Reviews - Toshiba Satellite A300D AMD laptop: feature-packed but problematic?

[HEXUS]

We take a look at Toshiba's AMD Turion X2 Ultra-powered notebook and see if it's worth £620.

Read more.

[kingpotnoodle]

Surely the only compelling thing about Turion is the integrated chipset graphics in mobile 780G, if you're buying a laptop with discrete graphics such as this then might as well have a Centrino machine with superior CPU...

Turion is a budget solution only IMHO.

[Tarinder]

Kind of agree, kingpotnoodle, and that's why we've taken a look at a Satellite Pro with M780G. Review coming up in a couple of days.

[Tarinder]

Because you have to go through that 40-minute process if reinstalling the OS from scratch, and that may happen numerous times during the course of the laptop's life.

It's plain annoying because other companies don't make you go through it.

With respect to battery life, yes, it's poor, but you always have the option to leave it on the mains, which most do.

Something can be equally as annoying as something else and not be connected, naturally.

[tickedon]

Because you have to go through that 40-minute process if reinstalling the OS from scratch, and that may happen numerous times during the course of the laptop's life.

It's plain annoying because other companies don't make you go through it.

With respect to battery life, yes, it's poor, but you always have the option to leave it on the mains, which most do.

Something can be equally as annoying as something else and not be connected, naturally.

On average I setup at least one Vista laptop a week. Nearly all of them adopt a similar setup to the Toshiba requiring 30-45 minutes for Vista to sort its self out and run through everything - the only difference being that Intel Core 2 Duo's generally get through it a fair bit quicker... It's the same idea as a blank install of Vista - it dumps the image on the hard drive then unpacks it. Same thing with a factory fresh laptop ins 99% of cases.

My personal laptop, Dell XPS M1530, was also exactly the same when it arrived (except the CPU ran through it a bit quicker). Same as the Sony Vaio I bought for my brother.

Maybe its a case that the demo units given to you in the past have already been setup?

[Tarinder]

tickedon,

We've had sealed boxes from HP and Dell that don't take anywhere near as long as get going, but that, as you say, may not be indicative of how retail samples are shipped.

[DR]

My retail TZ22 and X300s worked out of the box - with about 15 mins of setup time.

[this_is_gav]

They generally don't, but most of the time the image does take as long. Dell have stopped sending images, and now just bundle Vista install media instead (at least they did on the Vostro range a year back, and on the XPS notebook range recently).

The out-of-the-box experience may be a bit faster, but the reinstall isn't.

Then you've got Acer, where it takes approx 3 hours and 17 automatic restarts so it can install Norton Anti-PC Desecration Centre 2008 and 'Empowering Technology' features.

[The Hand]

If the Toshiba A300D was £499 then it would be a serious competitor, which was the impression i got on the price range, when Puma was annouced; I'd rather go for a Centrino 2 for that price.

[Animons]

If the Toshiba A300D was £499 then it would be a serious competitor, which was the impression i got on the price range, when Puma was annouced; I'd rather go for a Centrino 2 for that price.

Yeah Centrino 2 is generally a lot more efficient power wise

[Animons]

Any one know if there are any toshiba laptops with hd dvd drives still for sale anywhere?
Thanks in advance

[Tarinder]

Animons,

I've not seen any recently, sorry.

[appywivit]

I am now into my third day of owning A300D AMD 15B, which incidentally [I]did[I] come with bluetooth pre-installed.....the rest of the spec being same as model being reviewed.

Have to say I agree with almost all that is noted in this excellent review....some of it on the downside.

Was unimpressed with startup from O.O.B....45 mins and constant powerdown & reboot, but overcame that once I had my new toy up and running.
Optical drive is on the noisy side, although it does come with a quirky little program called "CD/DVD Drive Acoustic Silencer" (supposed to reduce noise by spinning at a lower speed that is auto calculated..).....Have to say I could not tell the difference, but one thing I did find out.....as your review states, transcoding and burning DVD's......OMG ..took an age!!!!!

On the whole, I do not regret making my purchase.....but I do wonder what things would have been like with Intel/Centrino chip...sigh!!

[Animons]

Animons,

I've not seen any recently, sorry.

Thanks anyways.
I will just have to find an older model with these for sale somewhere
Now if only I could find which toshiba laptops were the last to have the hd dvd drives included...