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| Toshiba Satellite A65-S126 |
Basic doesn't have to mean plain, as Toshiba's Satellite A65-S126 amply demonstrates. Priced at an affordable $999, the Satellite is as attractive as its price tag. At the same time, the Satellite A65-S126 also demonstrates that you get what you pay for. It's a good value, but it makes a number of compromises that a power user might be hesitant to make.
Fortunately, looks aren't one of the compromises. The blue and purple color scheme is pleasing, and the keyboard is surrounded by a brushed-silver deck. The keypad continues the brushed-silver theme, as does the pair of mouse keys at the bottom of the pad. Unlike some of the more expensive models, there is no scroll button.
We found the keyboard very comfortable to type on, with no trace of undue flex. We didn't like Toshiba's placement of the Windows key, however, which has been moved to the top of the keyboard, all the way to the right of the function keys. If you frequently use the Windows key to launch the Start menu, this relocation will be annoying.
The 7.7-pound Satellite is neither thin nor light. It's a comfortable desktop replacement, though. You can, of course, take it on the road when necessary, but the mediocre battery life we experienced in our tests suggest you'll be disappointed if you expect to watch a movie during a flight. Never breaking two hours of runtime whether the wireless networking is on or not, the battery life just isn't sufficient for working, or staying entertained, while mobile.
DVD playback using the included InterVideo WinDVD player was excellent, even on movies with a lot of action. The 15-inch LCD has a native resolution of 1024 x 768, which works well for DVD-watching, gaming, or even more mundane tasks like word processing. Audio sounds good on the Satellite; Toshiba claims the stereo speakers have titanium drivers. Audio enhancement is also provided by SRS TrueSound XT technology.
Toshiba bundles a copy of Microsoft Works with the Satellite, as well as Microsoft Office OneNote 2003. This application is just starting to make its way into the office, and is still more common on Tablet PCs. It's a great application for taking and organizing notes, however. Students, especially, may find this useful.
The Satellite A65-S126's graphics, for the most part, work better for DVD-watching than they do for gaming. The graphics chipset is ATI's Mobility Radeon 7000. This is an integrated graphics controller and uses up to 64MB of system RAM, but it's not sufficient for games, especially graphics-intensive ones like Doom 3 or Far Cry.
For most day-to-day tasks, the 2.8-GHz Celeron will provide decent performance. Benchmark test scores were only so-so, but using Word or browsing the Internet didn't reflect any shortfall in processing capability. The 4,200-rpm hard disk is spacious, at 60GB, although much faster drives are now available in notebooks.
The optical disc drive was a combo unit, capable of writing CD-R/RWs and playing DVDs. Sonic's RecordNow Basic 7.0 is included for burning CDs. Also included with our review system was a copy of Intuit Quicken New User Edition 2004, ArcSoft ShowBiz, and Norton AntiVirus (with a three-month subscription).
A parallel interface lets you use older printers, though there is no serial port. Three USB 2.0 jacks provide plenty of places to hook up accessories. There's also a Type II PC Card slot.
The wired Ethernet connection is a standard 10/100BaseTX RJ-45 jack, and it's easy to establish wireless connectivity with the integrated Atheros 802.11b/g adapter. This wireless adapter easily found our office LAN and provided excellent data transfer rates. You can turn it off to save battery power or provide additional security with a slide switch on the side of the laptop.
Conspicuously absent are a FireWire port and any internal flash media reader. These are both becoming common enough on laptops that their absence is notable, especially if you are into digital photography or video.
Unless you're a die-hard gamer or need a lightweight laptop that provides exceptional battery runtime, the compromises that the Satellite makes are acceptable. It's a very good computer for the money.
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| Processor |
| Processor Type |
Intel Mobile Celeron Processor |
| Data Bus Speed |
400 MHz |
Cache Memory |
| Installed Size |
128 kB |
RAM |
| Installed Size |
256 MB |
| Technology |
DDR-SDRAM (DDRRAM) |
Storage |
| Hard Drive |
60 GB |
| Drive Controllers |
IDE (ATA/EIDE/ATAPI) |
Optical Storage |
| Type |
DVD/CD-RW Combo,
Hard Drive |
Display |
| Type |
Active Matrix LCD (TFT) |
| Graphics Processor / Vendor |
ATI RADEON 7000 |
| Max. Resolution |
1024 x 768 (XGA),
1280 x 1024 (SXGA) |
Audio |
| Sound Support |
Realtek ALC250 |
Networking |
| Data Link Protocol |
Ethernet (10/100 Mbps),
Wireless Ethernet - 11 Mbps IEEE802.11b,
Wireless Ethernet - 54 Mbps IEEE802.11g |
Expansion |
| Expansion |
Type II CardBus,
Type II PC Card |
Miscellaneous |
| Input Devices |
Keyboard,
Touchpad |
| Included Devices |
AC Adapter,
Modem,
Power Cord,
Speakers,
Wireless LAN Antenna |
Operating System |
| Operating System |
Microsoft Windows XP |
Battery |
| Average Run Time |
4 hour(s) |
Dimensions (W x D x H) |
| Unit |
11.1 in x 13.5 in x 1.9 in |
Weight |
| Unit |
7.7 lbs |
Warranty |
| Warranty |
1 Year Limited Warranty |
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| Ratings stats: |
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| Total: |
0 comments |
0 votes |
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0 votes |
| Last 50 ratings |
date |
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| Lad Jelen {76.2.79.xxx} |
2006-10-20 |
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| This was my first notebook. I paid $750 at Circuit City after a $250 rebate. I had to immediately add memory to the miserly 256K supplied with it. The extra memory speeded it up a bit but it never approached the speed of my desktop. Battery life was too short to do much off mains power. It put out LOTS of heat, indicating it was wasting power. When I upgraded my software, it started hanging and generating error messages. It never worked well with some new USB hardware. I couldn't even back up the HD using Norton Ghost without it hanging. I now use it for small mickey mouse tasks, as I can't trust it to do anything meaningful without hanging. |
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