Customer Reviews

Toshiba Satellite A135-S2386 15.4" Laptop (Intel Pentium D Processor T2080, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, SuperMulti DVD Drive, Vista Basic)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

No more Dells for me. Toshiba is the way to go!

I researched long and hard for the most suitable laptop. I finally happened upon the Toshiba Satellite, and it is fantastic! (Much cheaper to buy it on Amazon instead of at Office Depot or Best Buy.)

I have to admit that it was slow coming right out of the box; however, after removing the unnecessary programs that were pre-installed, i.e. the trial games- the ones that only allow you to play once or twice before they try to convince you to buy and download the real game. I had no intention of buying or playing them, so those were the first to go!

After removing a couple more programs, I found that adjusting the battery settings to high performance helped a great deal. Yes, the battery life ratio is much lower compared to performance, but since I always keep my computer hooked up to the battery charger, it doesn't even matter.

This toshiba came pre-installed with Vista Home Basic, and in my opinion, I think it works just as well as Vista Premium. Basic is not over the top, and it is user-friendly.

As a current college student, I highly recommend this product to all my fellow college attendees.

I'd give this laptop five stars, but the 512 MB RAM it comes with is slightly insufficient. I highly suggest purchasing extra RAM because it really makes a world of difference - my Satellite now has 2 GB and it's incredibly fast.

The best thing about the Satellite has got to be the resolution. Its screen is absolutely beautiful and perfect for watching movies.

The preloaded Vista Basic works fine for me. It took me a while to get used to it, but I like Window's newest OS a lot better than XP. It's much easier to find documents and overall very user-friendly.

If you're a college student, I highly recommend this laptop. Not only is it great for playing music, movies, and games; it has tons of processing power and memory to write and save essays and reports! The price isn't that bad at all, either.

This is a nice looking laptop, but it's plagued with problems. This thing gets so hot, you cannot use it as a laptop. Eventually something is going to melt inside this computer and it will break down for good.

Shame on Toshiba for putting 512 mb and not 1.5 gb as a bare minimum. They must have known that you cannot use this computer with only 512. I upgraded to 1gb and it's not enough. Going to 2gb is quite expensive and i'm not gonna waste another cent on this computer. Dont they want to retain customers?

Wireless function periodically stops for no reason. This happens when you shut off machine. Now I never shut it off for this reason. Once it's not working, you cannot turn the switch off and on. You gotta turn whole machine off and on and this takes several minutes to do. This is a defect that several people here have mentioned.

The only good things are the layout, ergonomics, and the sound. Oh yeah, the battery is horrible and won't last long on a charge or for it's life.

If toshiba reads this, you lost a future customer.

Never again will I buy anything Toshiba. Within A year the 2 laptops I purchased both went bad. One had to get a completely new hard drive and the other is just plain slow. I have spent over $200 still with no success for just 1 of the laptops. The customer service people are no help and is constantly disconnecting the calls when trying to get help with my problems. The extended warranty was a waist of money as was my purchase of these 2 pieces of garbage. Save your money and headaches.

When I got this laptop, I was a high-school freshman, just looking for something that could get me the internet and give me a place to do my homework. This worked fine for a bit, but soon multiple problems developed.
1) Wireless card started to malfunction after about a month. I had to frequently turn it on and off to connect to my network.
2) It gets very very very very slow, especially with all the pre-installed software. I had to buy some extra RAM and do extensive work with programs to make it bearable.
3) After only 24 hours of accidentally leaving it plugged in, the battery was completely dead. It no longer laster for more than 10 minutes. I realize leaving the laptop plugged in is bad, but a 24 hour accidental stretch should be inconsequential.
4) A related complaint, the A/C adaptor is horrible. I think, due to the fact that my battery is dead and I have to keep it plugged in at all times during use, the adaptor wears out much faster. I'm on my second now, and it just died.
5) The HDD is too small. I thought only having homework, some music, and some videos from Rooster Teeth would keep me under 80 GB. It didn't.
6) The monitor fails often. Sometimes I'll boot up a video, the screen will go black, and a minute later it will come back with the message "Display Driver R3000 failed."
7) Through all these problems, Toshiba Customer Support was very bad. Lots of hold time, lots of mixed up answers, and lots of backtracking across phone lines.

The only reason I even give this a 2 is because it functions. It never truly crashed on me. But if you want to buy a laptop that will for sure give you good performance, go with something else.

Worst notebook I've ever owned. Slow, Vista-only support, 3rd motherboard...failed again. No USB ports working...had to add a cardbus USB...which is slow.

All I can say is it was cheap...there is nothing else good about this thing.

Amazing laptop. The resolution is impressive.
Very fast computer. Everything has been working perfectly for the past year.

Within 10 days of owning a new Toshiba A135-S2386 laptop, the wireless card stopped working. When I called Tech Support, they taught me to go to Device Manager and re-install the driver. Or sometimes I had to restart the laptop. I had to do that every week. Then after 3 months, the wireless card stopped working and restarting the computer didn't help. Took it to a Toshiba authorized repair person who changed the network card. Two months later, same problem. Network card, motherboard AND antenna were all replaced. When I got the computer back, it immediately started freezing and blue screening. Brought it back to the repair center the next day and they put in a new harddrive. After putting in the new harddrive, the repair center called me and told me that the keyboard and mouse quit working. So now they are ordering a second motherboard. During all of this I have called Toshiba numerous times. When I told them I want a new laptop, they put me put on hold for 30 - 40 minutes then the call will mysteriously cut off. I have called now 4 times asking for the status of my request for a laptop and the same thing happens - they tell me they will transfer me to customer support and after 30 minutes, the call will disconnect. I am a student and during all of this I do not have my laptop to get my work done. Toshiba customer is a joke. They do not care. Once they get your money for the laptop, they fix and fix until your warranty runs out, then you're stuck with a lemon laptop. I've owned Dell laptops before with no problems whatsoever. I will never buy a Toshiba ANYTHING ever again.

I purchased this in April, its worked great since...I was suprised with the low amount of RAM that came with it like everyone else. I bought a GB stick and it runs smooth now. The only problem I had with this came in the last week (9/10). My screen is 'blacking' out on me and is unusable...Toshiba support ruled it as a hardware issue, as did I and now I have to either ship it back or bring it to a repair shop. Excellent product I just wish this didn't happen so quickly!

The only thing bothered me is I had to buy two extra memory card (1 GB each) to run the computer properly. Other than that, the design, system and price are all satisfied.