Toshiba Satellite M305-S4920 14.1-Inch Laptop offers designed to provide on-the-go productivity and entertainment to fit any budget, the Toshiba M305-S4835 notebook PC weighs just over 5 pounds. The 14.1-inch widescreen display offers TruBrite technology for optimal image clarity and a 1280 x 800 resolution for extra desktop working space and a widescreen aspect ratio for watching letterboxed DVDs. This affordable notebook PC is powered by the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processor–with Centrino 2 technology–which boosts speed, reduces power requirements, and saves on battery life. The 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 includes a quick 1066 MHz front-side bus and 3 MB of L2 cache, providing an optimized, multithreaded architecture for improved multimedia and multitasking performance.
A 1.3 megapixel digital web camera built into the LCD’s bezel lets you quickly snap photos and participate in live video chats. The integrated webcam does more than just video chats. It includes Toshiba Face Recognition capabilities–the ultimate hands-free, hassle-free way to log onto your laptop. Just show your face to the webcam–no keeping track of hard-to-remember passwords and no unnecessary typing. And if you’re using one laptop for several users–say for the whole family or for a small business–Toshiba Face Recognition lets you switch profiles with one simple look.
Other features include a 320 GB hard drive, 4 GB of installed RAM (maximum capacity), Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics processor with up to 1292 MB of shared video memory, dual-layer DVD±RW burner (with LabelFlash print functionality), Draft-N Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n), combo USB/eSATA port, and 5-in-1 memory card reader. Additionally, this Toshiba notebook is RoHS-compatible, effectively reducing the environmental impact by restricting the use of lead, mercury and certain other hazardous substances.
This PC also comes preinstalled with the 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1), which includes all of the Windows Media Center capabilities for turning your PC into an all-in-one home entertainment center. In addition to easily playing your DVD movies and managing your digital audio library, you’ll be able to record and watch your favorite TV shows (even HDTV). Vista also integrates new search tools throughout the operating system, includes new parental control features, and offers new tools that can warn you of impending hardware failures.
Helpful consumer’s review
Like Toshiba laptops generally, they are realtively strong,and this model is rather powerful for the money. The glossy finish makes it an ad for fingerprints, smudges, dust — every little thing shows ups – What on earth were the designers thinking when they came up with a high gloss finish(”We’ll make every surface high gloss, the cover glossy, the case glossy, even the keys! It will be beautiful!” “Uh, ever heard of fingerprints?”)
As laptops go, the Toshiba Sattelite’s tend to be reliable and reasonably rugged.
The set up is easy and the Toshiba software for, for example, software updating, is easy to use. You do need to go to the toshiba website and look for the BIOS update and download and run that but it’s easy to do although most novices will probably avoid those steps.
Like many Toshibas, battery life is poor at best, only about 45 min to 1.5 hours, depending on hw much you use the hdrive, dvd and how bright the screen is, etc. The advertised battery life seems to assume you don’t use the hdrive much, nor the dvd and keep the screen dim. Still, one would be hard pressed to get the advertised battery life.
So these notebooks are good if you need a PC you can move from place to place. But if you want one to use whihle on the move (without being plugged in for several hours) then you might want to check out notebooks designed favoring battery liffe over performance. OR you can fine tune the Power Control on this machine, dimmer screen, turning off hdisk sooner, going into hibernation instead of sleep, etc. The Toshiba software, which youcan access through the Windows Control Panel gives you considerable flexibility adjusting advanced power control options. The stock options, even the so-called “balanced” mode won’t favor battery life longer than an about an hour.
