Lightweight and Functional with a little coddling
Written: Sep 21 '01
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Pros: Lightweight, stylish, decent performance
Cons: Loud fan, external I/O devices
The Bottom Line: Good performance and lightweight for today's price, but you should be prepared to do a bit of updating
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| Macharoni's Full Review: Toshiba Portege 7010CT (P701EYX-GR9X-KIT) PC Noteb... |
When my compaq armada began to grow dead spots on the LCD screen, I decided it was time for a new laptop. With the memory of toting the heavy compaq machine through many airports, my primary goal was to get a machine that was light. The Toshiba Portege 7010CT fits the bill perfectly for those that want a lightweight machine with reasonable computing power at an affordable price. I purchased this unit used from eBay for about $450.
Machine Overview
The base unit features a 300 Mhz Pentium II processor, 4Gb drive, 32Mb of memory, external monitor port, serial/parallel ports with the port extender, two PCMCIA slots, one USB port, 800x600 12" screen, 56K modem, interface to a docking station (with CDROM or DVD), and an interface to an external floppy. To save on weight, this laptop has no internal floppy and no internal CD-ROM. It was designed to be used with an external floppy (proprietary model to Toshiba) and an external CD-ROM connected via the PCMCIA interface or the USB interface.
Recommendations
For those that purchase a used machine, I have a few recommendations. First, the unit that I purchased came with NO operating system and NO CD-ROM. It did come with the external floppy. The lack of an operating system made it somewhat problematic to install a new OS. To accomplish this, I purchased an external CD-ROM that operates off the PCMCIA card. I had to copy the drivers from the floppy to the hard disk and do a little bit of config work to access the CD-ROM. This took a little bit of time and effort. If you are buying a used unit and don't want to go through this step, then make sure the unit you buy either comes with a CD-ROM, or has an operating system already installed.
Second, I strongly recommend that one of the first things you do is visit http://pcsupport.toshiba.com and download the latest BIOS and other drivers for your machine. Many of the problems that other users have written about on epinions with the machine freezing up are fixed in this BIOS. I was pleased to see that Toshiba continued to support the 7010CT throughout new releases of Windows. If you plan to run Windows 2000, then you MUST download and install the BIOS upgrade.
Third, my machine arrived with a run-down battery that would not properly charge. I attribute this to normal wear and tear for an older unit. I ended up purchasing a high-capacity battery that lasts about 3-4 hours. The downside of this particular battery is that it sticks out a bit on the back and adds some weight. Neverthless, before purchase you may wish to confirm the status of the battery if buying a refurbished unit.
Fourth, if you buy a machine with 32Mb of memory, that is not going to be enough for most applications today. My refurbished unit came with 96MB, but 128Mb or more would be preferable.
Pro's
- Lightweight as advertised
- Decent performance for a 300Mhz system
- Thin unit width
- Good feel to the keys and keyboard
Con's
- The fan is somewhat loud and kicks in at unpredictable times. For example, if you were working on the laptop while someone was speaking at a conference, the fan is loud enough that it could annoy people sitting around you.
- The 800x600 screen resolution can be annoying for those used to 1024x768 or higher.
- Some keyboard characters in weird places (like ~)
- The lack of an internal floppy does reduce weight, but can be frustrating when needed (which will usually be when you least expect it and didn't bring the external floppy along).
- The hard disk is a little slow, although I would not say it is super slow.
Conclusions
Overall, I have been quite pleased with the machine. Once my initial hurdles of installing the operating system and configuring the machine were over, everything has been quite stable. Running Windows 2000, I have had no freeze-ups or crashes in approximately 4 months of use. The performance is decent. This system is more than adequate for word processing, office programs, and web browsing. I have even done some development with Visual C++ and Visual Basic on this laptop with decent compilation speed. My main complaint here has been the 800x600 screen resolution. However, the lightweight nature of the machine has more than made up for this inconvenience on my many travels.
I recommend this machine if you are willing to do a bit of system administration and configuration. Otherwise, a more modern machine may be more to your tastes.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 450
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium II
Processor speed: 201-300
Screen Size: 12
RAM: 96
Hard Drive (GB): Under 4
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Epinions.com ID:
Macharoni
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Member: Kenrick
Location: Eagle River, AK
Reviews written: 38
Trusted by: 9 members
About Me:
I'm a computer science professor that likes running, outdoors, games, AI, and other geeky things
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