Posted to Notebooks 2009-09-23
If you want a "big-screen" laptop, perhaps to use as a desktop replacement, you should consider the Toshiba Satellite P505-S8945. While it falls short on features and processing performance, it comes with a huge 18.4" LCD display and DVD-RW optical drive to watch all your favorite movies. The graphics are excellent for playing most games, and the hard drive is huge to store all your games, movies, and music. Overall, if you want a great desktop replacement, this model is a good choice, but if you want a gaming machine or ultraportable notebook, then look elsewhere. At 11.6" x 17.4" x 1.6" and 9.7 lbs, this monster is too bulky for convenience and too heavy for carrying around. The 18.4" display and full-sized keyboard are nice, but Toshiba may have overloaded this notebook a little too much. Does it have great features? Of course. Does it perform well? Sure. In our opinion, however, a desktop replacement should pack almost as much punch as models a few hundred dollars more. So while the Toshiba Satellite P505-S8945 is a little over par for us, it has many satisfied users that may include you. The overall experience varies by consumer.
ValueOne of the things you must ask yourself when considering the Toshiba Satellite P505-S8945 is "What makes it better than the competitors?" Toshiba has long been known to produce quality laptops, and one of the advantages to this particular model is the amount of storage. It features a 500GB hard drive and 6GB RAM (8GB max), which is more than typical notebooks come with. The graphics card is nothing to sneeze at either- it has 1GB video memory. While this may justify the price, for a few hundred dollars more you can find laptops with better processors and more features. This notebook has lots of pros and cons, making it a tricky buy. FeaturesThis model features an Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 Dual Core Mobile Processor, which falls a little short of our expectations for a desktop replacement. Toshiba counterbalanced this fault by including more RAM to manage the installed Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit). The ATI Radeon Mobility HD 4650 Graphics also combats the cons, especially since it comes with 1GB memory. It plays most games very well, and it allows you to watch your favorite movies seamlessly. There is also a HDMI port for your high-definition experience and VGA port for use with external displays. For networking options, this desktop replacement comes with a 56K modem, 802.11a/g/n wireless, and gigabit Ethernet. There are four USB 2.0 ports (one eSATA combo port), one FireWire port, one ExpressCard/54 slot, 5-in-1 card reader, and integrated webcam. Users have been disappointed that this model lacks Bluetooth or a fingerprint scanner, especially for the price. But overall, this laptop is well-featured. SummaryThe Toshiba Satellite P505-S8945 is a difficult choice to consider because it has both positive and negative aspects that could have been improved. The laptop size is overwhelmingly big (thanks to the 18.4" display and full-scale keyboard), and the processor skimps a little compared to other models. The graphics and storage capabilities are great, but more than that matters in a desktop replacement. On a scale of 1 to 5, the majority of users would rate this model as a 3 or 4. Pros
Cons
|
