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  • Overall Rating
    4 stars 4 Star Review
    Reviewed by: chy220

    Updated:12-30-07

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: economic, large upgradable memory space (max 4G).

    Weaknesses: short battery life

    Overall Evaluation: Like most of the other reviews that I have seen while trying to find solutions to problems with my Toshiba Satellite A215-S7422 Laptop, the screen would just simply black out and nothing that I could do would bring the screen back up. The Toshiba Service Center told me that the only way to get the unit to come back up is to crash it by turning off the AC power and then take the battery out, which means loosing anything that you were working on back to your last save. Toshiba knows of this problem and it has existed on other series of their laptops. The problem is that their power saving features do not work.The Service Rep said the only way to stop this from happing is to:Access the Control PanelSelect Power OptionsChoose the last power option feature which maximises power to the computer at all times and cuts off power saving features.For "On Battery" and "Plugged In", set "Tun off the display" and "Put the computer to sleep" to "Never".This works, but the unit runs on max power all of the time, which causes the battery to completely run down is less than an hour even with minimal use.If you are needing a laptop with long battery life, this is not the unit that you want to buy. This is really poor performance, especially for a lithium battery.The only manual that comes with the unit is electronic and is made for 2 different series of laptops. The guide does not differentiate which features are on which series. The explanations of the features and utilities are useless. You are told that they exist and how to access them, but are not told how to use them. Some features are not even talked about like how to access the WiFi feature. Kind of like buying a rocket ship and being told to enter a close the door, with no instructions on what all those gadgets inside are for or how to use them.There a numerous junk software programs that come preloaded that you have to pay additionally for after a 30 day trial period. This consumes a lot of time trying to figure out what you can get rid of safely.All of the new machines are coming with Vista. Be prepared for a big learning curve. Vista and Microsoft Office Pro 2007 are user hostile because all of the basic tools have been so radically changed and relocated that it is just like having to learn a completely new way of doing things. If you have not had the privilage to experience Vista yet, go to a computer store, click on the Start icon and try to figure how to shut the pc down.

  • Overall Rating
    4 stars 4 Star Review
    Reviewed by: liuyong226

    Updated:12-30-07

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Low price. Good screen.

    Weaknesses: Easy to get heat. Battery life is not very good.

    Overall Evaluation: It's a qualified laptop for surfing the web, regular office work, and watching DVD or listening music. 15.4'' LCD is impressive and good for your eyes. Although it has some cons in heat and battery life, it's a good enough purchase considering the around $600 price.

  • Overall Rating
    4 stars 4 Star Review
    Reviewed by: jjct1

    Updated:12-30-07

    Duration of ownership:3 Days

    Strengths: web browsing, word processing

    Weaknesses: short batter life, not the fastest laptop

    Overall Evaluation: I got this laptop for under $400 with rebate. At that price, you can't beat it. This laptop is good for average computer tasks like web browsing and word processing. Maxing the memory to 4gb makes this a nice laptop.

  • Overall Rating
    4 stars 4 Star Review
    Reviewed by: al_toengi

    Updated:12-20-07

    Duration of ownership:1 Months

    Strengths: great for web surfing, email. light and portable

    Weaknesses: short battery life, could have more usb ports

    Overall Evaluation: This is my first laptop so I don't have anything to compare it with. However, I spent a lot of time researching different brands and models. I settled on this Toshiba because it was in the middle-tier priced range. Not too cheap so as to scrimp on accessories and not too pricey so as to have unusable features. I wanted a laptop that would just replace my years old desktop. And this laptop has far exceeded my expectations. The firewire connection is very handy as I plan to do some video/photo transfers and editing. Although I have yet to see if the 1GB memory would be able to handle the load. I am now looking at upgrading to 4GB. All in all, it is a great value for the money.

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Toshiba Satellite A215-S7422 Notebook
$541.87 • •Specs
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