Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 PC Notebook: Basic Student Workhorse
Written: Aug 15 '05 (Updated Aug 15 '05)
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Pros: inexpensive, decent power
Cons: big, heavy, and not top of the line
The Bottom Line: The Bottom Line is pretty sure that for $499.00, this is a darn decent machine, even if it's not something it would compile code on.
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| pippadaisy's Full Review: Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 (PSA82U-00R004) PC Note... |
After a lot of struggling and mulling it over, my husband and I made the decision to homeschool our five-year-old this year. That meant sitting down and deciding how we were going to go about doing this. Beanie loves to do workbooks and take quizzes, so we decided to invest the money in an inexpensive laptop for her. This way we'd have more flexibility with having her work on schoolwork downstairs in the toy room or upstairs while her younger siblings were napping. Based on some fantastic rebates, we ended up going with the Toshiba Satellite A85-S107.
::: Specs :::
The Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 is (obviously) one of Toshiba's Satellite line, intended to be inexpensive workhorses perfect for home and student use. The Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 has an Intel® Celeron® M 360J (1.40GHz) processor, and comes with 256MB SDRAM, with one expandable memory slot that can hold a 256MB, 512MB, or 1024 MB 333MHz SDRAM memory module.
The laptop comes with a 40GB (5400 RPM) user-removable hard drive, a fixed bay DVD-ROM/CD-RW Drive (CD-ROM 24x read, DVD-ROM 8x read, CD-R and CD-RW 24x write), and a 15.0-inch diagonal TruBrite™ TFT active-matrix LCD screen (more on the screen later), onboard Atheros® 802.11b/g wireless-LAN which can be disabled with a simple switch on the front of the laptop, and Microsoft® Windows® XP Home.
::: Graphics :::
The Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 has ATI MOBILITY™ Radeon® 9000 IGP video card, and can run a maximum of 1024 x 768 resolution. The screen itself is the oddest LCD I've ever seen; the nearest I can figure is that there is glass over the screen, as it has a glossy finish that so far, seems to not have any problems with glare.
Graphics are fairly crisp, although with a 17-inch flat panel set at 1280 x 1024 on my desktop, the color balance and crispness of the display aren't what I'm used to looking at, and it takes a bit of adjustment. It does a great job rendering Beanie's educational software animations, however.
::: Sound :::
The Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 has Realtek ALC250 Software Sound, with a 16-bit stereo and built-in stereo speakers. The volume control dial is conveniently located on the front of the laptop. Again, the sound is good, but not great. When playing a software title or online game, the sound is decent, but playing back anything you want to sound good is going to be disappointing. Music tends to have a very tinny sound which is improved when using headphones rather than the onboard speakers.
::: Input/Output Devices :::
The Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 has an 85-key keyboard with hotkey, Windows, and application key functions. The keyboard itself is set up rather oddly, even for a laptop, with the Delete key separated from its usual compatriots Home and End, and instead, placed down by the space bar. The same is true for the Tilde/Accent key, which has been known to confuse me a bit when typing.
The pointing device is a TouchPad™ mouse with tap or click select function. It's a fairly responsive pointer, but if you are using the laptop for any length of time, you are probably going to want to invest in an external mouse. I consider myself pretty good with a TouchPad™ mouse, having used one for years, and I still had trouble with the small size when playing one of Beanie's educational games that required some fast mousing.
The Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 also has an RGB (monitor) port, S-Video out, three USB 2.0 ports, an RJ-45 Ethernet port, and an RJ-11 modem port for the integrated V.92 modem. It's been so long since I used dial-up that I have almost blissfully forgotten what a modem handshake sounds like, and we are running an 802.11g wireless LAN, so neither of the last two ports gets used.
Wireless connectivity is excellent; once I got the laptop set up on our secured LAN, it picked up the signal immediately, and has had no issues connecting to the Internet, even when taking the laptop to the farther point of our ranch from the router.
::: Size and Appearance :::
The Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 isn't one of those super-small, easily portable laptops. It has an attractive silver metallic finish, and measures 13.3 inches wide by 11 inches deep by 1.45 inches high at it's tallest point. The weight starts at 6.5 pounds, depending on the computer's configuration. In a backpack-style carrying bag, the size of this laptop isn't very noticeable, but having a five-year-old move it around is much more noticeable. It's a big large and awkward for Beanie to tote around the house, so one of the adults usually does it for her.
::: Power :::
The power is where you'll really notice something lacking. The Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 comes with a 4-cell rechargeable Li-Ion battery pack that holds up to 1.5 hours of charge. When they say up to, they mean up to, as we found the battery actually lasted slightly over an hour with Beanie not doing much more than playing some educational games on the web (and a side trip for her three-year-old brother to laugh at the noises the Booh-Bahs make). This was after keeping the laptop plugged in for the maximum recommended recharge time (minimum 4 hours, maximum 12 hours), so I'm fairly certain the battery was fully charged. This is definitely not a laptop that you are going to be able to watch DVDs on while in the car or on a plane on battery power.
::: Other Notes :::
The CD-RW/DVD drive is noisy. When software is running or loading, you can definitely hear spinning, which almost sounds like a grinding. I've heard other laptop drives just as loud, so I'm assuming it's just the design of the machine, but it's definitely something I'll be keeping an eye on.
The Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 comes with a slew of software, much of it 30-day trial software. In addition to all the Toshiba utilities (and the horribly annoying commercial they have pre-loaded a screensaver that you'll need to disable IMMEDIATELY lest you lose your mind when it plays over and over again), there are tons of third-party software titles included, much of which is trial software. It does come with Microsoft® Works™ for productivity, as well as Quicken® 2005.
Processor speed is decent, but this isn't a laptop I'd want to use to compile code. For general email/web surfing/educational programs this is a very decent machine, but for the gamer or power user, it isn't even going to come close to serving your needs. The package deal from CompUSA also included a three-in-one scanner/copier/printer and a wireless router free with mail-in rebates, as well as a Norton security package and Vonage box we chose not to take advantage of. The Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 comes with a one-year limited warranty, which we upgraded to a two-year on-site service contract with CompUSA that includes screen and battery coverage. We also upgraded the memory to 512 MB, which made a HUGE difference in the laptop's performance, and I would highly recommend.
The recovery/driver CD included with the Toshiba Satellite A85-S107 is excellent. Since my desktop is a home-built, any time I have to reinstall Windows XP, it's about as appealing as having a root canal, but reinstalling the OS on this laptop is a breeze. Beanie's laptop was actually the store display, and had some store-specific demo mode running. I ignored the instructions given by the store employees, and instead, followed the directions provided by the CD, and after only a few clicks and 20 minutes or so, the drive was wiped clean, reformatted, and had all the software reinstalled, including the productivity software. I have a lot of confidence that should (ha! This is XP... when!) I ever need to reinstall the OS again, it should go just as smoothly.
::: Overall :::
For the price of the Toshiba Satellite A85-S107, you really can't go wrong if you are looking for a starter laptop for students or for a casual user. Based on my experience so far, this laptop is great at doing the job we got it for, but I wouldn't want one for my own use, as I have a tendency to use programs like Adobe Photoshop that I feel would bog down.
This laptop has been advertised lately in a lot of sales flyers for back-to-school sales, with prices ranging from $449.99 to $799.00. If you are in the market for a student laptop, I'd definitely recommend taking advantage of one of these deals, but if you are more of a power user, pass this one right by.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 499.00
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 15 inches
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40
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pippadaisy
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About Me:
Divorce seriously cuts into the amount of time for reviewing.
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