HP G62-340us 15.6-Inch Laptop PC - Up to 4 Hours

HP G62-340us 15.6-Inch Laptop PC - Up to 4 Hours of Battery Life (Charcoal) (Personal Computers) 

I'm really pleased with the purchase of this laptop. One thing to realize is that it's not the fastest or thinnest/lightest laptop out there. It's pretty much a standard laptop, with modest specs, but it does all many of the functions that a basic computer user out there is looking for.

Pros:
Nice keyboard - chicklet style, easy to type on
Touchpad response is smooth and easy to use (note: see con on touchpad below)
Good screen clarity
Speedy enough for most tasks (internet, word processing)
Wireless connection was strong, fast
Fan is quiet and unobtrusive
Doesn't get very hot when on your lap

Cons:
Case design very basic (rubberized?) and not all that attractive
Touchpad button is stiff - Hard to push
Too much HP software installed - Some of this will appeal to the novice user who may like all the toolbars, picture managers, dvd players, and software update programs installed.

At first it seemed as if the screen was a bit blurry, but then I realized it was the opening HP setup window that looked bad. It's not designed for the optimal screen resolution of the LCD panel. I don't know why HP doesn't fix this, as it's the 2nd time that I've noticed this on HP laptops. The screen looks nice in Windows 7.

I'll try and update this review a bit more once I have more time with the laptop, including battery life.

Overall, a nice machine in this price range. You can find similar specs across the board with the different manufactures of laptops, but this would be a quality choice.

Toshiba Satellite T235-S1370 13.3-Inch Laptop

Toshiba Satellite T235-S1370 13.3-Inch Laptop ( Fusion Chrome Finish in Black) (Personal Computers) 

Except for one "feature", you can't beat this laptop for its price in the 13", ultraportable, workhorse class. The LED screen is great and this computer's ergonomics are truly world class....the best anywhere. It's sturdy and the exterior form factor makes it feel and handle even lighter and smaller than its 3.8 pounds and actual dimensions.

The dual core Pentium 1.2GHz processor, a crippled version of the iseries, works much better than expected. I do wish the i3 and/or i5 had been an option as well as a 7200 rpm drive but, no matter, it's quite fast enough as it is. The integrated graphics are also really good for integrated graphics...again, the iseries architecture thing.

So, to the 3 star rating -- This laptop and other late model Toshiba's have a power off battery drain issue, or problem....how you view it depends on how you use your laptop. Left installed, the battery will drain at about 10%/day with the laptop turned off.....not sleep or hibernate, but off! Ten days max without use or charging and the battery's dead unless it's been removed. Turns out this is well known among users. Toshiba says it's normal behavior, which is just nuts, and won't address it further. Speculation is this is a motherboard design flaw possibly linked to to the USB port sleep 'n charge feature. Irrespective, please be aware of this and expect it before you buy. If you use your laptop daily and charge it often, or don't mind pulling the battery when it's not going to be used for a few days, this should not be a problem and the T235 remains an outstanding value...a bargain. If, like me, this is a secondary computer used for business travel that can routinely sit unused for a week or more....then it may well be a deal breaker.

Toshiba Satellite L675-S7108 17.3-Inch LED Laptop

Toshiba Satellite L675-S7108 17.3-Inch LED Laptop (Grey) (Personal Computers) 

I never owned a laptop before this one, but this computer is everything I expected and more. I bought a good, protective case for it, a Targus, which has the Dome Protection System, and costs about $80, but is well worth it. The machine is quick, the keypad is great (except some of the punctuational key markings are a bit too small) and the screen size is very impressive. Clarity and definition are as good as you can get, and the entire machine is responsive and quick. I am impressed with the capacity, although I don't do gaming or anything fancy. For email, general business work and researching, this computer has made me a believer, and I definitely do not miss my desktop unit any longer. I travel a lot, and find the Toshiba L675 easy to hook up and use in hotels or anywhere. The case is stylish, with a clever design worked into the construction. The only downside is the speaker, which is of general tinny, low quality, like all laptops. The simple solution is to purchase a bar speaker or a set of small, compact speakers that fit in the generous-sized Targus case, and set them up to enhance the sound. When you do, you can't tell the sound quality from that of a desktop.~~

Toshiba Satellite A665D-S6051 LED TruBrite 16-Inch Laptop

Toshiba Satellite A665D-S6051 LED TruBrite 16-Inch Laptop (Black) (Personal Computers)
This laptop is really the perfect laptop for entertainment purposes. It has a ATI Radeon HD 4250 and the m880G chipset working with the processor for a decent GPU, but it would be certainly not ideal for any serious gaming or intensive 3d rendering.

As an entertainment laptop though, this computer has just about everything right about it. The 16" screen is beautiful; the 1.6ghz quad core Phenom II is a wonderful multi-tasker and great for media. The speakers are absolutely unbelievable for being internal laptop speakers; They actually sound good, at loud volumes! Unheard of in my experience with laptop speakers. The bass is amplified surprisingly well given the constraints, as are the tones in general. There is a very important program on the computer that allow you to control the audio your computer is putting out: It is called "Realtek HD Audio Manager", and can be found in your control panel. It will allow you to utilize an equalizer and Dolby enhancement.

Also great are the many ports that are found on this computer. There are 4 USB, one being a hybrid USB/eSATA. There is (importantly for entertainment purposes) an HDMI output, as well as a VGA output, just in case, I guess. The keyboard is back lit, as is the screen, so typing in low-lit conditions is a breeze. The keyboard and the touch pad that are on this computer are of truly excellent quality; I have had other Toshibas recently that had much worse touch pads and keyboards and so I feel really happy that I do not have this issue. This computer is not that heavy, but it is 16", so understand that it is not ultra portable.

The type of battery that is in this computer is very efficient with energy consumption and can last for well over 3 hours (nearly 4, actually) without really other than a little screen brightness sacrificed (pressing the "eco" utility button is all it takes to get close to 4 hours without really sacrificing much. This is a great balance for me, because most other laptops of this type have much more power-hungry processors in them that eat up the battery in closer to two hours, as opposed to the 3 to 4 I get with this computer. This is much easier to work with the approximately over 2 hours with most other computers of this type. Also helpful in this area of energy saving is the technology that allows you to listen to music, charge devices, or do pretty much anything you want through the computer's ports while the computer itself is in sleep mode.

As for the cons of this computer, they are really limited. It is a great computer, especially for the mid $600s, but I do wish that the hard drive speed was 7,200 RPM. I'm not sure if the 5,400 RPM hard drive will create a bottleneck with the computing ability of this laptop, but in my initial tests on this computer, there has been only slight lag versus what I would expect on a 7,200 RPM computer. I may try to put in a cool, power sipping 7,200 RPM internal SATA drive at the end of my 1 year warranty, as I could just take the SATA drive in here already and put into a casing and hook up through the eSATA port as a backup drive. Two benefits from one move! A related hardware gripe is that the M880G chipset/ ATI Radeon 4250 is a decent GPU for everyday applications, but it could stand to have been beefed up a bit...

Another con with this computer is that the USB ports are awkwardly placed near the outsides of the wrists when the fingers are on the home row keys, and plugging the USB mouse into a port located in this location makes you have move the mouse around the piece jutting out of the USB port. This is really only a problem when working with limited space, and since the touch pad is a great one, this isn't too big of a problem, really.

The last con would be the bloatware. There is really quite a bit of software loaded onto this computer, and with some of the programs, you will probably decide to uninstall, as I did. There are useful programs and there are useless ones; be prepared to remove some stuff that you don't need, though.

Bottom line, this computer is an awesome entertainment machine. The processor is a great choice for multi-tasking and energy efficiency. It is really a good processor for this computer. The other features like harman/kardon speakers are excellent, especially if you are going to use your computer primarily for media ass I am.


Edit- The price on this computer has fluctuated quite a bit recently. I want to note that this computer, despite having a quad-core processor, is certainly not worth as much as an i5 or similar processor. I love AMD, and believe that their new line of Turion II X2 processors seem to be the sweet spot with them and laptops. 2.3ghz, two cores, modern processor technologies... These Turions don't have the four cores like the P920 in this laptop, but since these cores can't be utilized completely in today's usage, I have found that the higher clock rate and only two cores seems to work better for most any application that I have tried. This laptop is not bad, with it's four cores and very low power consumption. However, compared to the Turion II X2 P520, a processor with higher clock speed, equal power consumption, and two fewer cores, I think it will show that the two, faster cores work better for most processes. It should be noted that both of these processors have 2mb L2 cache, but the four cores spreads it to 512k per core while it is 1mb per core on the dual-core.

Toshiba Satellite L455D-S5976 15.6-Inch Laptop (Matte Silver)

Toshiba Satellite L455D-S5976 15.6-Inch Laptop (Matte Silver) (Electronics) 

While the listed $394 price tag is not that extreme, take that listed "$204 off" from a 599.99 base price with a grain of salt.

Overall the reliability record of Toshiba Satellite machines has been quite solid, ranking alongside Asus and Sony in as the best terms of malfunction rates despite some of the lowest prices, so taken from that aspect this is a great budget machine that won't get too hot or eat too much power.

That said, the price is somewhat in line with sale prices you can find of machines one step above this in terms of specs (dual core processor's with 3 gigs of RAM).

If you can find it for $329 or less and don't have needs much heavier than web-browsing/word processing/maybe playing (if you purchase a pair of speakers or at least headphones) than this could be the perfect machine for you.

At $394 however you can probably do better, and if you want to be able to play games a couple years old, use photoshop, mutlitask, etc. then you are probably best of looking for a machine just a touch more powerful than this.

Toshiba Satellite L505-GS5037 TruBrite 15.6-Inch Laptop

Toshiba Satellite L505-GS5037 TruBrite 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black) (Personal Computers) 

Not too long ago, I needed to buy a new laptop computer since my old Dell computer nearly died. (There was some sort of hard drive problem that would only allow me to start up in 'safe mode.') After scouring Amazon for several days, I decided upon this Toshiba Satellite computer. It seemed like the best value for the money I was willing to spend.

Pros:
Big screen -- This is great for watching movies in true 16:9 ratio. The screen is also really bright so you won't miss any details.
It has a number pad -- I really like being able to use 10-key typing to enter numbers in documents and web sites. Having a number pad is surprisingly necessary.
Fast start-up / Fast wake-up -- This computer has enough resources to start up quickly from an off state. The start-up feels like it could be a little bit faster, but, again, it is still significantly faster than my old Dell. I usually don't put my computers in hibernation mode when I walk away for any extended period of time, so I can't critique that feature of this computer.
Stylish -- This computer looks sleek and sophisticated. It is a real joy to look at.
Generous system resources -- This computer has 4GB of RAM and 500GB of hard disk capacity. It also has those new Intel processors that feature "hyper-threading" technology. Since Windows 7 is a system hog, a new laptop should at least have 6GB of RAM, but 4GB seems to be just fine for this machine. I can switch quickly between programs, start programs quickly, and end them quickly, too. A 500GB hard disk is just an astoundingly huge amount of storage space. There is more than enough space for photos and movies.
The mouse-pad -- I don't know how Toshiba did it, but the mouse-pad is the coolest feature of the laptop. The mouse-pad looks like it was spray-painted on top of the plastic shell. It also works really well AND it offers multi-touch functionality. If you need to increase the size of the font on a web page, all you do is spread two fingers on the mouse-pad. It is actually pretty damn cool.

Cons:
Atrocious speakers -- OK, the worst feature in this computer are the absolutely horrible speakers. The sound that comes from them is tinny and without depth. I find it interesting, to say the least, that Toshiba would have a mid-range computer with decent hardware specs but include insufficient speakers. Whoduthunk?
Not enough ports / Bad port locations -- Again, for the amount of hardware specs this computer has, Toshiba only included 2 USB ports. The laptop shell is spacious enough to include 4 USB ports without any problems. My old Dell laptop had 4 USB ports. Also, the USB ports and power DC-in locations are really inconvenient: They are located on the right side of the machine. Most people are right-handed BUT protruding cords interferes with desk space which, in turn, limits the space that most people might have because of the locations of the ports. The USB ports and DC-in power port should be re-located to the back of the machine.

Other details:
The computer is finished with a matte black plastic shell. Just so you know, matte (any color) shows off every single speck of dust and finger print! After I type this review I'm going to wipe down the whole machine with a clean cotton cloth. Also, the keys are matte black, too, so they really show off finger prints! Don't laptop manufacturers know that laptops are dirty machines?! This laptop also weighs 6lbs. For me, it isn't heavy, but for others it might be too heavy.

Final thoughts:
Overall, I really like this laptop. It has plenty of resources for a multitude of applications. I can play some graphically intense games without too many problems. It has plenty of processing speed, RAM, and hard disk space for just about anything you can throw at it. This is a great all-around mid-range laptop. The only reason I didn't give this laptop a 5-star rating is because there simply are not enough USB ports, and the locations of the ports should be on the back of the machine instead of the right side. The speakers are also sub-par for what could have been included.

Toshiba Portégé R705-P41 TruBrite LED 13.3-Inch Laptop

Toshiba Portégé R705-P41 TruBrite LED 13.3-Inch Laptop (Metal/Blue) (Personal Computers) 

The R705 is unique in packing a full-performance CPU, DVD writer, and a 13" screen while weighing the same as a 10-inch netbook.

You will appreciate the lightness, but may have to get used to the thin and hollow feel of panels and casings. The internal structure should prove reliable, though. Rather than the MacBook's all-round sturdy feel, this machine is engineered to be solid where it counts. It weighs 30% less than the 13-inch unibody Macbook Pro: 3.2 lbs vs 4.5

The only catch is that full performance means "integrated graphics", if you can live with that. I develop websites and run virtual machines, so it's not that big a difference with enough RAM and reliable drivers.

Toshiba designed this model to be a "business-class" machine, with a 3 year warranty and life-cycle. So I wouldn't worry about the 1 year warranty, if that means business quality at consumer prices.

The 13-inch 16:9 display is something of a cross between the newer glossy displays and older matt displays. It's a bit more reflective than the VAIO Z panel, and the angles are not as good. Colors are just as great, though. It's not as spacious as the Macbook's 13-inch 16:10 display, but nowhere as near reflective.

Lastly, the cooling fan is a little noisy, but only if some buggy software or script-heavy browser session is occupying your CPU. The nice thing about a Core i5 CPU is that it does all the work quickly and returns to idling, unlike ultra low-voltage CPUs which drag on. If anything you can kill runaway processes on the i5 more quickly.

Toshiba Satellite C655-S5142 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

Technical Details

 

• Intel Celeron processor 925 2.3 GHz, 3MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB
• Configured with 3GB DDR3 (max 8GB)
• 320GB (5400 RPM); Serial ATA hard disk drive
• 15.6" diagonal widescreen TruBrite TFT display at 1366 x 768 native resolution (HD) with 16:9 Aspect Ratio and LED Backlite
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit with a 6 cell/48Wh Lithium Ion battery pack; Battery Life (measured by MobileMark 2007): 4 hours, 23 minutes

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 15 x 1.5 inches ; 5.5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 7.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B004G8QONE
• Item model number: Satellite C655-S5142

Buy Toshiba Satellite L655-S5158 15.6-Inch Laptop

Toshiba Satellite L655-S5158 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black) (Personal Computers) 

After my overpriced, underperforming, Vista disabled HP laptop died on me, I shopped around for a good deal on a budget priced, reliable laptop. Asus is the only laptop brand that has better reliability than Toshiba (see [...]). When I checked the Toshibas, this is the model they were pushing (and apparently, still are). It's got an even bigger screen than I expected. It has a full size keyboard with a number pad on the right. It's a little large for carting around, but it is incredibly high performing with a great display. 

When I put a tumb drive in to copy some folders and files, I wondered why it wasn't working. I was used to watching the little folder transfer icons on my HP. Well, I was wrong - it did work. It just worked so quickly I didn't even see it. It transferred a ton of data in the blink of an eye. I've only had it a month, so I can't speak to longevity. But the battery life is reasonably good, and it's a great computer - especially at the price!