Toshiba Satellite A505-S6997 TruBrite 16.0-Inch Black/Silver Laptop – 4 Hours 40 Minutes of Battery Life

3 comments

1. 

   S. Dimmick on December 8, 2009 at 5:08 pm

   I’ve had this amazing laptop for nearly 3 weeks now and all I can say is – It Rocks!

   As a website developer I look to my laptop as my workhorse. I am constantly running multiple programs with intensive CPU usage and this machine doesn’t even break a sweat.

   I bought this machine to replace my aging Dell Inspiron 9400. Its graphics capabilities are awesome with the nVidia GT 230m card. The 1066 size of the Front Side Bus (this represents the bandwidth between the CPU and the RAM) makes this machine extremely fast.

   One of the issues I faced with my Dell was an overly sensative wireless connection. The S6997 is strong, stable and extremely fast for wireless access.

   Value: 3 years ago I paid $2700 for my Dell laptop. This Toshiba represents one of the best buys for laptops I’ve ever seen.

   Visually this machine is a piece of art! It’s piano like finish is pristine and the chrome accents really set it off (I know, not what you expect a geeky developer to say)

   The 16in screen is perfect. It is vibrant, bright and – well, its just perfect!

   Things That Could Be Better:
   
   not sure why it has a modem – does anyone ever use them anymore?
   
   the screen is a little on the reflective side – sitting in the sun makes it difficult to see the screen
   
   speakers are not as loud as the ones on my old Dell

   Things I Love:
   
   Mouse pad can be turned off – eliminating any eroneous touches
   
   touch sensative controls above the keyboard for media control (volume, pause, etc)
   
   backlite keyboard – awesome!
   
   build quality – better than a Mac!
   
   graphics – fast and vibrant

   The specs on this machine are amazing: [...]

   One final comment: not really sure why the other reviewer posted comments about a different machine on this product’s page??? Guess they really decided to have a bash at Toshiba.

   As a website developer I highly recommend this laptop. It’s worth every penny!

2. 

   Skyler Morris on December 8, 2009 at 7:25 pm

   Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RZHK7BV427WD I just got this computer on Saturday and all I can say is, if you are looking for a good desktop replacement/media/gaming laptop, im sure this is for you. The 16in TFT display is extremely bright and crisp, and even on its lowest brightness setting it can still be easily seen in bright lights with minimal glare. The lighted keyboard is really handy, although I can’t seem to be able to change the amount of time that it stays on. The touchpad is nice and responsive, and multi-touch is really handy for photo editing, etc. It sometime gets in the way if you accidentally rest a finger on it while moving the cursor. /the touch controls on the top of the keyboard are realy nice, and along with the media/volume controls, it also has an ‘eco-button’ which lowers the power consumption of the laptop. The speakers are wonderful, not great bass but what are you to expect from 1in speakers? They aren’t too tinny and sound great even at loud volumes, and i can tell you, for laptop speakers, these suckers are loud! Win7 pre-installed is a nice touch, but Toshiba also decided to install alot of Microsoft and it’s own bloat ware, not a huge issue, but most of it isn’t necessary.

3. 

   Mad B on December 8, 2009 at 9:13 pm

   Before I go ahead with my review, I want to mention that I did not purchase this laptop from Amazon. I paid the same amount as Amazon.

   I have a Desktop that I built about 2 years ago with, what were at the time, Top of the line components. This laptop comes Extremely close to my behemoth of a Desktop in performance. The Amazon description of the product covers it’s specifications fairly well. As such i will not go into detail of what this product has or doesn’t have. I will be reviewing it’s capabilities and it’s performance.

   I noticed that the 2 reviewers before me mentioned a couple of things that they were unsure of. I will answer those questions.

   1. This laptop does not have Bluetooth, nor does it have the built in Antennas for you to add a bluetooth card. That is not a big deal as many USB bluetooth adapters cost $10-$30.

   2. The timing of the Backlighting for the keyboard can be controlled in the bios.

   If you are wondering whether to choose this laptop over another one with the “T6600″. I suggest you choose this one. I will explain why. Although the “T6600″ is 2.2GHZ, it is usually running at a slower Clock rate of 800Mhz. This processor, specifically in this laptop, is running at 2.13Ghz at a clock rate of 1066MHZ which will throw out very close numbers in a benchmark. This Processor is also designed with a lower TDP wattage. Which in turn means a longer battery life.

   Since the bus is running at 1066Mhz, the memory that is put into this laptop (DDR3) is running at a matched clock rate. This brings this to an ‘almost’ enthusiast level of computing. For the price, it is an amazing deal.

   T6600 is cheaper than the P7450, and most average users will see higher clock rate for cheaper and go with T6600. Which is why i explained the difference above.

   The onboard video chipset in this laptop is a Nvidia 230M, which is the bottom of their enthusiast level Graphics chipsets. I will put it this way, it is absolutely amazing how good this chipset is. I have two SLI 8800GTX Ultras in my desktop which cost me almost twice as much as this laptop’s price 2 years ago. I still haven’t run into a game that has brought them down to their SLI’d knees and honestly i wasn’t expecting this laptop to even come close to their prowess. It hasn’t, but It’s right at their tails. I downloaded some of NVIDIAs tech demos. I ran the 8800Ultra graphics demo and it ran at full native resolution of this laptop without a hitch. I have to say i was pleasently surprised. I also downloaded the 200 series tech demo and it ran as well, at about 15 or so Frames Per Second. Which is Amazing because these tech demos are made to bring out the full potential of their top of the line cards and for the chipset to even run these demos at more than 15 Frames per second simply means that you will have NO problems playing any of today’s games at their full graphical settings.

   It comes with Windows 7 Home premium 64bit. You can easily upgrade that within the OS to any of the higher editions but for most regular users, the Home Premium is more than enough.

   I do have to agree with the bloatware. Although the bloatware isn’t quite as useless and cumbersome as some of the other laptop manufacturers it still hinders the experience; atleast that’s my opinion.

   The keyboard keys are, in my opinion a tad bit bigger than a regular full sized keyboard. Yet are not clicky like a regular desktop keyboard, which sometimes makes it a little bit harder to know or feel your way around the keys. Although it doesn’t hinder in anyway from performing any regular internet related tasks. I would suspect that people would have trouble with the keyboard at first if they are doing a lot of word processing but it shouldn’t be too hard to get used to.

   My least favorite part of this laptop is the touch pad. The touchpad is off to the left a little bit instead of being in the center like in most normal laptops. Also it is flush with the bezel of the laptop for aesthetic reasons. The touch pad does have a different texture then the rest of the laptop so it’s not hard to find it if you are not looking at it. The left and right click buttons are also extremely big, which is a turn off for me personally. But some people might like that. I believe the touchpad is also something that will take a bit of getting used to.

   The speakers are fairly nice. I am not an audiophile and if you are buying a laptop for it’s audio prowess then you should stop right now. A 1 inch speaker will never be as good as a full sized computer speaker or other Home Audio equipment. Although for being so tiny, they do sound very good. I am not disappointed with the speakers.

   Overall this laptop is a steal for the price that it is going for right now, I would give this laptop a 8 out of 10.

   Hopefully My review was helpful. If you have any questions, please comment and I will try to reply in a timely manner.

   Thank you