Satellite A33-4M4

I'm in Canada and there's a Toshiba Satellite 15" notebook that looks good. the A33-4M4. Also known as the PSA33C-154M4. This model seems unavailable in the USA for some reason, but it might be available in the UK and other markets possibly as the A35. Here is a link to the specs:
http://www.toshiba.ca/web/product.gr...1&product=2331
I'm shopping for my first notebook but am an experienced desktop PC user - I'd mostly use the notebook as a portable MP3 music source for parties, using an audiophile-quality Echo Audio Indigo soundcard plugged into the cardslot. http://www.echoaudio.com
Potentially I would use this computer additionally for general email/web surfing, etc, around the house, and possibly as a replacement for my Dell desktop computer. I like my Dell but it is big and mostly I don't need its power.

The A33 notebook has 2.8 Mobile Pentium 4, 533 FSB, 512 MB ram, 60 GB HD,
SXGA+ screen 1400x1050, 2 USB ports, 802.11G, CD burner / DVD.

The only things it is missing are some extra USB ports, and a IEEE-1394 port. I like the price of C$2000 less a $300 store rebate, the LCD display is definitely better than the typical 1024x768 15" and the fonts are not too small as they might be with UXGA 1600x1200. This notebook also seems solid and well-made, and worked well in the store where I tried it, the 802.11G worked fine and the computer seemed in general to be a good performer, and seemed to run not too warm, with good fan cooling.

This notebook is very similar to the Dell 5150 which is still available but possibly will be discontinued soon - the Dell has the IEEE-1394 port.

I'm just wondering if anyone has any comments on this computer or Toshibas in general? Also is there another Toshiba notebook forum? I like the Dell user forums as they are a great way for users to share information. I have had a Dell 8250 desktop tower for a year and it is an excellent system.

I also like the Toshiba M35 which is unavailable in Canada, and the Dell 5150 as mentioned, and the Dell 8600 and 9100 with WSXGA+ displays (1680x1050).

I returned my original A33-4M4 to the store for a refund, since it would not work with the Echo Indigo pcmcia card I need to use. However now, a few months later, Echo has a fix for the problem, which happens on notebooks that use the "ENE" pcmcia controller chip (the new A70 uses that chip too). So I bought another of the A33s at a close-out sale for a lot less than a Dell 5150 which is very similar.

I like this notebook. It seems fairly solid and is speedy, I just tried 802.11G and that works well. The display is excellent at 1400x1050 WSXGA+ and can be switched to XGA 1024x768 when you need that type of resolution, with only a small drop in sharpness. I think the 15" 1400x1050 screen is more useful than the 1280x800 15.4" that is used on several of the new Toshiba and Compaq notebooks.

The fan noise is a slight problem when you are running full power in a quiet room. However the Toshiba power management makes it easy to set up and use your own custom power and cooling options and these can reduce the fan noise, and increase battery life. This is a relatively fast computer and full power is not needed too often, for many users.

This computer is being discontinued after being on the market only a few months, but it seems like a good machine.

Yeah, I thought it had a separate memory on the graphics board according to the Toshiba specs which normally say it is shared memory if that is the case. But now I think the A33 does indeed have shared graphics memory which is a surprise.

However I'm not really into gaming, and the machine seems to have plenty of CPU and graphics power for what I'm doing. Even the 4200 rpm HD seems just fine - you can get 7200 rpm 60 GB drives on the Dells (which I would have bought but this A33 was a super deal at the local store).

I got a LinkSys WRT54G wireless router and it works very well. I set up a folder on my desktop computer as shared, and just dragged and dropped a big load of files from there to the A33 notebook - 500 MB in about 5 minutes. Pretty slick. ALthough it took a lot of messing with XP network setup before it finally worked. I should do a test using a normal wired connection to see how much faster it is compared to 802.11G.

A nice surprise is that the internal Wi-Fi chipset (Atheros 5001X) is apparently capable of all 3 variations of 802.11 - B, G, and A - and can run in Atheros "turbo mode" at 108 mpbs so maybe there are some compatible wi-fi routers available.

I downloaded the fangui cooling fan controller utility that is used by many Dell users - but it cant read most of the temperatures on the A33, except the HD. The supplied Toshiba power/cooling manager looks good.

I've been able to get about 4 hours of life from the battery for wireless websurfing, for which I set the display to max brightness and the CPU power to lowest. Toshiba says the battery time is 2 hours but that is probably on max CPU power, and I think you'd get more than that.

I'm trying that Speedswitch XP utility http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/index.html and it seems to run fine but I'm not sure if I will use it. The I8kfanGUI however does not run well on this Toshiba, it cannot read some of the data, but does show the HD temperature. I8kfanGUI is really for Dells as the sofware writer only had acess to Dells for testing.

The supplied Toshiba power/cooling utility seems OK. You can set up your own modes for power settings and switch them quickly. For the last day I've tried setting to "silent mode" and reduced CPU power settings and that can reduce fan noise significantly. "Silent Mode" is set from the Advanced tab on the Toshiba Power Management Utility and it reduces the fan speed so it is spins slower and less noisy but for longer periods of time.

I can run everything except games with the CPU running at reduced speed (the bottom power 2 settings called MID2 and LOW). It's only a little less snappy on MID2 compared to HIGH, even LOW is good enough for almost everything.

My computer was missing the RESTORE disk because it was a store demo model and they lost it. I called Toshiba Canada to ask if they could send me a replacemet, and they are doing so, no charge which is nice. They normally want $65 Cdn!