Customer Reviews

Toshiba Satellite A75-S1253 - Mobile Pentium 4 538 / 3.2 GHz - RAM 256 MB - HDD 60 GB - CD-RW / DVD - Mobility Radeon 9000 IGP - WLAN : 802.11b/g - Win XP Home - 15.4" Widescreen TFT 1280 x 800 ( WXGA )

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this for $899 on sale and because of the speed of the processor and the other features think it's a good deal. I've only had it for a week now, so there's not too much I can say about how it holds up. I did add an extra 512 MB of memory (the 256 it comes with really slows it down) and find it to be a fast, nice machine.
I don't mind the lack of a 3.5 drive (I do own an external from my old laptop, but don't use it much) and a DVD writer would be nice, but I can do that on my desktop.
I love the built in 802.11 support.

I bought this computer last year around February.
Thinking it was a great deal, and heard nothing but amazing reviews about Toshiba.
Since I have owned this computer I have had to get it replaced once, im on my 2nd replacement. It has been in repair 5 times.
It constantly overheats and the power supply fails repeditly.
DO NOT BUY THIS COMPUTER!!!!!!!

Mine has been back to Toshiba four times already in the first year. It's going back again for the same reason (See JL32's review above) as soon as I can get back to CompUSA. The motherboard and power socket was replaced last time and it still overheats even when the grills and heat sink are totally clean. The system automatically shuts down. This happens especially if the room temperature gets much above 70 degrees (F) or when I run multiple demanding programs. And this machine never gets used for gaming, mostly internet browsing and writing papers.

UPDATE: Toshiba seems to have found a fix for this serious flaw. Since sending it back to Toshiba in early 2007 it has been actually stable and "symptom free." It is still quite snappy and has not needed repair for that problem after 2 years of daily use.

[...] In my opinion, this laptop gives the most bang for the buck. Most laptops in this rnage have a processor speed under 2GHz. This one is 3.2GHz. I did add 1GB of memory - the 256MB that comes with it is definitely not enough. I do agree that the 60GB hard drive is small, I purchased an 80GB portable USB hard drive to go with it. All in all, with all the additions, I still have a very very capable computer for under $[...], and this serves as my work computer (I'm a software developer).

I got this laptop as a Christmas present and I like it a lot. It is a good deal, and but it has its draw backs.

Lets start with the good:
The pressesor is very fast and the screen looks great. The keyboard is big enough to type easily on it. DVDs play great on this computer (it even has 5 extra buttons on the side just for DVDs).

The bad:
Sucky, sucky battery life. I get an average of about 2 hours on long-life mode. The other things is that the graphics card (a Mobile Raideon 9000) isn't the best. I can play Battlefield 3 on it on the lowest graphics settings, but I get serious lag on servers of more then 32 players. The only other thing is that the hard drive is kinda small, at only 60 GB.

Overall, this is a good laptop. It's not the mobilest or the best preforming, but it is one of the best laptops out there for under $1000.