is native and I I have found no use out of a higher/lower screen resolution.
In terms of gaming and 3D use, the graphics adapter seems to perform pretty well - in fact, surprisingly well considering I bought the laptop thinking that I would not be able to play games any higher the 3 FPS! I have been pleasantly surprised, and with access to the BIOS you can increase the shared video memory (UMA) from 32mb to 64mb which should improve the quality of gaming. I've successfully managed to run Guild-Wars, Command and Conquer Generals, Warcraft 3 and Sim City 4 on this machine at a respectable frame rate therefore do not let this hold you back when considering purchase of this notebook.

The touchpad comes with drivers and a nice simple software package which allow you to customize your touchpad; for example, you can configure it so you may use the right and bottom of your touchpad in place of your scroll wheel on your mouse. You can assign certain corner 'zones' of your touchpad for system-activities. I find use out of assigning the bottom left corner of my touchpad to the Start Menu! Very helpful feature indeed!

The laptop comes packaged with the cable and adapter for the modem - so for you 56Kers, you can plug-and-play, helpful for portability, which leads me nicely on to the internal WiFi.
I haven't much to say about the internal WiFi apart from the fact that it does its job. It'll connect to near enough any WiFi within range, however with the further away access points, the connection may drop. I believe this is due to the fact there is no wireless antenna although it connects to my access point perfectly whether I'm in the house or in the garden.
If you're in need of good signal and connection, you may consider buying a PC Card type II wireless card with an antenna, which can be inserted in to the slot on the left hand side of the unit. There is also a socket for an RJ45 cable, which is your standard network cable, to be inserted. This is used for cabled networks, should you not have wireless.

On the right hand side of the laptop there is an area for you to plug an external monitor in, so you do not have to use the 15" TFT on the laptop. I believe there is an S-Video output at the back, I can see where it should be, but it appears to be blacked out with a piece of plastic. I'm not sure if my notebook simply does not have this feature, or the plastic is there for protection, but I wouldn't be able to remove it without a screwdriver or similar device.

There are 3 Hi-Speed USB 2 ports (2 at the side, 1 at the back) which allow you to plug compatible devices in to the system such as a USB mouse, printers, a scanner or a digital camera.

The laptop comes preinstalled with Microsoft Windows XP Home or Professional edition, but I can confirm that the laptop works perfectly with both Fedora Core 4 and SUSE. You do not get a windows CD however the product key is printed on the base of the laptop and you have access to a recovery DVD, should you need it. The Drivers & Utilities CD comes bundles with the laptop also as well as Office OneNote 2003 and Norton Internet Security 2005, preinstalled on the notebook.

Just to give you an idea on how long you should expect your laptop to run for:
On standby mode, I've managed to get the laptop up to 5 hours.
With word processing, the laptop manages around 3 - 3.5 hours.
Gaming, the laptop is capable of 2 - 2.5 hours.
You can buy multiple batteries for the L10.

Go out and buy this laptop! It's definitely got my recommendation!