Best deal in low end laptop
Written: Sep 02 '03
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Pros: Cheap for what it offers
Cons: Perhaps not as sturdy as some other models
The Bottom Line: Excellent entry level laptop and more than capable for most purposes.
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| ianc4262's Full Review: Toshiba Satellite A15-S127 (PSA10U-00RESV) PC Note... |
We got this laptop for $699 after rebates and I'm well impressed. The standard unit is a Celeron 2Gig with 256MB Ram, 30 Gig drive and DVD/CDRW Drive. There is no floppy but there are two USB ports, Parallel, Video, Ethernet and Modem. Unfortunately these are all on the back which is a little less convenient. The CDRW is permanently mounted and there is no Floppy option though you can get external USB floppy drives for about $50 if you really need it. I use a USB JumpDrive that has way more capacity anyway and is cheaper.
There is one PCMCIA Cardbus slot on the left side and volume control on the front.
The screen is 15 inches and runs at 1024x768 and it very crisp and bright. Speakers are a bit tinny but I don't expect much from a laptop. There is also a headphone and mic port on the left side near the front.
The weight is about 5 pounds.
I'd strongly recommend getting a 256 MB memory upgrade (PC2100 DDR SODIMMs about 30-50 if you shop around). The video system shares the RAM on this computer. When I first booted it and looked at the memory there was only about 70 MB free. After streamlining the OS a bit I was able to free some up but a Memory upgrade was a better option.
The keyboard has a good feel and is fairly comfortable to type on. The only mouse option is the touch pad. Alas this has no scroll like button so an external mouse is a good option.
There is very little software with the system, the OS is WinXP home edition with a bunch of Toshiba utilities thrown in. There is a bunch of Demo ware and some crippled versions of Quicken and Norton's antivirus. There is however a full version of MS Works 7.0.
One thing that freaked me out was the fan exhaust on the left side near the back. When running on main power this unit gets quite hot. When that fan kicks in there is quite a hot blast of air comes out that exhaust. I felt the laptop gets too while hot running on main power to keep on your lap for any length of time.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 699
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): 21-30
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Epinions.com ID:
ianc4262
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Member: Ian Clements
Location: Eugene, Oregon
Reviews written: 46
Trusted by: 2 members
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