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Toshiba Satellite P105-S921 Review


Introduction:

OK, as you probably know, the big deal here is the new Toshiba is A) The first true gaming laptop from Toshiba and B) The first laptop to be fitted with Nvidia's new Geforce 7900GS.

System Specifications:

The P105-S921 is driven by an Intel Centrino Duo (Dual Core) 1.8G CPU. , x512MB 667MHz ram, a 160GB 4200RPM Fujitsu (strange in that Toshiba makes drives of its own as well...)

The monitor is a 17" glossy , and the videocard is the 7900GS. Some new Toshiba features, such as a dual mode touchpad which you can use to launch programs as well as drive the mouse, and a fingerprint ID scanner to login to the machine with, also exist. The ID scanner is pretty cool, letting you scan in up to 20 different fingerprints, allowing mulitple fingerprint users. For more info on specs go visit Toshiba's website on the specs, as I don't see the purpose of me regurgitating specs here.


Chassis Design and Build Quality:

The design quality is acceptable, and while there are a few minor complains I have, they are mostly small annoyances. For one, the ridiculous hotkey buttons built into the laptop, and two, the LED lights which illuminate the Harmon Kardon speaker clusters... They are a little distracting, and might get me some looks at wrok... and I think about the 2 minutes of power they rob from my battery life. But that's just me. The good news is that, for 17" game capable laptop, this is a light machine, weighing in at about 7 lbs. It's also relatively thin, too. This is about as portable as 17" gets.

Screen... There is an average amount of flex to the screen, and the point between the screen hinges (where the TOSHIBA logo resides) is particularly cheesy... Pushing on the Toshiba logo will cause the screen and the frame to bend a bit. That area should have been more reinforced than it is.


Keyboard... is OK. It feels a little different to me than other laptops I have used, but works well, just makes clicky-clacky sounds. Another guy I work with said he liked it, so go figure. He owns a mac laptop anyways. YMMV. There is a bit of flex in it, but nothing too bad. It is also not fully sized... the LETTERS are sized right but some keys, like quotes and other specials chars, are 2/3rd sized instead. Personally don't dig this and whish they would have just put in a full sized keyboard - it looks like they had room to do it if they were inclined to. It does have a numpad though, which is full sized.

Sound... is amazing. As Fujitsu have mastered LCD screen and Dell has mastered 1 day coupon deals, Toshiba has taken audio to a new level with these speakers. I'm not afraid to say that I have what you'd call a golden ear, after countless bands and years of playing and composing... and the fidelity of what comes out of this laptop with regards to sound is far and away, the best I have ever heard on stock speakers.

Performance:

In order to gauge system performance, I loaded 3dMark05. Stock drivers, no tweaks, and this is what you get:

3DMark2005: 6202

While that isn't as high as the 7800 GTX's I have a feeling that if one wanted to overclock this card, they could easily... The laptop does not get very hot at all, even under gaming conditions. There is a fan that will turn on ocassionally, with venting to the rear left side of the laptop. And then there is the 90nm construction of the 7900.. which makes it more overclockable than say, a 110nm 7800.

HDD:
RANDACC: 19.9ms
AVG READ: 25.9 MB/S


Battery Life:

Battery life seems very good, around 2.5 hours initially.

Conclusion:

This laptop meets my expectations. My other (cheaper) option was the MSI-1039 but I finally decided the screen and the videocard advantages of this model compelled me to take the plunge. As a technology consultant, and a gamer (sometimes) and someone who was looking to replace their desktop... it achieves what is required. For someone trying to meet all three goals (Work, Play, Home) this is good stuff, and at $1,850.00 (all inclusive total!), not too badly priced either. For people who want a business laptop, there are cheaper, lighter solutions. For gaming only, a hot running, power sucking 7800GTX in a thick brick of a laptop is the way to go. And for those who want truest of DTR's, you would want a slightly larger keyboard. Thus, a compromise of all three would result in something called the Toshiba Satellite P105-S921.


Pros:

Very portable (for 17") and thin.
Very strong GPU Performance
Runs very cool
Harman/Kardon speaker system (WOW!)
Light relative to features
Fingerprint ID system
Price-Performance ratio very good (1850.00 OTD via Amazon.com)
Looks sleek.

Cons:

LCD screen resolution (YMMV, personally I like this resolution)
Good, but not great, color warmth from screen.
Flexy Screen
Average Build Quality (Fujitsu is better, HP is better. This reminds me of Dell.)
NO "clean" XP CD. (Toshiba will NOT send you an XP CD WITHOUT AOL crap, Yahoo Crap, and alllll kinds of other Crap, preloaded for your disenjoyment.) They even train the technicians to believe that no such XP CD's exist at Toshiba without these programs! lol.