Customer Reviews

Toshiba Satellite M105-S3004 14.1" Laptop (Intel Core Duo Processor T2300, 1024 MB RAM, 100 GB Hard Drive, DVD SuperMulti Drive)

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

 

 

The keyboard is very consistant and feels great but has some strangly placed keys. The Tilde and windows keys are good examples.

The "pointer buttons" are very easy to press compared to the current Compaq and HP laptops which make a very loud click.

The screen is prefectly clear but not as nice as Compaqs or HPs. It's harder to see from angles.

The Built in speakers are perfectly adequate for light music playing and the volume dial on the front edge is a neat touch.

There is a built in dvd player so you don't have to boot up to an OS to play a dvd but the volume over the built in speakers is too low, even maxed out. The controls below the screen arn't media buttons, they are for the dvd player!

Which bring me to one complaint. There are no programmable media buttons.

The leds on the front are quite bright in a dark room and don't go off when you suspend. Infact, the power led flashes slowly and can light up a wall. I recommend keeping an extra pair of underwear to throw over them. (-;

The laptop is nice and quiet except intermittently the cpu fan will come on for no reason.

Overall the laptop feels very solid and the only thing I have not really tested are the battery discharge times.

The only OS I tested this with is Ubuntu Linux and everything worked out of the box except for the flash card reader; There is supposedly a driver in the works for that. I have not tested 3D support.

I paid 1000 for it at Fry's since I bought the display version which was the only one left in stock. The sticker price was 1100.

If I we're allowed a real rating ststem, I would give this laptop 4.5 stars.

I purchased my Toshiba at a big box store and was attracted by numerous features. I have been using this laptop for about 15 months, and during that time the screen has gone bad and I am having issues with the CMOS battery not able to keep the proper time and date in the system.

Due to the cost of replacing the screen, I found it more cost effective to purchase a flat scrren and use an external keyboard.

Without a doubt, this has been the worse piece of hardware I have purchased over the past 20+ years.

I bought this laptop second hand to use it as a media player and occasional word processor, and have had nothing but problems with it.

1. It overheats, and when it does, it shuts down without warning. This is a common problem for Toshibas produced around this time. As this is mainly due to accumulated dust around the heat-sink, a temporary solution is to blow really hard into the ventilation area (and close your eyes while you do, as the dust will be blown out in your face!). This decreases the likelihood of a sudden shut-down (a proper solution would be to open up and clean the laptop, however I am not a technician).

2. A request for a bios password suddenly appeared (for no particular reason - the only thing the computer was used for was playing music that was on the hard-drive, it was not even connected to the internet!), making me unable to log into my own computer! Re-setting the bios is a nightmare - you need to open the rear of the computer, find the right contact points and short-circuit them for 20 seconds. Again, as I am not a technician, this is not something I feel comfortable doing.

3. Build quality is poor - the plastic around the keyboard has signs of wear (just from moving my hands), the lid scratches very easily.

Toshiba - what has happened to you?? You used to deliver premium products and your computers were known to be the most durable, how can you have the conscience to sell something this crappy!? I felt secure buying it second hand because "this was a Toshiba", now I will never buy a Toshiba ever again.

I bought this computer in May 2006. My priorities in using any computer are to create Word documents for various projects I work on and to be able to whisk around the internet. And, also to quickly move in and out of my contacts and calendar programs (MS Outlook). From day one I noticed the OS was slow to boot up. It was also slow to load MS Word and MS Outlook. It constantly hangs on doing routine and simple functions such as opening web pages (using IE or Firefox), opening and closing Outlook tasks, calendar items or emails. It is excruciatingly slow in starting up and closing down. Now, today, I found out the back light on screen has a short. Now, I can't see my screen after opening the laptop more than 25% open.

I understand a laptop's lifespan is approximately 3-4 years but this Toshiba Satellite has had major problems from the start that I had to work around or put up with from the very beginning. I don't know if Toshiba has gotten better but I would stay far away from this model.

I bought this laptop recently and it was very easy to get it started. The Screen is very good. But the problems started when my Internet Explorer Stopped responding ( Hanged) and it started happing randomly and frequently. So i switched my browser to Firefox but with the same result. The Firefox browser also hanged randomly and that would cause the Task Manager to also stop resoponding for a minute , before i could kill the firefox process.
So Please be aware when you purchase this laptop. Check it thoroughly with the internet explorers . I have a Earthlink Braodband connection which is blazing fast on my Desktop. So I am returning this laptop back.