Toshiba 1805-S203 - Serious Notebook
Written: Oct 25 '01
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Pros: excellent display, battery life, dvd w/ tv out, great price, excellent reputation
Cons: sound system leaves a little be desired (as does most laptop sound systems)
The Bottom Line: I would highly recommend this model as being one of the best values available for the serious or business computer user. It is also extremely Windows 2000 friendly.
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| sahammondsr's Full Review: Toshiba Satellite 1805-S203 (PS181U-00CFCHE) PC No... |
Toshiba has a long standing history of producing excellent laptops that are durable and reliable and withstand the constant poundings most laptops undergo.
My objective was to find a laptop in the lower end of the price range ($1500 or less) that was fast and powerful enough to hold up for daily use and light enough to accommodate travel.
After reading a number of reviews on various websites, reading magazines, visiting stores, etc., I selected the Toshiba 1805-S203 as the best sub $1500 laptop currently available.
This laptop features an extra bright 13.3" TFT screen, 800 MHZ Celeron Processor, 128 MB Ram, 15 GB Hard Drive, Internal DVD and Floppy drive, 56k modem, infrared port, and more.
The laptop comes with Windows ME pre-installed as well as a typical assortment of consumer applications.
This laptop was everything it promised to be, and then some. The advantage of the "eraser head" pointer over the typical touch pad mouse system is that you won't be prone to bumping or touching the pad while typing (which generally causes your cursor to move to some other point on the screen, anyone who has worked on one of these knows exactly what I'm talking about) and forcing you to stop, remove the inserted text, and reposition the cursor again at the end of your document or e-mail.
I particularly enjoyed the two buttons just below the space bar which allow you to scroll the screen up or down without the need to move the mouse to the window scroll bar. This emulates the behavior of the typical intellipoint or wheel mouse, however, self contained within the laptop.
The only drawback to this laptop that I can present is the sound system is not all that great (again, this is typical in many laptops). It does work.
Because this laptop was to be used primarily for business, the first thing I did was ordered a 128 MB memory upgrade from crucial for less then $30 which included 2 day shipping. When the memory arrived, the upgrade was painless, just take out one screw, remove the memory cover, add the module, replace the cover and screw, and reboot the machine.
The next thing I did was visit Toshiba's website and download all of the drivers for Windows 2000. I then inserted my Windows 2000 install disc and wiped the hard drive and started clean with Windows 2000. To my surprise, it did not require the installation of any of the drivers I downloaded and the laptop was fully functional running Windows 2000. I then reinstalled the DVD playback software and was further surprised to see that the laptop played DVD's under Windows 2000 with full sound, etc., without the installation of any updated or Windows 2000 special drivers.
While I wouldn't necessary represent that this is the best gaming machine or for the typical college student, I would highly recommend it and am absolutely convinced that I made the best choice for a non-frills business use machine.
In fact, I've become so comfortable with this laptop that I'm now contemplating doing away entirely with my desktop machine at my office (which happens to be a little faster).
I would highly recommend this laptop to any serious or business user needing a portable computer. I would also recommend this laptop to anyone who is primarily using it for travel or Internet access. This laptop probably would not be my first choice for the typical college student or person who is primarily or largely interested in gaming.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1100
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: 701-800
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
sahammondsr
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Member: Scott Hammond
Location: Lafayette, LA
Reviews written: 12
Trusted by: 7 members
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