Toshiba Satellite X

Customer Reviews:

Toshiba Nice, Vista Not [Posted on 2007-10-17]
So I purchased quite possibly the biggest bad boy around as far as a laptop. The Toshiba is very very nice. Why Toshiba did not stick to XP instead of Windows Vista remains a mystery. Windows Vista is likely the most doggy, system crippling operating system I have come across since windows 95 came out and was installed on a 386 sx.

If you have an option try to stay with XP, its more stable it operates faster and certainly wont cripple your hardware with all its bloat!

As far as the laptop is concerned, I love the wide screen, This is a desktop replacement type of laptop. Buyer beware if you intend on using this laptop on any real travels it is quite heavy. by the time you load up the laptop, power supply (huge by its own right), accessories in your laptop carrying case, well hold on cause this thing gets heavy on a long trek, long like from your office to your car.
Compared to other laptops this one does not cook your legs as it operates so it runs relatively cool even under the most demanding games like supreme commander.
HD dvd is nice but the battery life does not hold long enough to complete a full movie.
This unit comes with the TV tuner feature. A nice Plus
10 key is nice if you need it otherwise its just something to fill the keyboard for the wider display.
The speaker system installed is the best that you can find on a laptop. By far the best sounding system I have ever listened to. almost as good as an external speaker system on lower volume.
Toshiba knocked themselves out on this box and crammed about everything but the kitchen sink inside. unfortunately they loaded a boat anchor OS on it.

Scream Machine at a Nice Price [Posted on 2007-10-20]
*Although Amazon recommends reviews don't be too long, this is a major purchase with many things to consider and deserves an in depth review.

I have owned 4 laptops, all Dell. My current laptop is a Dell Inspiron 8600 with the then revolutionary Pentium M processor. After three years the HD is acting funny, writing occasionally corrupt files, batch processing (processor intensive) of large RAW format photo files is taking forever (even with 1.25 GB of RAM) and my 80GB hard drive which seemed so huge back then is full. So it was time for a change.

I play my games on a Play Station 3, so although this laptop is marketed as a gaming laptop its not a selling point for me. (It even has a large, removable sticker promoting a game on the keyboard) I am into digital photography and have to process larger numbers of RAW format files into JPEGs. I also am into HD video. I have Blu-Ray covered with my PS3, so getting a laptop with an HD-DVD player that had HDMI out to play on my HD TV would cover all HD DVD formats. BTW, Netflix now ships both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formats of movies if they are available. Lastly, I like to surf the Net and listen to MP3s. The large screen makes surfing sweet and this laptop has FIVE harmon/kardon speakers so MP3s sound GREAT.

So based on what I use my laptop for, my buying criteria was:

-HD DVD player (preferably a SuperMulti)to watch HD DVDs and burn mps and photo and video DVDs
-Minimum 2 GB of Ram which helps speed up processing times
-HD drive of at least 120 GB for large amounts of photo and mp3 files
-Duo processor with at least 1.8 GHZ to speed up batch processing of photo files
-SD card reader for easy transfer of my photos files from my camera.

I looked first, of course, at Dell, then looked here at Amazon. For the same features, the x205 beats the price of comparable Dell models by a couple hundred. It also was in the same price range as 15" laptops with the features I wanted and since this was not a laptop I was traveling with, size was not an issue. And yes, in this case, bigger is better! Also, Toshiba has a good name and there were several good reviews here so I took the plunge.

This is my first computer with Vista and I was a little leary since all my programs are for XP. This is similar to my hesitation to jump to XP from ME and from Windows 98 to ME, but I have not had any serious problems yet. Many programs have Vista driver updates and Vista has the Windows Compatibility program that helps older programs that aren't working right on Vista to run correctly. Vista has a much more advanced look then XP, its like going from Star Trek to Star Trek The Next Generation. This is especially evident with the x205's biometic reader where you can setup locking the computer as well as logging into your secure websites with only a swipe of a finger.

This computer is blazing fast for everything I am using it for. Vista ranks system components performance from 1 to 5.9 with 5.9 being the highest. The rank shows how well a component works with Vista and is called the Windows Experience Index. The x205 overall Index is 4.8, which is computed by the LOWEST component score. The graphics card on the x205 scored a 5.9.

The screen is the best laptop screen I have ever seen, by far the brightest. It does have the shiny screen cover, not the dull covers that all the previous laptops I have owned had. So, it does suffer from glare, but it is brighter and has higher contrast then any screen I have seen. HD content on it is GORGEOUS! Going through the Windows Media Center setup you use an HD movie to set the screen up and your jaw will drop at how good it looks.

The biometric reader is a little fussy but I would rather swipe my finger a couple of times then try and remember a password and type it in.

I have watched a regular DVD on the player and it looks great. I have burned a DVD with the player and it worked fine, but it is not the fastest DVD burner available. I guess being able to read and write in so many formats (DVD+,DVD-,DVD-RAM and both formats of dual layer DVDs and CDs) you have to sacrifice speed.

The speakers sound great with little or no distortion. They are moderately loud, but a review I saw recently made it sound like they were much louder.

There is an issue with keyboard. The keys can be easily popped off. I have not done it yet, I have read about it and I can see where that can happen. I am ordering the Toshiba PA3611U-1ETC Silicone Keyboard Protector available on Amazon in hopes it will prevent that from happening. (Works great! Only thing is that hair clings to it like steel to a magnet)

The touch pad is unique in that it has buttons on it for the sound, mail, and programmable areas for starting up programs. You touch an area in the upper right of the pad to turn on the functions and when you do the pad illuminates blue. You have to get used to not hitting it while using it. The whole pad also feels a little off centered too far to the left. But, this laptop is so big you probably with be using a mouse anyway. It has 4 USB 2.0 ports on the right side so adding a mouse is no problem.

Pros:
Price vs Features (although it has gone up since I bought it), Processor Speed, HD Display Screen, HD Size, SuperMulti DVD player, Biometric reader, 6 USB 2.0!!!, all ports are on front and sides for easy access, attractive case, numeric pad on keyboard, rich sounding speakers, runs cooler on the bottom then my Dell laptops (heat is vented to the sides)

Cons:

Weight, AC Adapter converter is the size of a brick!, price of buying a second adapter is expensive.

UPDATE: A couple of things. First, the AC adapter is working intermittently. I contacted support and they are shipping another out, about 6 business days. Kinda surprised it is going to take that long when it only took 2 days to get the computer.

Next. I bought Transformers in HD DVD. I searched several stores before finding it so I could not wait to watch it. I put it in the laptop, and the software (Toshiba HD DVD Player) would not play it! I called support and they directed me to this laptops download page on the Toshiba Support website. I upgraded to the latest Toshiba HD DVD player listed. Well it still did not work so they opened a case file on it. The laptop is supposed to ship with Intervideo WinDVD 8. I think I deleted it when I was deleting the bloatware when I first got the laptop since I found an incomplete folder on the computer. Support told me I need to RESTORE my computer, ie delete everything, to get to the original state and have WinDVD 8 installed. Well I continued to search for an alternative. First, I put the restore disc in and while you can chose to restore programs, the long list did not include WinDVD 8. Then I found not listed on my models support page, but on the overall Toshiba support download homepage is a later model of the Toshiba HD DVD Player software that states you need to use it to play some HD DVDs made after Sept 17. I loaded it and found that while I can watch movies hitting the play icon on the player, I cant use the mouse on any of the screen icons. So, I can watch a movie WITHOUT all the extras HD DVD has! I decided to not restore my computer because if I do and this early version of WinDVD 8 does not play newer HD DVDs either, I will have to call someone to replace the window I will throw this laptop through. I am going to have to bite the bullet and cough up $70-$100 for HD DVD software. Really sucks.

Also, when I did get the HD DVD player to play a movie, I used the HDMI out to connect to my big screen TV and got an error message about external monitors were not supported. I dont know if this is software or not.

Because of this I am lowering this to 4 stars. Also I have not tried copying from an SD card yet and dont know if the reader supports SD HC cards of 2GB and bigger. Hopefully it does or if not, that is another strike against it as large capacity cards are dropping in price everyday.

UPDATE #2: I ended up getting Nero's HD DVD/Blu-Ray plug-in since I already had Nero 7. At $25 it was the cheapest, and since its a download (although its like 188MB!) the fastest solution. However, I still can't click onto the on screen icons. But, Nero allows me to go through the chapters so I have "blind" access to the extras. I also tried the HDMI out and it doesn't work with Nero either. sigh. Real bummer that I can't find a way to watch on my big screen TV.

UPDATE #3 Tosiba's newest version of its HD DVD player software does work with the DVD onscreen menus. You have to use key commands, however, to get it to work. Only the play icon seems to work on the player control panel. The Esc key brings up the DVD's menu and you navigate using the arrow keys and hit Enter to execute menu commands. Also, Toshiba shipped my replacement power cord (only the half with the converter box) overnight, not ground as I was told on the phone. Now the only thing I have to tackle is getting HD DVDs to play via the HDMI out.

UPDATE #4 (most likely the last) I got the HDMI out to work and play an HD DVD movie on my TV. I used the latest software version of the Toshiba HD DVD player. It wasn't working before because for whatever reason it won't let you display the movie on both the laptop and the TV so you have to either right click the desktop and go into the NVIDIA controls and choose only one display and pick your TV from the pulldown list or use FN F5 which brings the same thing up. The picture (Transformers) looked great so I am pleased. I have an older TV with DVI so I have to use a DVI-HDMI adapter and the headphone out for sound, but it works. I imagine the digital out on the front of the laptop could be used with a surround system, although I am not sure and its a mini plug out, not an RCA or optical out like I am used to seeing.

x205 s9349 great all around notebook [Posted on 2007-10-29]
Toshiba Satellite X205-S9349 17" Notebook PC (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7100, 2 GB RAM, 240 GB Hard DRive, HD SuperMulti DVD Drive, Vista Premium)

I guess i hit this notebook on the right day! i got it for 1499.00 free shipping. i have had it for over a week now and so far so good. i did hsve a problem with getting the hd drive to read. i had to search the net on how to fix it. you have to download the drivers yourself for the audio, hd player, and the video card for everything to work properly. you can't use mock drivers either. they have to be toshiba signed. for this particular notebook i had to download the player for the sli version notebook because the one they had for the x205 didn't work either. i was a pain in the neck. once you get everything working, its been wonderful. i just ordered a hdtv to really see what this can do. vista seems to run pretty smooth although slow on the boot. this lappy is beautiful. the screen is huge! and the keyboard is a regular sized desktop board.very functional. i would recommend this lappy to anyone who is techy. but for someone who wants to buy something and expect everything to work out of the box, this lappy isn't for you. well worth what you pay. there is nothing else out there for the money you save. just have someone handy who knows how to install drivers and make sure things are compatible.

A great Laptop [Posted on 2007-11-07]
Pros:
Beautiful large screen.
Fast processor and plenty of RAM.
Great video card GRAW2 runs at acceptable FPS with all settings at it s highest .
The sound is fantastic, everyone is always shocked when I play something for them on it.
Very sturdy case, not flimsy at all.
Lots of extra little features on it that aren t mentioned in the description toggle switch for WiFi, volume control spins instead of having hard stop so it works well with the soft volume controls, touchpad can turn into a media control pad .

Cons:
Very large laptop, it actually doesn t fit very well in my X-Large Timbuktu Messenger bag.
The little rubber feet are just glued on and one has already come off.
The power supply is gigantic and literally weighs 3 pounds by itself.

If you are looking for a desktop replacement or a portable mid to high end gaming system, this is a great laptop. If you are not looking for either of these things, take a look at another laptop. This is a very large and powerful laptop that is at the limits of portability. I love mine, but I use it for the reasons mentioned above.

Satellite X205 [Posted on 2008-01-02]
Very happy with the delivery and the product. Thus far the only issue is a single dead pixel on the lower area of the screen and a card reader that has trouble deciding if it can read Sony memory sticks...great notebook!

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