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I was torn between getting a netbook or upgrade my several year old laptop. I do a lot of traveling so I liked the idea of the smaller netbooks that were lightweight and easy to carry around. I didn't like that fact that they were underpowered and had low screen resolution so I was hesitant about buying one.
My main criteria were
1. Lightweight and portable
2. Powerful enough to handle video and other media without too much struggle
3. Long battery life
I started looking at laptops but most were no lighter than my current laptop and had battery power lasting around 3 or 4 hours (unless I went with a Mac...no thank you). I looked at various netbooks such as the million that Asus offers and liked the long battery life but the Intel Atom chip just seemed too weak for my liking. So I was stuck between underpowered netbook and too big to lug around laptop.
I made a trip to Best Buy and saw the newly released Toshiba Satellite laptops. I like the design, bigger than a netbook but smaller than a laptop and I liked the fact that they run dual core processors (at least this model and the one Best Buy had). Seemed to meet my needs in the middle.
I decided to give this laptop a try but had a decision to make. Do I buy this model from Amazon (T135-S1310) for $700 or do I buy the model at Best Buy (T135-S1309) for $550. Confused as to that main differences between the two, I started doing some research. The Best Buy model seemed to have everything that the Amazon model had with the exception of 1gb less of RAM. Well, I can upgrade to 4gb easily and cheaply enough so the $150 gap still works in my favor but then I noticed that the Best Buy model is only running 32bit Windows 7. Not knowing if it will accept a 64 bit operating system (i.e. is the computer only 32 bit) I decided to spend a little more and get it from Amazon. Plus, I was able to get it in red which looks very nice (sans the fingerprints!). Not sure if the 64bit makes that much of a difference but at least I can run 4gb of RAM and have it recognized.
The laptop works as I would expect. Size is perfect for me to travel with. It is much smaller in overall size compared to my Dell 15 inch and the weight of abut 3.8 pounds feels like a feather to my Dell which comes in close to 6.5 pounds. It is significant!!!! Overall, I can't complain about the speed of the computer as I was not expecting it to rival the new I7's coming out. My older laptop runs an Intel, Core Duo (not Core 2) at 1.66ghz and the Toshiba seems to compete with that very well, probably a bit faster due to Windows 7 Home Premium. I don't feel like I downgraded on my laptop by using this.
The wireless N network card had no issues finding my home network and connecting. My speed tests showed me getting almost 12mbps download speeds compared to my G laptop that gets about 7mbps. So the N speeds are faster. This was my first device that could utilize my D-Link DIR-655 N router so I am glad it actually works!
I have played a bit with video online with Hulu, Netflix and stuff I have created and it handles it fairly well. HD content can get a bit choppy at times but does play smoothly unless something else decides to run in the background. This is one area that you must sacrifice when buying such a small computer for this price, no dedicated graphics card. Not a deal breaker since most things seems to run well.
Sound is a big issue and my one main complaint. At full volume, you can barely hear anything out of the main speakers. This will be useless to use unless a set of external speakers or headphones are used. Hopefully this can be fixed in some future firmware/driver update but who knows.
Battery life is amazing. In Eco mode, you can run this for close to the 9 hours it is listed at. Of course, video or other media will cut that down quite a bit but I am averaging around 7 hours per charge with a decent amount of video/music playing. This is a great feature for travelers.
I did remove most of the preinstalled software that came with the machine as I find most of it useless but I left most of the Toshiba stuff on it to see if any of it is worth keeping for now. The face recognition software is cool but I am not sure how useful it will be over time as I will be the only user of the computer and I don't keep any important files on it. I guess it is for bragging rights that I have that capability.
I will try and post updates as I use this but right now I am completely satisfied with my purchase. Oh, as you already know, this does not come with an optical drive so if you need one, you either need an external or skip this machine all together.
****Update****
JMesa....thank you!!!!!! Your audio tweak worked. I can fianlly hear the other perosn on the nd of my video calls now!! It's strange how low the volume is until you push all the equalizer adjustments to the top. Wouldn't want to play music through headphones with these levels but at least I can finally hear stuff!. Makes this purchase even better!! Big fan of this laptop and Windows 7.....so much I upgraded all 3 machines in my house!
****One more Update*****
Had to write a quick update to express how happy I am that this laptop is a lot more rugged than it appears! I was carrying a few things from my kitchen to my basement yesterday and had my laptop resting on top of the stuff I was carrying. It slipped off and fell on my tile kitchen floor. Bateery came carshing off and I could see the laptop bounce a bit (it was about a 4 foot drop!). I first impression was....there goes $700! Hwever, I popped the battery back in, tunred it on and eveything is fine. Not even a scratch or dent! If this was my 100 pound Dell, it would have shattered into a million pieces and my floor would probably need replacing. Toshiba difinitely made a laptop worthy of business travel combining lightweight, power, and now...sturdiness. Is it bulletproof too? I hope I never have to find out.
Oh, and I just got back from a cross country trip (Boston to Seattle) and my Toshiba performed wonderfully during the whole trip. Even the video conferencing with my my wife and son using the hotel's free wi-fi connection worked well under Live Messenger (haven't tried Skype with it yet). The camera quality is a little blah compared to my 2mp camera on my desktop, but I can live with it!
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