Customer Reviews

Toshiba Satellite P505D-S8000 TruBrite 18.4-Inch Laptop (Black/Silver)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I hate laptops. The idea of a computer you can misplace is anathema to me. When I had to buy a laptop, therefore, I essentially bought a desktop with a carrying case. That, in a nutshell, is the 18.4" Toshiba Satellite. It is far too heavy to really be considered "portable." It is big, powerful, has a gorgeous screen, and generally does a very nice job of trying to fool me into thinking I have a desktop computer.

The keyboard lights up, which is a very nice feature. The keys are full-sized and easy to press. The biggest drawback with the keyboard is the series of multimedia buttons on the side of the keyboard. They are FAR too easy to press accidentally, which means a stray finger can unintentionally mute your sound, change the volume, dim the screen, etc. Also, pressing one of those buttons results in a loud beep, even if the laptop is on mute.

One of those annoying buttons on the side of the keyboard is for "eco-mode." Despite the fact that the laptop has an 18" monitor which, at the time of my writing this, is the largest monitor for any laptop on the planet, Toshiba has somehow managed to earn an "Energy Star" rating for this behemoth. The eco-mode dims the monitor somewhat and stops the keyboard from lighting up. In bright sunlight, this mode is unacceptably dim. Otherwise, it worked fine. Even without eco-mode, however, this computer somehow manages to typically use less than 75 watts of power, which means it uses about the same energy as one incandescent light bulb. Quite remarkable, when you think about it.

Despite the "Energy Star" rating, the battery life on this laptop is pathetic. Coaxing even an hour without being plugged in is a stretch. DO NOT buy this laptop if you plan to use it routinely in places where plugs are scarce. As for heat, this laptop runs remarkably cool. Even after several hours of intensive use, it was cool enough to place on my bare legs.

The speakers are Harman/Kardon, which is shorthand for "much better than your typical laptop speakers." I used to plug my laptop into my stereo system at home, but I found that that was absolutely unnecessary. Even for hardcore gaming, the speakers did an adequate job by themselves.

The best feature of the monitor is its size. The picture is crisp, although it had trouble in direct sunlight. It renders at 780, not 1080. My understanding, however, is that to truly appreciate a 1080 resolution, you need a large monitor--like 37"+. I certainly never have had any complaints about picture quality, even when streaming movies from Netflix.

There are connectors all over the place, including an HDMI input, which means you can hook your laptop to your HD television and watch video from it. This is a nice feature; I use Netflix streaming video a lot, and it made it simple to watch the video on my larger TV set. Also, one of the USB ports has a neat feature that allows you to draw power from it even when the laptop is turned off. This means you don't need to turn on your laptop in order to recharge your phone.

The touchpad is large and easy to use. No complaints there. I am not a huge fan of touchpads (once again, my anti-laptop snobbery rears its ugly head), so I used a bluetooth mouse most of the time. The bluetooth functionality on this laptop is very good.

Toshiba sells this as a gaming computer. This is something of a misnomer. They have a true gaming laptop, the Qosmio. A quick glance at the specs of this computer makes it clear that it is really a high-performance computer, and not perfectly suited for gaming. The graphics card is decent but not great, and the hard drive is a little slow. That said, most games will play on it. I had no trouble with even some of the latest titles, such as Dragon Age: Origins. The biggest problem was that there would be a longer-than-appropriate pause when the game would load a saved game or enter a new area. Once the game actually started, the graphics were acceptably smooth. I did not test it on some of the real computer-killers like Crysis or Fallout, since I am not a first-person shooter kind of guy. I did play some online games like Guild Wars and World of Warcraft, and was pleased with both the wireless connection and the graphics.

To sum up...

PROS: Monitor, Backlit Keyboard, Powerful, Great Speakers
CONS: Multimedia Buttons, Battery Life

Is this the right laptop for you? It depends on your needs. If you want a portable computer that can be taken anywhere on a moments' notice, then you need to look elsewhere. If you are looking for a desktop replacement, or a high-performance computer with decent gaming capability, this may be your next computer.

I really was not sure how large it would be, until it arrived. HUGE! I needed a large laptop for all of my media editing and movie watching. Here are some of my opinions about this laptop:

1. As others have stated, the touch sensitive keys on the left sometimes interfere with typing. When I'm on the road, I constantly press one of the keys by mistake. This is something I'm going to have to work on. I don't have this problem at home because I use a wireless mouse and keyboard. Perhaps next time, Toshiba can move those things above the keyboard, between the speakers (plenty of room).

2. I was able to install all but 1 of my applications from my Windows XP laptop. Here are some of the larger applications that I was able to install:

a. Roxio 2010
b. ZoneAlarm 9.1
c. ITunes
d. Comic Book Creator 2
e. MS Office 2007
f. MS Project 2003
g. Adobe Visual Communicator 3
h. Adobe CS2 Premium (when you are asked for the path to use for installing, you must use (without the quotes) "C:\progra~2\adobe". If you don't, you will get activation errors and others
later)
i. Adobe CS3 Dreamweaver
j. Adobe CS4
k. MacDrive 8
l. Business Plan Pro 2005, Marketing Plan Pro 2003, Quicken Legal Business Pro 2007
m. Camtasia Studio 5 (then 6), Snagit 9
n. VLC (VideoLan)
o. DivX
p. Adobe Captivate 4
q. FlashPaper 2 (could not install this because it was incompatible)
r. FireFox Browser

3. One thing though that you should about this laptop: It does not come with any Setup Disks to use for restoring a broken system. It also does not come with a paper copy of the User Manual. Everything is on the laptop. Everything you need is located at "START --> All Programs --> My Toshiba"

I purchased this computer for a family member. They basically wanted a "mobile desktop" that they could take on travel. This laptop is big... so big that u may find a hard time finding a bag for it. All in all, we like the laptop and do recommend it. Just consider if you really need a unit this big.

Pros:

- The laptop performs well. No lag issues when using Windows 7 home premium.
- This unit definitely has some "bling" factor to it. When my bro pulled out the laptop during a meeting, everyone wanted to check it out.
- Has just about every port you will ever need.

Cons:

- As other reviewers have said, the multi-media buttons are very easy to hit. You'll probably want to disable them.
- Would have been nice to have dedicaded graphics.
- Don't buy this laptop if u need battery life. A bigger battery is available from Toshiba if you need it.
- Big and heavy. Unless you have a substantive need for a laptop this big, I suggest you get something smaller.

Well, if you are looking for a huuuuge laptop.. this is the one. Its got a lot of nice features and its really pretty and the sound is great. I bought this for game and movie play which is perfect. Everything runs fast and smooth. I love it. I also needed lots of memory to store tons of photos. This does all of that for me... not to mention the pictures look ten times better on this screen. Love it. Some negatives, The laptop is very glossy.. shows lots of finger prints. Also, be aware that microsoft office is only a trial software package. I guess I didnt read the fine print. Also, not sure why the serial and part numbers didnt work when trying to register my laptop online. ?? Anyway, Just keep in mind that this is HUUUGE for a laptop. Its not so easy traveling with it at all. Its rather heavy and there are hardly any choices as far as case covers and cool bags to carry it in go. I may end up buying a toshiba net book for travel. I gave five stars because TOSHIBA is awesome. I love this laptop. Pretty much can use it as a desktop because of its size.

When my older HP Pavilion laptop with 17" screen starting giving me trouble, I started looking for its replacement. (It no longer recognized DVDs, quit communicating with the printer, and just really started to make me angry. Too many nights working on it trying to get it to do the basics.) Granted the HP was maxed out with the most awesome of bling factor, TV tuner card, 2 remotes, lightscribe, everything you could ever need in a laptop or a desktop for that matter. So when I started to look, I knew what I used and what was really important to me. Since I work on a 15" screen at work, I knew I wanted a really big monitor, yet did not want a desktop. Portability was very important, but weight was not. Though I do sit on the couch with my computer alot, it was still not as heavy as my lap dog who weighs 65 lbs! I can say that the computer doesn't run hot at all, even when sitting on my lap. The fan is also surprisingly quiet. Keep in mind the battery life is short. Thankfully, I have alot of outlets around!

I wasn't really sure about Windows 7, seeing as I was upgrading from Windows XP. However, I really like it, especially the new functions in Windows Media Center. This software is user friendly and has a bunch of neat features for everyone.

One of the reviewers complained about fingerprints. This computer does show fingerprints. Its an issue, but almost all laptops have it. But, I have to say that I absolutely love the feel of the keys compared to all the other laptops (4) that I own. The size of the keys are very well sized. I have small hands, but I believe these keys would accomodate most people. Plus, they are silky smooth to touch.

One of the more important features for me was technology similar to Lightscribe. Toshiba uses Labelflash which is similar. This allow you to create DVDs and CDs with labels that are actually printed on the disc itself, not on a paper label. Although I have yet to actually burn one, software seems relatively easy to use. Labelflash discs aren't readily available at my local Wal-Mart, so keep that in mind before you start working on a project.

All in all, I am very highly pleased with this computer, especially at its very reasonable price. It is doing the most important things on my checklist and more and more! BTW, some reviewers commented that finding a case was hard. Please note that I found a nice case on [...] for a very reasonable price, with no tax and free shipping. I got a case for my computer and Flip Ultra HD for about $50.00. Bargain!

I purchased this laptop for my sons 17th birthday. He had been wanting a laptop to play World of Warcraft on with his friends at each others homes. I decided on this one because it has an ATI Radeon HD4200 graphics card and a decent size, 500 GB ATA Hard drive and 4 GB Ram that is upgradeable to 8 GB and the bonus of Harman Kardon Speakers as well as a large 18.4 inch HD screen. I've been told to upgrade his Hard drive to 1,000 GB, but I haven't and so far my son says it's not needed. He absolutely loves this laptop. He says that there is no lag at all in game play, sound and sight are great and even though it is a large laptop he doesn't feel it is to bulky to sit with and use. He's played movies on it and has used it to play movies and games on the big screen TV and it has been remarkably easy to use and terrific to watch. We didn't add any additional speakers as the sound is just perfect as is. It comes equipped with Windows 7, but all other programs that it comes with are only trials so keep that in mind when purchasing this computer. I assume most computers only have trials, but some have full versions. I installed antivirus programs and spam programs, but other than that nothing. It is a nice gaming computer with a mid $700 price range rather than the upper $1,000 price ranges of other gaming computers with about the same abilities or even in some cases a bit less. I am very happy with this purchase.

Worth every pennie, this is actually a steal! Co-workers are amazed at the laptop and how much I paid for it! Yea fingerprints are a small issue but for the price and features I can definitely deal with it!

Size wise this machine is impressive. Intellectually, I knew how large this laptop would be, but it was still a shock when I got it out of the box. And Yes, I know it's in a good portion of the reviews, cause I read them, this bears repeating. This isn't a comfortable fit on your lap - laptop. However, I bought this machine for two reasons. I wanted a way to watch dvd's when we were out in the RV and I also wanted to have a laptop to use while we were out camping. I can set this up on the kitchen table in the RV and it's almost like having a desk. I am pleased with my choice. The screen is large enough to allow us to watch dvd's and I get a computer to play on with out spending 3-4 hundred on a TV and then 6-7 hundred on a laptop.

I'm not going offer my opinion on the technical workings, there are more reviews posted that cover that adequately and hopefully by people who are more acquainted with the technical side of things. I know when to keep silent.

I'm still getting used to the larger keys, but having enough room on the keyboard for a number pad is wonderful. The shiny case is a problem, I'm constantly wiping off finger prints. However, most of the laptops I looked at this was a common complaint as well.

It's weight is kind of heafty and finding a bag for it was challenging. There were few choices on line for this size & I found out that finding one retail was not much better. Most laptop bags are sized for 15.6 inch screens. I finally found a good one at Office Depot with wheels and it was also on sale!

This laptop is very nice. Love the big screen, which is not overly reflective like some. The speakers are good for a laptop. The keyboard is comfortable with good sized keys.

The only thing I don't like is there are not enough USB ports, only four, and they are located two on either side and none in the back where they should be. My old Dell had 6 USB ports and 4 of them were in the back out of the way. Now I have to watch out for cables sticking out the sides, plus I had to purchase a USB hub to get extra ports. In all fairness to Toshiba, I couldn't locate another brand of laptop (Dell included) that had USB ports in the back.

I bought this PC to use in my Living Room of my home. It is what I really wanted, large screen and large keyboard. Now the size of it would seem to make it difficult to carry on a daily basis is the way I see it (going thru airports, etc.). As a rule I don't travel so this works out perfect in my use requirements. Now I will be taking a vacation soon and expect to take this Laptop with me and seeing as I am driving I don't see any problems on the size of it. Great picture and easy to use. The only down side would be having to carry on a daily basis when flying.