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Toshiba Satellite A135-S2386 Notebook
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Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: hotrodbob

Updated:07-02-07

Duration of ownership:1 Months

Strengths: Nice size / weight; dual-core processor; nice large and bright LCD display. Also like the DVD burner. Good overall laptop for the price.

Weaknesses: The 512MB Ram is KILLING me. Not sure why Toshiba didn't go ahead and put in at least a gig, since it is cheap enough. Having occasional issues with waking up from sleep. Not sure why, but it appears to heat up excessively. Battery life is poor, but for the price range of this laptop, can't complain. Plan to spend quite a bit of time removing a LOT of useless software in order to speed this laptop.

Overall Evaluation: This is my first experience with Toshiba, and I would definitely recommend this laptop (with at least a gig of RAM). Setting up a wireless home network was a snap .... with the exception of printing. [can see the printer from host & client, but client will not print] This must be some obvious error which I will feel stupid about when I have the time and inclination to fix it.
Overall Rating
1 Star Review

Reviewed by: brian1000

Updated:06-13-08

Duration of ownership:1 Years

Strengths: None, really.

Weaknesses: Like many Toshibas (you'll find plenty of references to this on the internet--and I now own two with the same problem)the connection between AC adaptor and the laptop is faulty

Overall Evaluation: Many Toshiba laptops have power connection problems and charging problems. It is very difficult to disassemble the laptop and repair the problem areas. One of mine is 1 month out of warranty and they offered to fix it for $400.
Overall Rating
1 Star Review

Reviewed by: dartagnan886

Updated:10-08-07

Duration of ownership:5 Days

Strengths: cost

Weaknesses: wireless doesn't connect, optical drive doesn't work, doesn't take charge, won't update Windows Vista

Overall Evaluation: This laptop is my first and last Toshiba purchase. Sincing purchasing it in May 2007, I have had numerous problems, both minor and severe. First, the system wouldn't power on because of a defective ATI graphics card. Second, the system wouldn't charge because of a defective a/c port. Third, the Wi-Fi wouldn't connect to my a/b/g home network or any wireless network at the airport or college campus. Fourth, the 512mb RAM wasn't being read. I had to pay for another 1GB RAM chip to be installed. Lastly, the optical drive doesn't read CD-R, CD-RW, or CD-ROM. Toshiba technical support and customer service are worthless. They will not fix the problems, even when the item is under warranty, unless you send it in for 6+ weeks. The Toshiba reps are EXTREMELY rude and unhelpful. When you ask to speak to their supervisor, they refuse. I am still battling them to this day.Take my advice and DO NOT PURCHASE any Toshiba product. They do not stand by their products and their reps will not help! They just settled a $2.1 billion dollar lawsuit and I guess they did not learn from this situation!
Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: Tiberium

Updated:09-27-07

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Relatively cheap. Great screen.

Weaknesses: Ram. Battery life.

Overall Evaluation: I bought this to use in my lab. The 512mb ram it came with is definitely not enough for running vista. I upgraded it to 2gb. Overall, this laptop handles all the document work I need to do, but it is sometimes slow when dealing with slightly heavier graphics (like scanned images and high resolution pictures). The keyboard and touch pad feels quite good. Battery life is quite short, it's only about 1hr even when I'm at power saver setting, but I have it plugged in all the time so that is not a problem for me.
Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: vsbhat

Updated:07-15-07

Duration of ownership:15 Days

Strengths: dual core power, toshiba build quality.

Weaknesses: amount of built in memory as shipped from factory.

Overall Evaluation: Its a great notebook if you buy it at good deal and and if you know how to upgrade it a bit. Bought 2GB of memory. Preloaded vista now works like a charm. Could not expect any better for the money I paid. Having said that if you do not intend to upgrade the memory not a good buy. Even adding a 2GB flashdisk to take advantage of Vista's Readyboost technology did not improve the long startup and shutdown time in its factory shipped configuration.
Overall Rating
2 Star Review

Reviewed by: netigen

Updated:07-11-07

Duration of ownership:30 Days

Strengths: cost cost cost

Weaknesses: Vista,512MB RAM (you kidding me), hot hot hot ... it gets hot

Overall Evaluation: Good browsing laptop at best. Fails to load any of my games due to poor graphics card. Only buy if you want to use it for browsing and checking emails. Not a gaming laptop...so do not buy if you want to play games. Good as a backup to a desktop or for your girlfried who does not play games. Also vista is so slow at times, I wish it came with WinXP.
Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: myxp

Updated:07-11-07

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Stylish design, bright screen, good performance with dual core

Weaknesses: A little big and heavy

Overall Evaluation: This laptop has the dual core T2080 CPU, which operates at 1.73 GHz with 1MB cache. The dual core is not as fast as core dual or core 2 dual, but it performs pretty good with vista. The 512MB ram is too small so I upgrade to 1.5GB. Now the vista runs great. The battery life is so so but for the price this is still a good laptop.
Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: ran168

Updated:07-10-07

Duration of ownership:15 Days

Strengths: Affordable price, dual processor, DVD burner

Weaknesses: Not enough memory, too many trial software preloaded

Overall Evaluation: This entry level notebook is ideal for kids who need notebook in very affordable price. It comes with dual processor, though the memory is only 512 MB. It can handle most basic need. I removed most ?unwanted? trial software then the system runs in acceptable speed.
Overall Rating
3 Star Review

Reviewed by: An19884

Updated:07-10-07

Duration of ownership:30 Days

Strengths: widescreen, price, HDD and DVD/RW

Weaknesses: Sluggish Vista, 512 MB RAM

Overall Evaluation: Good entry laptop, main problem is that Vista is slow with the 512MB RAM. I installed winXP and I love this laptop now. For $429 this is a steal.Other reasons to buy this:Good known brand, 80 GB HDD, DVDRW:) and 15.4" widescreen.Some negative points are: a bit on the heavy side, gets too hot sometimes, entry level core duo processor.
Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: Sur

Updated:07-09-07

Duration of ownership:60 Days

Strengths: Price, toshiba brand

Weaknesses: 512 MB RAM, Vista, graphics card

Overall Evaluation: This is a good mom and dad laptop. The major downside is 512 MB RAM that it come with. Vista needs atleast 1 GB RAM to work well even for moms and dad. I popped in an extra 512 MB and voilla Vista loved it. My parents are using this laptop for emails, browsing and regular word processing and they love it. It does get a bit hot at times but a notebook cooler solved that problem. This works well for the simple card games that mom loves. The 80GB HDD and the DVDRW are a great plus at the price we paid for this machine. A++ buy in my opinion for regular use.