10 out of 11 people found this review helpful.
My Toshiba , Good college student computer!
Date of Review: Nov 28, 2007
The Bottom Line: I would recomend this machine to anyone who is a student or a novice computer user. It has very few problems. Good computer for price
I will be reviewing the Toshiba Satellite (A215-S4757). I purchased this particular notebook from Circuit City on a labor day sale for aprox. $750. I am mostly using it for my college school work. Surfing the internet, etc. I have only had this PC for about 3 or 4 months. I like that this computer is well rounded and modern ,but I do not like some of the hardware/software kinks.
Hardware pros: This Toshiba has a ton of really cool features. One reason why I picked this one over the competition is the size of the screen (15.4). It is not like a 17 inch or larger that drains the battery quickly , but it is still a screen that is large enough for my computing needs and entertainment. This Toshiba satellite notebook computer also comes equipped with a build in wi-fi, which at my school we have wireless connections campus wide and my computer gets signal everywhere I have been. It is really nice to have wireless internet and network connections for the ease of research, writing papers, email, and other things. It also has a very nice and powerful AMD duo core processor with a more than ample 160 gig hard drive with 2 megs of ram. The computing power on this note book is very good. Another feature that it has built in is a web cam for taking pictures and video chat . It also has a very nice DVD/RW drive in it which works well for me. Some things that also impressed me are the speakers they have a very good clear and surprisingly loud sound. The other thing that is kind of neat for this computer is it's media keys located above the keyboard. That provide instant access to the internet, and control of control of media such as: music, DVD playback and videos.
Hardware cons: Some down sides to owning this computer are: one complaint is the touch mouse pad is a little to sensitive so as I am typing if you even brush the mouse pad it jumps to another part of the page or whatever you are working on and it gets pretty tiresome to keep going back. As far as I can tell there is no way to disable it or even turn down the sensitivity. Another feature of the hardware that I do not like it the lid itself Toshiba made it out of a very glossy dark blue plastic that at first is very attractive but shortly there after it becomes scuffed and scratched very easily. Not to mention the countless finger prints all over the lid of the computer. The keyboard it a light gray that always shows all the dirt and dust from everyday use. Other common problems that I have experienced along with others that have made reviews about this machine is that every so often the screen just goes black and you have to do a manual shut down and reboot. I don't think it is very harmful but more of an annoyance. Sometimes the computer will not sleep/hibernate when I shut the lid so unknowingly it will run down the battery.
Software pros: My particular machine came pre loaded with windows vista premium. Which I am still kind of in the middle about wither I like it or not. Out of all the pre-loaded software I use the Toshiba brand DVD player I like it better than windows media center/player. I feel that the Toshiba DVD player has more features than the windows media center/player.
Software cons: Sadly like most computer manufactures Toshiba loads its computers with "bloat ware" or in other words a whole lot of junk free trials, software offers, games, and programs that I would never use. This took my friend and I about 8 hours the first night to clean my computer of all of these programs. I also received a free trial of Microsoft office 2007 which had a 25 time use then it was done. I feel that if a person shells over $500+ on a computer then it should at least have Microsoft office on it. That is just another way that Microsoft can get another $100-$250 out of the consumer. I have also come to find out that Windows Vista and Norton anti-virus do not play well together for some reason or another Norton will not perform its weekly scan. When I try to do a manual scan of the computer it usually gets stuck on a file and will not budge until I shut it down with the task master. I am not sure if it the Toshiba or windows vista that only on selective times my screen saver will come on. Most of the time it will just sit in idle on my desktop without any screensaver.
In conclusion I would say that this Notebook is a good buy. I will and have recommended this to others. I feel that I got a really good deal for what I paid and I knew when I bought it that there were going to be drawbacks, like with anything that you buy. The pros of this computer are that it has really good hardware for the price and also has a great computing power. The cons of this computer are just a few personal preferences and software glitches.
