Toshiba Satellite M35-S456 15.4" Laptop (1.70 GHz Pentium M (Centrino), 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD Super Multi Drive)

by Toshiba

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 14.2 x 10.6 x 1.4 inches ; 6.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 8 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0002BAN2W
• Item model number: PSM33U-001001
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 22, 2004

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Basics:
Designed to appeal to portable computer users who prioritize multimedia yet don't want a cumbersome and ultra-expensive "desktop replacement" notebook, Toshiba's Satellite M35-S456 is a conveniently sized and satisfactorily powerful yet battery-efficient notebook PC. The system does cost a few dollars more than many of Toshiba's midlevel notebooks, but its combination of modern amenities, superb connectivity and welcome versatility is well worth it.

Processor:
At the heart of any computer lies the CPU (or processor), a massive collection of microscopic transistors that governs the speed and power of the entire unit. Some of today's notebooks are equipped with high-end CPU's on par with those found in top-of-the-line desktop PCs, though these machines are usually noticeably larger and more power hungry than their less powerful counterparts. For the Satellite M35-S456, Toshiba has selected a 1.7 GHz Pentium M 735 processor. Introduced in 2003, the original Pentium M represented a breakthrough in mobile processing technology, offering ultra-efficient battery usage yet a very large (one MB) "Level 2 cache" for more power than the Pentium M's comparatively low clock speeds might indicate. The CPU in this computer is a brand new breed of Pentium M chip, unveiled in 2004 and offering double the Level 2 cache (a stunning two MB) of the already impressive original Pentium M. This particular CPU's 1.7 GHz clock speed puts it in the middle of the new Pentium M pack, and it is thusly powerful enough for all but the most demanding notebook applications.

Memory:
Computers typically store information in their hard disk, but they keep frequently and recently accessed data in Random Access Memory (RAM). More RAM means faster computing, superior multitasking and less strain on your hard disk. The Satellite M35-S456 includes 512 MB of RAM, an allotment that's considered quite adequate even if you perform lots of multitasking. The system also allows you to expand to two full GB, more than enough for any situation.

Video:
CPU's are usually so busy doing basic calculations that they need help translating visual output (particularly 3D graphics) to the viewing screen, a duty that falls upon a "video card" or video controller. This system's video controller is an nVidia GeForce FX Go5200 with 64 MB of dedicated video memory. Though this would be considered a midlevel graphic chipset in the desktop world, the nVidia GeForce FX Go5200 is a solid workhorse for mobile users who require strong 2D and competent 3D performance. The latest and greatest 3D games will tax it some, but most other games and 3D graphics applications should run just fine.

Display:
At 15.4 inches and featuring a widescreen format suitable for displaying DVD movies and Toshiba's TruBrite technology for improved DVD and game viewing, the unit's WXGA TFT active matrix display is great for multimedia enthusiasts. The screen's highest supported resolution of 1280 by 800 is also superior to the genre's average 1024 by 768, delivering crisp images and lots of fine detail.

Hard Disk:
The Satellite M35-S456 features an impressively large 80 GB of hard disk space. This is a comparatively spacious hard disk, offering enough room for a bevy of applications and files and a full library of music or multimedia files too.

Optical Drive:
An optical drive is essential in today's computing environment. A "CD-ROM" drive allows you to install CD-based applications and play music CDs. A "CD-RW" drive adds CD "burning", so you can also backup your important files to long-lasting discs and create personalized music CDs. With a DVD-ROM drive you can watch DVD movies. And with a DVD-RW drive, you can "write" home movies to durable discs and archive files to DVD (DVDs boast more than seven times the storage capacity of a CD). Some drives allow you to do a combination of any or all of these tasks. For this system, Toshiba has included a DVD-SuperMulti drive, through which you can do everything above in all current CD and DVD formats.

Audio:
The unit features an integrated audio processor, two miniature stereo speakers and a microphone jack.

Keyboard and Controls:
You'll control your notebook via an 85-key keyboard with 12 function keys and a TouchPad pointing device. CD control functions include play/pause, stop/eject, previous, and skip/next.

Connectivity and Expansion:
The Satellite M35-S456 offers a wide variety of ways to keep in touch, including a 56K modem for low-speed dial-up Internet and email access, an RJ-45 Ethernet port for high-speed wired network and Internet, and integrated wireless LAN for cordless e-communication at home, at the office or on the road via a local public hotspot. Other key amenities include four high-speed USB 2.0 ports for fast interaction with plug and play devices such as external drives and digital cameras, an IEEE 1394 FireWire port (commonly used for quick data uploads from digital camcorders), and a high-quality digital TV-out.

Operating System and Software:
Toshiba will preinstall today's most widely accepted operating system, Microsoft's Windows XP Home Edition.

Dimensions and Weight:
Notebook computers are manufactured in a wide variety of sizes and weights. Many of today's most powerful notebooks are also the largest, weighing ten or twelve lbs or more and therefore too big and cumbersome for extensive, continuous traveling. These are often referred to as "desktop replacements". On the other extreme are "thin and lights" or "ultra-portables", super-miniaturized units that typically aren't as powerful as their larger brethren but weigh as little as two or three lbs and will often fit comfortably inside a large purse. Tipping the scales at 6.1 lbs and measuring 14.2 by 10.6 by 1.4 inches, the Satellite M35-S456 is smaller and substantially less heavy than today's average.

Power:
The Satellite M35-S456 is equipped with a 6-cell Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery that delivers an admirable four hours of operation under ideal conditions.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing machine with loads of features, September 19, 2004

By 

Angelo Akrobrat "akrobrat" (Fayetteville, AR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toshiba Satellite M35-S456 15.4" Laptop (1.70 GHz Pentium M (Centrino), 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD Super Multi Drive) (Personal Computers)

This (Special Edition) laptop has simply taken my breath away with its exceptional performance and (mostly) intelligent construction. The large screen, mammoth hard disk, powerful processor and elegant design make it both a delight to behold as well as an effective tool for productivity. And if you have the luck to be on a red-eye flight with nobody to converse with, pop in a DVD and use the Express Media player - this nifty tool turns the notebook into a DVD / CD player without having to boot up the actual computer. As a side note, the Express Media player is installed on a separate subsystem (occupying 100 Mb) on the hard disk and can be pretty tricky to tweak. According to Toshiba's manual, removing the player and then deciding to put it back on again will require reinstalling the *entire* system. Ouch. Therefore, I actually suggest removing it entirely to avoid any hassle.

The Harman/ Kardon speakers are exceptional for laptop sound. The built-in 802.11g wireless capabilities and the onboard software make it a cinch to get on the internet as well as troubleshoot most networking issues. The keyboard and touch pad are firm and sensitive (albeit without the scroll features of most HP / Compaq machines) further reinforcing the overall feel of a solid machine. The notebook comes with 4 USB 2.0 ports, SD Card, Video in / out (S-Video), type II PC card slot, Firewire / iLink (IEEE 1394). The laptop doesn't get too hot compared to most other brands, but does create a decent amount of heat. My only concerns were disappointing battery life (about 2.5 hours at best), the lack of Bluetooth, *trial edition* of Microsoft Office 2003, and a high price tag. However, the price really is justified and the noted issues *could* be handled by shelling out a bit more. On the technical side, the placement of the USB ports can be a little inconvenient, with none of them on the back end. Perhaps the reasoning for this decision was that one could easily plug / unplug the USB cables without having to reach around the machine and fumble.

Although the manufacturer's warranty is limited to a year, I recommend an extended warranty (in spite of the cost), especially if you travel around a bit. Why? Most extended warranties protect your (valuable) notebook from power surges, decaying pixels (on the screen), malfunctioning parts and almost all innate problems - Circuit City's City advantage program foots the bill for s&h too, whereas the manufacturer's warranty requires you to pay for shipping. If you consider this notebook an investment as well as a tool (I do), isn't it worth insuring? After all, even the best care and workmanship *cannot guarantee* a fan from failing or a motherboard from frying.

I comparison-shopped SONY and HP notebooks against this one, and the Toshiba came out the winner. I've dealt with computers (as both a programmer and a network technician) for 8 years, and this is one of the best all-round products I've seen. It's great for students, gaming enthusiasts and the average person on the go. Even though it only weighs about 6 lbs. (pretty light), I wouldn't recommend it to a traveling business person. Instead, the smaller, more compact SONY VGN s150 might be a better choice.

For those who are not familiar with the notebooks and their components, this review of the Toshiba Satellite M35-S456 would hopefully clear things up a bit.

Processor: 1.7 GHz Intel Centrino - Provides for fast, powerful performance. Although it's not as powerful as the Pentium 4 (P4) processor, the Centrino (aka. Pentium M) is optimized for mobility, using significantly less electricity (hence longer lasting battery) than other chips. Furthermore, the P4 chip generates a lot of heat, requiring a powerful (often bulky and heavy) fan to keep it cool.

Memory: 512 Mb RAM - This, in layman's terms, ensures faster computing. Comes with PC2700 DDR333 @ 166MHz in 2x256 from Toshiba's website, or better yet, comes with a single 512 Mb chip when purchased through most Circuit City stores, which is where I got mine.

Hard Disk: 80 GB @ 4200 RPMs. It's important to realize that although 4200 is not as fast as a 60 GB at 7200 or 10,000 RPMs, the slower speed keeps the machine very quiet and requires less battery power too. 80 GB, one of the largest retail notebook hard disks out there, is plenty of space to work with and I'm in the process of creating a dual boot Linux / Windows system.

Video Card: 64 MB dedicated NVidia GeForce FX Go5200 provides for powerful mobility with just enough juice for 3D gaming. Many notebooks come with integrated RAM, which is taken out of its memory. ie. if a system came with 512 MB of RAM with 64 MB of integrated memory, it would reduce the actual available memory (RAM) to 448 Megabytes. 512 - 64 = 448. Having a decent video card is essential to gaming as well as multimedia development.

DVD RW+/- : This notebook comes with a DVD / CD combo burner suited to most popular formats. An onboard acoustic silencer can reduce the speed at which DVDs and CDs are burned in order to create less noise. Even without the silencer, the drive is reasonably quiet. The DVD burner also serves as a more effective means to backup your data compared to simply a CD burner.

Display : The 15.4" Widescreen TruBrite screen creates rich colors with plenty of available contrast to greatly enjoy movies and provides enough desktop space to increase productivity. Note that the maximum resolution with the TruBrite widescreen is 1280x800, which isn't too bad. Using an external monitor allows for higher resolutions. I believe that this is also the largest notebook size that fits into standard notebook carrying cases.

This system is feature-laden and marvellous - I would recommend it without hesitation. Toshiba quality and reliability are legendary, making for a solid purchase.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Grate Machine Except..., July 27, 2004

By 

K. Edwards (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Toshiba Satellite M35-S456 15.4" Laptop (1.70 GHz Pentium M (Centrino), 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD Super Multi Drive) (Personal Computers)

I truly love this machine. It's powerful, light; the screen is amazing and the battery life, even with the Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) battery lasts up to four hours! I dropped in a clean version of XP Pro, an additional 512Megs of RAM and she's a beast. The only problem I had with it was that it came with XP home. I feel most home users aren't going to blow 2K on a laptop to use for email and browsing the internet. The other drawback was that even in XP home Toshiba had installed a bunch of their additional "user-friendly" software which ran all the time and quickly became a headache. Moreover Toshiba also installed a hot "buy Toshiba direct" button in XP home where the search tab is under the start menu and if accidentally clicked it would take you to the Toshiba web site.
In summary, I strongly recommend this machine, but install a clean version of XP Pro; all necessary drivers are supplied on a restore CD provided by Toshiba and on their web site - very easy to install. Any laptop you purchase will usually have that "user-friendly" software whether you like it or not.

Kevin

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Superb Deal at 4.5 (not 4) Stars!, September 8, 2004

By 

Dorian M. (Pasadena, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toshiba Satellite M35-S456 15.4" Laptop (1.70 GHz Pentium M (Centrino), 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD Super Multi Drive) (Personal Computers)

I spent about 3 weeks obsessing over which notebook to buy. Let's not kid ourselves: with this tough economy stretching endlessly before most, it's not so easy to throw down 2G's for something I may/may not like or use. So for a purchase this big, I needed to do LOTS of research.

This laptop has ALL the listed specs, and MORE. I played on this in 3 different, well-known chain stores (Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA). It wasn't enough for me to read all the wonderous specs and the 4.5+/5.0 star reviews; I needed to touch it, see it, work on it, hear it, and really know if it's worth the mucho bucks. After exhaustive research, LOTS of online time reading reviews, issues, problems, and making side-by-side comparisons against other Toshiba and similar notebooks, I finally decided to take a chance and buy this.

I have owned a Toshiba Tecra notebook before (great machine), but have mostly owned Dell pc's/notebooks for many years and have often been loyal to that company. However, as most now are aware, Dell's customer service has been quite unimpressive of late. I don't know about Toshiba's service, but it couldn't be any worse; besides which, I bought the in-store, 3-year warranty to make sure if there's a problem, I can take it in myself, rather than ship it back and forth to Toshiba. Also, I comparison shopped with a very similar Dell PC (Dell Latitude D800), which initially looks better at under $1400...except once I added on the "this and that" to match the specs on this Toshiba, the Dell price rose upwards of $2800!! Wow, what a difference in price, huh?

I am well aware of all the problems that could exist with this notebook; as I've mentioned, LOTS of research time went into this purchase. Some recurring issues in forums are: overheating issues, dead pixel (one) on the LCD (which some tech guy at a store told me is common on LCD screens, anyhow), smaller keyboard size (true enough, but it's not bad at all), sound system not being outstanding (come on, people, get a desktop for such extensive audio work!), and the Windows XP Home Edition that's pre-loaded (yes, really, DO upgrade to the Pro Edition, as it's less "buggy").

BUT, what notebook is perfect? What other notebook has this much power, speed, battery power-saving capabilities (Centrino, baby), DVD-RW/CD-RW, Widescreen LCD screen display (you have to SEE to believe..it's SO beautifully bright that you can't help but be mesmerized and think "purty"!), 80GB storage capacity, firewire port, 4 USB ports, built-in wireless WiFi connectivity (get the Linksys Wireless router WRT54G for faster, more reliable speed), SD memory storage, and at 6 lbs., what else could you want? Think about it: what notebook doesn't have problems? They all do or will at some point. The key is to get a really good (if somewhat expensive) extended warranty plan that will cover everything, so that you can use this baby and sleep well at night knowing you're covered for all sorts of unforeseen problems. Furthermore, you can get such cool accessories for this notebook that it'll be like an early Christmas present to yourself. (See my accessory recommendations listed by ASBIN # under this product separately).

Overall, if this review isn't enough for you, I'd recommend that you go out to a store to test it, try it, see it, love it, buy it, and take good care of it--because for 2G's, this isn't your average toy. And if you decide to buy it, buy it at Amazon, because you'll save over $150 in taxes (most states), which can go towards the XP Pro upgrade, anyhow.

Oh yeah, and I'd give this a 4.5 star--not a 4.0--only because I did want the XP Pro edition, pre-loaded, and maybe additional free (READ: Useful) softwares, such as Microsoft Office. But since I have to upgrade and pay more for that stuff, I have to deduct the 1/2 star...which, if you think about it, is not bad AT ALL!

Good luck and happy shopping! And don't forget that the REBATES axe over $200 off the price, so for only $1800, you can't go wrong!