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Toshiba Satellite 1415-S173 Notebook (1.80-GHz Celeron, 256 MB RAM, 30 GB Hard Drive)

Toshiba Satellite 1415-S173 Notebook (1.80-GHz Celeron, 256 MB RAM, 30 GB Hard Drive)

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: As an entry level machine: 5 stars; for daily lugging: 3
Review: This is a great work horse, fully adequate for day to day activities like email, web browsing, CD recording, DVD playing, office applications, and the likes. With its 16 MB of dedicated graphics memory, the nVidia chipset also allows for moderate gaming, if so desired. This is a great step ahead of most other offers in this price class, since the majority of the competition in this price segment seems to rely on sharing main memory for graphics. The latter approach is not only costing the user memory, but also tends to be slower than dedicated graphics memory.

While the standard 256 MB RAM initially seem to be adequate, over time it turns out that in order to take full advantage of the capabilities of this machine, another 256 MB are helpful. Since there's an empty slot readily available, inserting a PC2100 S0-DIMM oneself is a no-brainer.

Depending on the user's environment, there's also an optional wireless card available that can be mounted inside the laptop computer. Given the relatively steep price tag of the internal card, the user will have to decide whether to go with this option, thus keeping the PC card slot available, or rather opting for any of the readily available PC card wireless cards.

Given the fact that the internal card only allows for 802.11b, some users might consider this at a mere 11 Mbit/sec to be to slow and thus will rather sacrifice the PC card slot to insert a card capable of higher wireless transmission rates as provided by 802.11a and/or 802.11g.

In order to get the most out of the battery, it is important to adjust the power management settings accordingly. Out of the box, the defaults are set to provide maximum performance, thus draining the battery pretty fast. If, however, the settings are adjusted to preserve battery life, the battery lasts easily for more than two hours (well, that's still depending on what you're doing - playing CD's or DVD's it'll obviously drain faster).

One major drawback of this laptop is its considerable weight; at 8 lbs it serves well for a dedicated workout of various muscle groups when lugging it around.

On the other hand, the display is clear and bright enough to use as a replacement for a 17" CRT tube. With its 15" LCD display it offers almost the same visible area. If resolutions higher than the LCD's 1024x768 are required an external monitor can be attached - but in order to do the higher resolutions justice my recommendation is to attach at least a 19" CRT or an 18" LCD externally.

While the keyboard takes a bit of time to get used to, it operates better than a lot of the cheap "standard" keyboards quite often included in package deals for desktop machines.

Toshiba also paid attention to detail when placing the DELETE key. While a lot of other notebook manufacturers place it too close to a key like Shift, BackSpace or Enter, thus risking accidental deletion of characters, the key is easily accessible on the keyboard, yet sufficiently separated from these two other keys that one does not accidentally operate it.

After some initial adjustment of its sensitivity, I've also come to appreciate the glide pad, even though I used to swear by the razor-tip control offered by my previous notebook and laptop computers.

With the excellent sound provided by this system, and the fact that it is one of the quietest laptops I have encountered to date, this is a pretty good buy.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good mobile desktop - one of the best in this price range
Review: This is a very good machine for users looking for a mobile desktop. It has all the key features for a mobile desktop: powerful Intel CPU, DVD, CD-RW, 15" screen, plenty of RAM and HDD space.

The CPU was built by Intel to be used in desktops, not notebooks; that mean it uses more power and runs a little hotter. Toshiba has been using desktop CPU in their low cost machines because they cost less. If (like many users) you tend to plug your notebook in and use it at a desk, then this is a pretty good deal. If you are looking for a thin, light, long life notebook that will sit on your lap for long periods, then this isn't the machine for you (those machines are much higher up the price ladder).

The graphics on this notebook are okay, but they won't run newer 3D games very well. They are great for moderate gaming, CAD work, or watching DVDs. In all fairness there are very few notebooks in this price range that have 3D gaming quality graphics. The HP xt125 is an exception to this rule if you really want a gaming capable notebook (it has it's own tradeoffs like a 14" screen). If you "want it all" you will have to spend a bit more money.

This is a low cost notebook so you don't quite get everything. The quality of the components is good, but not first rate, the battery life isn't a long as more expensive offerings, and this isn't a notebook built for hardcore gamers. But if you want a powerful computer you can carry around with a large screen, then you won't find many that compare in this price range.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome machine!
Review: This is an awesome laptop for a fair price. It will handle most all jobs needed "on the road," and it has all the basic essentials (e.g., CD-R, 256 MBRAM, etc.). Overall, an outstanding product!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome
Review: This machine is awesome for its price! I bought it 2 weeks ago and I'm very satisfied so far. Although the 1415-S173 features a Celeron, the 'lite' chip from Intel, it has a full 256 KB of L2 cache so its performance nearly matches those of the far more expensive Pentium 4 chips (since until 'Northwood' core arrived, P4s featured 256 KB L2 caches). Besides, the processor is a mobile battery-friendly chip.

The laptop's hard drive is pretty fast and spacious; its DVD/CDRW unit works flawlessly and is among the less noisy units I've ever seen. It burns CDs at a 24X speed! DVD or DIVX reproduction is as smooth as a silk (not to mention DIVX encoding, is fast!). Ok, it has 'only' 16 MB of video memory but' those are real MB, not shared ones, so their performance is a way better if compared to most laptop graphics within the price range. Also, the graphics chip, which is what really makes the difference, is a speedy GeForce 4 Go 420! (NOT an ATI M6-C). This machine shines in games (they look gorgeous in its huge and bright 15' screen), even in some newer ones like NFS 6 or Unreal Tournament 2003 (maybe it doesn't matches the standards of high end desktop graphics of course, but those titles were still perfectly playable).

My only complaint about this machine is its weight' you should have strong shoulders if you want to carry it around. However, I still give it an A+

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Best value for the price
Review: This model had the best configuration for its price at the time I researched laptops in early November. The only downside I have found so far is the short battery life (2 hours) and the tinny sounding speakers. The touch pad is a bit erratic too but that could be just because I'm used to a mouse. This is my first laptop and I am very happy with it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Value!
Review: This Toshiba has every feature you could want, in a moderately
priced laptop. More than other brands, I have seen. The features are well designed & very easy
to use. This is 5 stars. Whats not to like? But...this is a LOW priced laptop! A good computer and a good value, surely.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Toshiba Satellite 1415-S173, is my favourite
Review: toshiba satellite is one of the best product to i ever like in the whole of my life. The toshiba note book is the best in which all person should afford to buy. But in Nigeria to even get one of this laptop, it is very difficult for me myself to get it and i want you amazon company to consider me and bring the price lower so that i can buy it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Two thumbs up!
Review: What can I say? I bought this 2 weeks ago, so I can't give it five stars just yet. But I shopped around alot, and this one always came on top. My wife has an HP Pavilion notebook, we have not have any major problems with it, but it does get quite hot and the power supply hums like crazy. Anyway back to the point in hand, as I read reviews left and right it became obvious that I was not buying another HP. I was left with Dell, Sony, and Toshiba. My colleages highly recommende both Dell and Toshiba, after trying several times to unsuccessfully get into the Dell Web support forum I decided to buy from Toshiba. So I shopped around and I went with this machine.

Review:
Use - I mainly use my computer for web browsing and CAD simulations. I have yet to throw something at this Toshiba that it has not been able to crunch in no time alone. Even some pretty intensive Matlab simuations, a breeze.

Components - I have used the DVD and CDRW pretty heavily (to make sure everything is working properly), no problem. The Celeron processor runs pretty cool actually, I guess the mobile architecture works pretty good.

Software - The software included is pretty standard; NAV, Works, Quicken, etc. The only one thing I would change about it, dump Works and include Wordperfect Home Office. But, since I already have MS Office that was not a drawback.

Conclusion - Great computer, I would say among the very best for the price range. If you have a little more money you could look at the 2435 but the extra amount of money does not buy you a great deal more.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: AWESOME!
Review: What one gets for the price you can beat it. Frankly, the speed is outstanding considering what the spec's. are. Great machine, highly recommend it!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Mouse Crashes after Hibernation
Review: When waking the computer after hibernation mode, the built in mouse no longer works unless the computer is rebooted, which is tricky to do without a mouse.


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