Review: Toshiba Laptops

Note by editor: Toshiba laptop reviews is a guest review by one of our readers: Jim J. Donalds.

Today we are going to take a look at three popular Toshiba laptops each with a different price point and purpose. Exact model numbers will be listed followed by the most basic but important stats. Also included for comparison purposes is average price from several popular and reputable websites. After a brief review of the pros and cons a recommendation will be made for each model.

Toshiba Satellite C655D-S5043
Price: $400
The Stats: 15.6″ screen, AMD V120 2.2GHz processor, 2gb DDR3 ram, 320GB HDD, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250, Windows 7 64 bit
The Facts: It’s a $400 dollar laptop, expecting it to do anything other than basic word processing and surfing the web, email etc. is currently unrealistic. That said this laptop does surprisingly well considering it’s minuscule price tag. 2gb of ram is too little in this day and age, thankfully Toshiba has left one ram expansion slot open so when the buyer gets tired of dealing with the low ram they can easily toss in another 2gb stick and call it a day. One of the more recommended cheap laptops on the market.
Recommended for: Basic email and web surfing.

Toshiba Satellite A505-S6035
Price: $1,000
The Stats: 16″ screen, Intel i7-720 QM 1.60 ghz processor, 4gb DDR3 ram, 500gb HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M gpu with 1gb vram , Windows 7 64bit
The Facts: Toshiba actually delivers a laptop at the thousand dollar mark that turns out to be a decent gaming laptop. You won’t be able to play the latest and greatest games at max settings but for the price the performance can’t be beat. As a gaming laptop it is of course able to handle any other basic tasks thrown at it with aplomb. At 6.5 lbs it’s hit’s that middle of the road spot for portable laptops. Still with a shorter than usually battery life and 16″ screen while you could use this as a literal laptop I think of it more as a mobile desktop, something to set up at a desk or table at the airport. While Toshiba earns points for making sure the laptop stays cool they get a negative for the amount of bloatware that comes per-installed.
Recommend for: Budget conscious gamers

Toshiba X505-Q890
Price: $1,700
The Stats: 18.4” screen, Intel Core i7 740QM 1.73GHz processor, 6GB DDR3 ram, 500GB HDD, 64 GB SSD HDD, Bluray Combo Drive, NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360 M
The Facts: This is a monster of a computer in laptop form! While you definitely will not be using this beast in your lap for any extended period of time it’s great for setting setting up at your destination and not having to regret leaving a desktop behind. Huge 18” screen will playback your blu-ray movies from the combo drive in full 1080p HD! The 64GB SSD drive will ensure quick boot times and load times of Windows and other essential programs. The NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360 M will allow you to play the newest games on high settings with all the trimmings. Other than the size and possibly the price tag there isn’t anything not to like about this laptop and honestly if your even looking at this model neither of those will come across as a negative.
Recommended for: Gaming and desktop replacement.

There you have it, three very different notebooks on sale from one reputable company. Something for everyone and even if none of the three Toshiba models covered in the article quite meet your needs the reviews can still give you a good place to start from. Decide which model closest meets your needs and then check out other laptops from that model line. Happy shopping!

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Laptops On Sale: What To Look For

The first step to purchasing very cheap laptops is knowing what you want it to do. If you intend to perform any gaming, it is important that your prospective laptop have some form of NVidia or ATI graphics processor: An Intel GPU lacks 3D processing capability and is therefore only suitable for web browsing and other office work. For gaming purposes, accept nothing with less than 2 GBs of RAM. At the time of this writing, the Intel-family processors dominate the AMD equivalents in performance and cost, but AMD processors are generally somewhat cheaper.

If gaming is not a serious concern for you, go with the cheapest thing you can: Just about anything will run your word processor and browser. For an operating system, unless you are purchasing more than 3 GBs of RAM, try to stick with Windows XP: Support and compatibility are simply better at this point time. However, be aware that you will need a 64-bit operating system (Win7 64 is recommended) if you intend to exceed this amount of memory, as 32-bit operating systems such as XP are unable to effectively utilize more memory.

The next important point in buying laptops on sale is to know where to look. For this, we turn to the Google. Key in a helpful query like notebooks on sale, and peruse the hits returned. Competitive price offers begin at the $200 range, but these lower-end models will not be suitable if you intend to use your computer for portable gaming. Under no circumstances, however, should you seriously consider spending more than about $800, which should be more than adequate.

Finally, take a look at the addon options provided: Some sort of external USB mouse can be very useful as the trackpad is not suited for precision control. While not normally recommended for a desktop PC, the extended warranty of up to 3 years is worth considering: Laptop computers often have high failure rates due to battery failure, loss of external components such as the rubber feet, friction wear of the built-in mouse touchpad, and failure from overheating. As laptops are not particularly user-serviceable, you can’t count on being able to fix this yourself or have a technical friend fix it for you: When laptops fail, they pretty much have to be sent back, and that means you’ll want the warranty. Be sure to keep track of when your warranty will expire and send it back for one last servicing before it does, and get those lost rubber feet, the dead battery, damaged power jacks, and other wear-and-tear issues fixed up for the last time.

With all this in mind, an external hard drive is a worthwhile consideration, to back up all your data when you send it in. Expect to have to do this! Plan ahead, because within a year of the warranty expiring, you’ll be the proud owner of a doorstop, paperweight, or brick. Good thing you know how to get cheap new laptops, right?

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Buying Very Cheap Laptops (and getting a good deal...

This is a guest post by Rob C, one of our new readers.

If you are like me, you probably don’t have a whole lot of money to spend on a new laptop. If you don’t get caught up in all the different features, there are some good quality, very cheap laptops on the market.

I highly recommend buying a laptop from a brand that you are familiar with. You can find brand name laptops that don’t cost much more than no-name brands, but you’ll have much better luck when you need to find a part for your laptop.

If your main purpose for the laptop is to check emails and use the internet, go for less memory. When the salesman says you must have 3 GB of memory, explain what you need the laptop for. Hard drive is another issue when looking for cheap laptops. A high capacity one is not needed if you’re browing some sites and answering a few emails each day.

To save money on a laptop, it’s very important to spend time thinking about what you will be using it for. If you will be using it on long trips, a laptop with a longer battery life will help a great deal. What size of screen do you want, the smaller they are , usually the cheaper they are. Do you want a bulky laptop or one that is slim and light in weight? Are you starting college and looking for deals on cheap laptops for students? Will it be used by your kids, your spouse or just yourself? These are all things to consider before shopping.

Pick and choose which features are most important to you because you will not get everything in a low priced laptop. Just remember the features that should be the most important are the ones that are almost impossible to change, or would be very expensive like the screen size, the design, the hard drive, the weight of the laptop, CPU etc. Cosmetics like memory, the battery, and DVD player can all be changed in the future and added for a low cost. If you are looking for the best cheap laptops, make a list of all the functions you will be performing before you shop. This should give you a good idea of what you need.

Another possibility is to consider a refurbished laptop. I don’t know much about them, but I know a few people who own one and they’re all very satisfied with their purchases.

Just do a little bit of research before shopping at a very cheap laptops sale, and always remember if you buy the older model there’s a good chance you will get it a whole lot cheaper than the newer one.

Update: One of our readers, Joe L. Allen, submitted his picks for five of the cheapest laptops on the market today:

1. The current leader in the low price laptop market is the Acer Aspire One at about $275. Originally a much smaller unit, the Aspire One now has a friendlier 10.1 inch display. Although this reviewer laments the passing of Windows XP Home (available on earlier models), Windows 7 Starter is an acceptable substitute on in-stock Acers currently sold.

2. Toshiba’s mini NB255-N240 Netbook PC shares much in common with the Aspire One. Both are netbooks; both also have the same display size, memory capacity, and hard drive capacity. The Toshiba has a slightly different Intel Atom N455 processor. How to choose? The tactile feel of the keyboard can make a huge difference. A buyer would be wise to try both keyboards if possible.

3. The ASUS 10.1″ Eee PC is a netbook very similar to the Aspire One. It has 1 Gigabyte of memory, a 10.1 inch display, a 160 Gigabyte hard drive, and Windows 7 Starter. The 6-cell lithium-ion battery in the ASUS is an excellent advantage that this model has over the Aspire One, the latter having a battery capacity of only half that of this ASUS.

4. The Silver Acer Netbook PC, is very similar to its earlier cousin, the Aspire One. The Silver One doubles the Aspire One’s battery capacity, however, opting for a 6-cell battery. This makes the Silver competitive with the ASUS. Another advantage of the Silver is a third USB port. For these two benefits, you will likely pay more for the Silver than the Aspire or the ASUS. Much of the issue comes down to price, especially if you don’t need the second port.

5. Be on the lookout for a newer Aspire One model. Slightly more expensive than the Intel Atom-equipped Aspire One netbook, the newer model (about $350) features an AMD processor with more cache and DDR 3 memory. If you are interested in a more robust Acer Netbook and are willing to pay $50 to $100 more for that power, the Aspire One with it’s AMD Athlon processor is the one to seek out.

Question for our readers:
What was the cheapest laptop you ever bought and were you satisfied with it?

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Black Friday Laptops On Sale

I remember that a couple of years ago laptops were expensive and quite exquisite, as only a bunch of people could afford them. A lot has changed since then, but even today, people are still looking for deals and bargains on laptops for sale. You can still find cheap new laptops if you know where and when to look.

Such deals are usually available all year long, especially when a new line of devices is announced and retailers try to get rid of old stocks. However, the best sales offers can be found during late November and December, the period officially called “Winter sales season”.

Regular laptops now run from around 400 bucks to as high as 3 to 5 thousand bucks, for the highly performing gaming rigs (like Alienware). It’s a vast range and anyone can find something suitable in between. Expensive laptops might get price cuts from time to time (significant I might say), but they’ll still remain pricey.

Standard and cheap laptops however can drop from their regular $500-$600 bucks for instance, to as low as $350-$400. I am expecting the biggest drops on November 27th this year, during Black Friday 2009 day. You might be able to get some very good Black Friday laptop sales offers that day, especially as early birds (products only available early in the morning, as “baits” to lure people in stores) . These deals however run out incredibly fast, and you might have to get in lines early in the night and fight some angry shoppers to buy the most popular laptops for sale.

Online webstores offer good bargains on laptops too. I would suggest scooping Dell’s or HP’s homepages on Black Friday and the week just before Christmas if you want to profit from the price cuts. Keep an eye out for cheap Dell laptops as they’re usually a good bargain.

Also, if you want, there’s the alternative of the smaller cheaper notebooks called netbooks. You could get some of the best such netbook computers for around $300 bucks, and they are good enough for most standard applications, while being very light and offering incredible battery life (around 6-7 hours).

Last but not least, you can go for refurbished laptops. They are usually 20 to 40 % discounted, but might have minor scratches and faults and come with only up to 6 month warranty.

In the end, I’m pretty sure there will be some very very good deals on laptops in the following two months. It will be just up to you to be able to profit from them and get the desired product for the desired price.

*This is a guest post on Laptops On Sale. *

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3 Tips For Buying Laptops On Sale

If you’d like to buy quality laptops on sale, you’ll need to do some homework first. After all, there’s nothing worse than buying a laptop at fifteen percent off the list price, and then discovering that another store was selling very cheap laptops. To help you avoid this problem, here are three computer-buying tips:

1. First, know what you’re looking for. Visit two or three different computer retailers, and examine a variety of notebooks on sale in person. Decide what you absolutely need in terms of functionality, wireless internet access, memory capability, and processor speed. Then, make a list of the specific types of computer that you might be willing to buy. Be sure to write down the exact serial number and specifications of the model that you’re looking at, because it’s easy to mistake one laptop for another. With your new list, you’ll be able to monitor weekly ads for sales on the specific models that interested you, and you’ll be able to compare the most recent price against the price that you have recorded on your list.

2. Once you have a list of models that you’d be willing to purchase, head to your local library. They should keep a good stock of computer magazines and consumer journals, which you can use to figure out a rough estimate of the average price for each laptop. While you’re reading these articles, make sure to take notes about consumer satisfaction ratings, possible glitches, and common complaints about each model. You may need to budget money for an extended warranty or repair plan, and you’ll want to factor estimates of those costs into your potential expenditures. With this information, you’ll be able to spot the best deals on cheap new laptops.

3. Now that you have a list of possible costs, and a rough idea of what to expect from each laptop, examine your options. You’ll want to consider whether there are any big sales coming up (like Black Friday or Back to School specials), and you’ll also want to ask yourself if you have any consumer loyalty cards or coupons that would apply to a computer purchase. It’s usually a good idea to take stock of these options and then wait for a few weeks, recording the advertised prices for each laptop on your list to get a sense of the overall trends in the market. If prices seem to be going up, for example, it might be a good idea to purchase a laptop during the next sale period, in order to get the best deal.

After you’ve spent some time working on your list, researching your potential laptop, and monitoring prices, you’ll be able to make the best laptop choice possible, and find the best deal that’s available in your area. If all else fails, you can always rent a laptop for the time being.

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