Toshiba M70-FE5 Review - Page 2

Lucky you finally got one w/o dead pixels... I was fortunate to get my m40 with no dead pixels on the last system onsale. To bad after couple months I spotted 1 dead pixel D;

Ya, well frankly I love the look of it and I want to make this work. But I cant be going back and fourth to the store returning them. To me, it is complete unacceptable to have keyboards, where the entire right half is noticeably looser and doesnt sit right with the left. I want to make this work so bad.

BUt I just realized that the video card on this guy (since its onboard and intel), you cannot adjust digital vibrance levels at all like on Nvidia or ATI cards. I need this cause this is what makes LCDs look sharp and brin g out the colour. with out it, the lcd looks dull. So this is big part why im returning it and getting an ASUS.

Besides i think any company is better than toshiba when ti comes to build quality now.

Hey kypez,

I bought that lap, and I've install a dual boot system. In my case I used Fedora Core 4.
This OS doesn't detect either my video and audiocard so I don't get the exact resolution and I can't listen music (I'm not that concerned about this last issue cause I only use Linux to work), besides I had to freeze my PCMCIA devices cause Fedora couldn't pass the booting and crashes while turning it on.

I guess my question is, does Unbuntu (your linux OS) has the same problems or any of them?, What did u do to fix them?

My WinXp partition of this lap ROCKS! (I bought the last one of 2005's bundle in compusmart by 1859+tax, but it came with a mail-in-rebate for $200, EXCELENT DEAL!), I also play games, and now I'm running Battle Field 2 with medium specs (this game is designed for really powerfull and expensive videocards) at high FPS online, if I play alone (stupid cause this game is not designed for that) I can use the full video specs with no problems.

Thanks.

I just got back, from FS, Memory Express then staples. I went to refund this POS M70 at the FS first thing when they opened this morning, you wont believe it hahahaha, it was well worth the trip just to go that ways. The lady refunded me the ram too, even though i didnt bring it in. $100 value right there! Hahahaha, FREE is good! Makes all these trips pay off with some rewards. So now I have a free stick of 512 DDR2 ram.

Then I went and took a long hard look at their lineup. But honestly, I just couldnt settle for an HP or Compaq. So I walked out.

Went to Memory express to check out the ASUS Z6000vc and Acer one for $1500 with the ATI X700 card, and the ASUS was really really well built WOW, but I just couldnt get past the somewhat high price and mediocre lackluster looks. I was there for some time just looking. But they couldnt turn it on or anything, which obviously makes my decision much much harder. If they were willing to turn it on and let me try it out, then Im pretty darn sure I would have bought it on the spot. But its pretty darn hard to sell something without even using it. Memory Express has to change this policy.

plus i heard things about ASUS LCDs not being the best so thats what held me off. Plus the speakers were underneath, I dont get that.

The ACER was surprisingly well built. But I just couldnt see myself spending $1500 on an "ACER" I did howveer like the keyboard on that much more, as its thinner keys, much like Apples and less distance when pressed. There was some looseness, flex on the tab and caps keys and the ASUS had a tiny bit on the right side of the enter key and caps key. But man, you could tell the asus one was so solid.

So as hard as it was to decide, I then went on to Staples. I wasnt even going to go, but I figured hell why not. I dont want to ever give my business to Future Crap ever again after this experience, and plus Staples would be much friendlier in wanting my money. Wanna know how bad the service is at Future Shop? I was in there for 30mins, with $1500cdn cash in my wallet...and not one person came up to me. I went in to Staples and guys helped me right away, not one but two. I was only expecting to be looking at Acers as I knew I had to pick one up here.

So I browsed their lineup and I noticed they had a M60 on clearance for $1397, I asked if they had one (cause I was considering this model a while ago), and the guy said they had one left new. So I opened it up, no dead pixels, the keyboard seems fine, the space bar pressed fine and not loose and squeaky...so I said I would take it. you will never find a brand new 17'' for under $1600, let alone $1400, plus all this free stuff haha.

So for $1397 + tax, I got myself a new toshiba M60 (17''), FREE 512 MB DDR2 ram, $30 mail in rebate from the ram, free 50pk blank dvds, and free DVD movie, that I got from the $100 GC hahahahahahaha.

What a steal! No more trips back to Future shop yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So after I get the $30 MIR back, that would mean I would have paid a total of $1367 + tax. pretty sweet.

I just like a laptop with a usable keyboard, that doesnt sound like a tin can pounding.

what about toshiba utilities

I bought this laptop a week ago and happy with it. Infact it is my first laptop.

just I want to know about toshiba utilities. Lot of them are crowded on start up that is not good. I disabled loading of most of them at start up.I think i will uninstl some of them.

Any suggestions?

M60 = kick ass 17'' screen

@aigle hawk you should definitely uninstall most of the utilities if you don't plan to use them. Some are quite useful though, so choose wisely

@MasterQ I must say you were most unlucky. Maybe Toshy doesn't really like North Americans Seriously, my M70 is working amazingly well and the build quality is superb. No flex, cracks, dead pixels etc.

@all one great program you should consider is Notebook Hardware Control (previously known as Centrino Hardware C.) It's very useful, provides all sorts of neat utilities in one program: undervolting (my M70 is really undervoltable ), current status of battery and remaining time, OC of graphic card, temperatures, CPU speed selection, S.M.A.R.T info...

actually, be careful when removing some drivers, toshiba always recommends keeping them all up in startup lol, but obviously you dont need every single one of them.

i dont know what it is. i loved the m70 for the 3 days i had it, but the first one had a super squeaky, stiff space bar. just wasnt normal, next dead pixel, next the entire thing was loose and would rattle, and next same thing, plus the right half of the keyboard was lopsided.

finally this m60, im happy with it. just got the dvdr drive replaced yesterday and the original one was dead right out of the box.

i just have to get used to the shrunken keys and im all good.

i know someone here mentioned about how their sisters toshiba had a bad soldering problem by the power jack. well ive noticed on my old laptop that it got very loose over time, and even though i never had anything go out i was worried bout it. and my new one, well, its super stiff just to plug this baby in. takes more force than normal, as if it were to go smoothly in. and it wiggles when its in too. hope this isnt a concern.

Yeah, mine also requires some pressure, but the "wiggles" thing doesn't sound good... Are you sure it's normal? After all, it is electricity and no flaws allowed there!

my system is buggy

As far as my laptop built is concerned It is perfectly fine and so nice, no complaints at all but I have another problem. I will tell a bit detail.

It was just after few days that OS was not working well. Main problem was that many times when I shut down after using some applications or internet, it did not respond. System hanged and it takes sometimes 5 to 10 minutes to shutdown after repeated commands for that. Many programmes were shown as NOT RESPONDING and some times even ccApp as not responding. Even I had to shutt off most off time by power ff button. Sometimes firefox and IE crashed unexpectedly. The main problem was on shutdown although system did hang up some times during use.

At that time I had put following software in it.

MS antispyware, Spybot, bazooka, Clipboard Recorder, Free online meter, DU Traffic. MSN and Yahoo messenger, Google Talk, EUALyzer, 7-Zip, WinRAR trial, Opera, Spyware blaster, Google desktop search,Firefox with many extensions( flat style, popup master, popup sound, yes popup, tabbed browsing prefrences, colored tabs, no script, down them all, flashgot, dictionary tool tip, answers, google toolbar, yahoo toolbar, google preview, google safe browsing, netcraft toolbar,site advisor, IE tab, IE view, Tab mix plus, Text size toolbar, Google preview,A Timetracker, page zoom, and some themes) IE had sitehound toolbar, google and yahoo toolbar, site advisor, and clodmark toolbar. Don,t think this lot of stuff was the cause as i put almost same stuff on my friends desktop that ic celeron and it,s fine, no such problem.
Also i downloaded some Icons from internet and used them to change Icons of some folders and desktop shortcut items via Properties Tab.

Following programmes i installed but removed WellGet beta( did not work), IconXP( i did not like it at all).

It has following programmes preinstalled, Norton internet security, Toshiba utilities( most of them i disabled from start up by MS antispyware), Adobe acrobat 7( which had some problem with its update).

What caused all this problem? According to my guess it might be caused by myself. Actually I wanted to remove windows messenger but I did not know how to remove, so i searched on net and found a tip. Acc to that I uninstalled the windows messenger by the following way.
I clicked Start > Run and in the Open: box typed the following command
RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove
press OK, and then again OK whatever the m/message came( i don,t remember what it was , according to the Tip i used it must be Error unregistering theOCX 16422, but mine was different. After that I did not find messenger in my PC. But I suspect I might lost some vital windows components as well during this procedure.

Another problem may be Beta software( CyberHawk, MS antispyware, Google Desktop, PervxR1, SiteAdvisor -- all beta), but removing them did not work.

Infact when i started my system first time it asked for registration with Toshiba and Microsoft and I opted to skip it and to do later. But after my system became buggy, I was not able to run windows registration wizzard. Every time I tried the message came, regitration wizard can,t run because the system information it requires is either unavailable or incorrect.

I did system restore to my first check point and now system became fine, say upto 95%. After this restore I was using internet when Windows prompted me for registration with both Toshiba and Microsoft that i was able to do successsfully.

At the moment the problem is that all other things seemed ok but start up is little slow. Actually when windows XP screen with horizontal animated scrolling bar apperas, this bar stucks in scrolling for few seconds or more multiple times( i have never seen like it before) . Secondly on shutdown 50%of times the message comes: file PadTouch_FingerWnd is not responding and if i click End, system shuts down well otherwise stucks. Rarely ccApp doesnot respond but shutsdown itself after few seconds.

Now I want to restore my system by formatting via recovery CD. Any help or suggestions?

Just one thing I forgot to mention that It had Norton internet security preinstalled and it was activated by me after one day of purchase( 3 months free). After system resotore all is ok but its intrusion detection system part is not working. however I think It is obvious as I did system restore to the point when this software was still not activated.

I need your suggestions. I am concerned mainly about 2 things,first does my warranty covers this problem as my laptop is very new(few weeks old ). 2ndly is this a pure software problem or can be any hardware issue as well( my extreme concern).

Wow, long post

Hm... I don't think any of the programs you've listed would cause such problems. I'm a bit sceptical about your uninstallation of windows messenger though... I've never bothered to uninstall it, but I reckon it can be done this way:

Add or remove programs>Add/remove Windows components and then tick everything you want on your PC.

Why didn't you use the restore CD supplied by Toshiba? It's the best way to turn the laptop to a 100% working condition. I haven't had the need to try it yet, luckily And why delaying the registration? Do it ASAP, especially if you want to use Windows update service.

Norton Internet Security sucks. I personally have Kaspersky AV + ZoneAlarm Pro but then again- it's your choice

Thanks. I intend to use the restore CD now. Is it easy,as I am novice in this matter. I have already registered. How I can check my registration status on microsoft site.

Another thing, when I reinstall windows by recovry CD, do I need to register again?

I wil use Antivir, MS Antispyware, Window,s own firewall and might be Prevx 1R and winpatrol -- all free.

Hello,

I am looking for a new laptop and found the M70. Seems to be a nice laptop, but I want to know if it is absolutely quiet when running with batterys?

I need an absolutely silent notebook. I hate noisy fans disturbing me when looking DivX-Videos on my TV.

I had a while beforce the Acer Aspire 1692 which was actually absolutely quiet (similar specs) but it was IMO from bad quality.

Oh, you needn't worry about the noise while on battery. M70 is totally silent, you only hear the fan during bootup

Really? That sounds good.

And while DivX or Mpeg Playback?

Thats weird my fan is running almost constantly even when im doing nothing but moving from web page to web page is something wrong with my machine or maybe my settings???

Also i can feel the bottom getting quite warm sometimes is this something i should be concerned about??