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Toshiba Satellite A45-S120 Notebook PC (2.6 GHz Celeron, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB Hard Drive, CD-RW, 15-inch Display)

Toshiba Satellite A45-S120 Notebook PC (2.6 GHz Celeron, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB Hard Drive, CD-RW, 15-inch Display)

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very good first/student notebook
Review: Howdy!

Well, so far it's been a week with my new toy, and I've come to appreciate its' strengths and weaknesses so far. First, I'll let you know why I got it. I plan on going back to school, and I needed a fairly mobile notebook to use in class and for my schoolwork, as well as light gaming and occasional DVD movies. (...) So, here are the bad points first:

Built-in memory/Hard drive - 256MB with XP doesn't cut the mustard, and with 32MB taken out of the main system memory for your video card leaves you with a paltry 224MB RAM available. This hurts performance, since the swap file is constantly used, and with a 4,200 RPM drive, it can bog the system down. I recommend an immediate upgrade to at least 512MB RAM on top of the included 256MB. Also, I know that this is a basic system, so 40GB HD space is limited, but 60GB would have been really nice. Wishful thinking, though. ;)

Power adapter - A true brick, over a pound. Yuck.

No WiFi - This is somewhat bad and somewhat good, since I was able to get a WiFi PC card that works with my D-Link router to give me double 802.11g speeds, which is cool. I wouldn't be able to do that with built-in WiFi. The antennae sticking out of the PC Card is sometimes a eyesore, though.

The good:

Display - 15" display is very nice, although viewing angle isn't all that great. Still, considering that I'll want to do some private work on this, that's probably a good thing.

Keyboard - Not too mushy, and the keys are placed a bit oddly, but nothing you can't get over after a few days of intense use.

Processor - For what I do, the 2.8 GHz Celeron is fine, and with the RAM upgrade, it rarely runs at 100%.

So, that's it. Overall, if you want a student-level or really basic notebook, go ahead and get this one, it's pretty decent. If you're even a medium-level gamer or someone that needs more than the basics, go elsewhere. =)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great laptop at a great price
Review: I don't know why amazon doesn't have any more of these, they are still readily available. They go for about 800 after rebate. I have had mine for about a year now, and don't have many complaints. Its got everything you need.

The only thing that I would change would be the keyboard sometimes acts up, and I would add s-video to be able to connect it to a projector.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Poor product support
Review: This laptop computer has a lot of features for the money. However, after two months of use the ac power adapter quit working. The part replacement time is 2 months! None of the universal adapters will fit so there is no alternative except to wait for Toshiba to ship the new ac adapter. Toshiba must be having a major problem with this ac adapter since all of the distributors have them on back order. Even a major seller like BestBuy, that sold me the computer, can't get the adapters any sooner.


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