I had been looking at this laptop for a while, but wanted to wait to see what new devices would be coming out because of windows 8. I went into a local store to play with windows 8 and decided there and then that I would not wait any longer, as windows 8 seemed awful to me. So, I switched my focus back to a win7 laptop while they were still around. I wanted something that was:
1) Super light
2) Super thin
3) Had a relatively fast processor
4) Had full size ports without needing attachments/dongles - this was very important to me, as I tend to lose things if they arent attached
5) Had a good amount of RAM
6) Started from a cold start and sleep very quickly
7) Good battery life
This Toshiba laptop was on sale at Office Max for $679, but by the time I tried to buy one, they were sold out. So, I bought this as an Amazon warehouse deal in "like new" condition. I am very happy with it.
Pros:
1) It has met all my requirements and more. It is very portable, and an extremely quick laptop.
2) It boots within 10 seconds of turning on cold start (2-3 secs from sleep).
3) I find the keyboard and trackpad very east to use.
4) The intel Widi feature is surprisingly responsive (once you update to all the newest drivers). (I used a belkin screencast for Widi)
5) It wasn't cheap, but not too expensive either. For $600 (amazon warehouse) I thought it was a very fair price for what you get.
6) My old laptop only lasted 3-3.5 hours on a full charge. In a real world use of this laptop, it will last 6.5 easy, and ~7.5 if you have a good power plan (ie dim the screen, turn off display after X...etc)
Cons:
1) When you are doing processor intensive processes, the fan kicks in, and is audible. In a completely silent room, you can hear it, but I am rarely in a completely silent room, and I do not do very many processor intensive things (ie play games, install software..etc). So, for me the fan noise is acceptable on occasion.
2) It seems fragile. I don't know how much more fragile it is compared to my last brick of a laptop, but I do find myself making a more conscience effort to be careful with it. Over time, this will probably fade as I become more familiar with its tolerances.
3) 128gb is not a lot of HD space. I use cloud storage and use an SD for movies/music - so the 128gb works for me. Would have been nice to have a 256gb SSD instead.
All in all, I love this laptop. At 2.5 lbs and .47 inch thin, its svelte appearance is misleading. It has plenty of power and speed for my needs, and the full range of full-size ports (including VGA - which is a standard for most corporate projectors I use), sealed the deal for me. Might not be the best option if you are a road warrior and tend to damage your devices easily, but for occasional travelers, it is a very good laptop. I am not a gamer, but I am guessing that this could handle graphics intensive games if it needed to.
Two thumbs up.
| Standing screen display size | 13.3 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1366_x_768 |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1368 x 768 Pixels |
| Processor | 1.6 GHz A110 |
| RAM | 6 GB DRAM |
| Hard Drive | SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Intel HD Graphics 3000 |
| Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Wireless Type | 802.11bgn |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 2 |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 1 |
| Average Battery Life (in hours) | 8.17 Hours |
