Toshiba Satellite A215 Review

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by Ted Lynch

The Satellite A215 series is a new line of consumer notebooks being offered by Toshiba.  They sport variations of the AMD Turion64 X2 CPUs.  The A215 is a being positioned as a multimedia notebook with its large 15.4” glossy screen, large hard drives, card reader and webcam.  The A215 definitely has some hits and misses. All of which we will take a more in-depth look at in the following review of the A215-S4757.

Specs

• Here are the specifications of the model under review:
• Model: A215-S4757
• Operating System: Vista Home Premium 32 Bit
• CPU: AMD Turion64 X2 TL-56 1.8GHz 512KB x2 L2 Cache 1600MHz FSB
• Chipset: RS690
• Screen: 15.4” Glossy WXGA 1280x800
• Memory: 2GB DDR2 PC5300 2 Slots, 0 Open 4GB Max
• Hard Drive: 250 GB Fujitsu 4200RPM (MHX2250BT)
• Optical Drive:  Pioneer DVR-K17LF
  • 8x DVD+/-R
  • 8x DVD+RW, 6x DVD-RW
  • 4x DVD+/-R DL
  • 5x DVD-RAM
  • 24x CD-R/W
• Graphics Card: 128-319MB Shared Mobility Radeon X1200
• Wireless: Atheros AR5007EG B/G
• WebCam: 1.3MP
• Inputs: 86 Key Keyboard, TrackPad with Mouse Buttons
• Buttons: Power, Internet, Media,Play, Stop, FF, RW
• Ports:
  • FourUSB Ports – Two Left Side, Two Right Side
  • Four Pin FireWire
  • Ethernet and Modem
  • VGA and S-Video Outs
  • Headphone and Microphone Jacks
• Slots:
  • 5-in-1 Card Reader
  • ExpressCard Slot
• Battery: Six Cell
• Dimensions:  
  • Width – 14.2”
  • Depth – 10.5”
  • Height – 1.4”
• Weight: 6.3 Lbs.
• Warranty: One Year
• M.S.R.P. - $999.99

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Build &amp; Design

According to Toshiba, the A215 is Onyx Blue in color, but it looks black to me.  Perhaps when you're outside in the sun there's a blue hue to it.  The A215 weighs in a bit over six pounds and is about an inch and a half thick.  That puts it squarely on average for the class.  Given its weight and size, it's not a notebook that should travel daily.  The back and forth to the office or the occasional night out seem reasonable.  I personally like designs that are simple and understated.  I think the A215 fits into that category.   The A215 has rounded edges and a dark tone except for the keyboard which is white/silver.  There's nothing about the A215 that really makes you say, &quot;Wow!&quot; The design is sort of plain jane if you will.  There's nothing wrong with the design ... it just looks like a big multimedia notebook.

The thickness of the lid on the A215. (view large image)

The case on the A215 is made of smooth plastic.  It reminded me a lot of HP's Imprint Finish, but without the pattern printed on it.  It also like attracted fingerprints like bears to honey, but they are easily wiped away.  Unlike the HPs, the A215 was a little more scratch prone.  I've put a few marks on it during its stay with me. Instead of having two screen hinges like most notebooks, the A215 has one large hinge in the center between base and the screen.  When you open the it, the bottom of the screen sits behind the base.  It made me think of the Asus W2 which has a similar setup.  I don't know that it helps make the screen more sturdy long term, but it looked kind of cool.  On the whole the A215 felt solid.  The screen held fairly firm during use.  The base of the the A215 felt pretty rigid.  It didn't creak when picked up the side.  The plastic lid cover doesn't offer the best protection.  The screen ripples when force is applied to the lid.  I don't think anyone else is offering better for the money at least on the consumer side.

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Screen

A multimedia notebook usually means getting a glossy screen.  The A215 is no exception to this rule.  Every time I see one of these newfangled glossy screens, it reminds me how I wished the screen on my ThinkPad were a bit brighter.

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The screen on the A215 is a WXGA(1280x800).  A bit higher resolution would have been nice, but other than Dell, no one else is offering a higher resolution screen on budget consumer notebooks of this size.  The screen has seven brightness levels which can be adjusted via the keyboard controls.  Overall, the screen on the A215 is very good in my opinion.  It strikes a nice balance between being bright without having too much glare that can often be associated with glossy screens.  Colors were rich and vibrant.  Web pages and movies look great.  There were no dead/stuck pixels.  There was some leakage at the bottom of the screen, but it did not seem outside of the acceptable range.  Glare on the screen was pretty minimal unless you were outside or there was a light source directly behind.  It's really a shame cause quite frankly I look pretty good being NBR's resident Super Model. 

The R60 on the left and the A215 on the right. (view large image)

You can't tell it from the picture, but the screen on the A215 is brighter with and looks better than the screen on my R60. 

CPU &amp; Performance

When I first saw the Toshiba was using a 4200RPM drive, my first thought was yuk.  I thought 4200RPM drives had been banned from all but ultraportable notebooks.  I think I understand Toshiba's reasoning behind the move.  The A215 is a multimedia notebook and as such buyers of it are going to throw tons of movies and music on it.  Those usually take a lot of space.  If they had used the biggest 300GB 4200RPM drive, I think the logic would have followed better.  Due to the fact the drive is huge, larger drives have better density which allows for faster read and access times, it wasn't as bad as I had feared.  When I first started using the A215, performance was a bit of sluggish.  It wasn't horrible, but when you went to do something it would hang a bit.  The touchpad would occasionally become unresponsive for 5-10 seconds particularly when doing something hard drive intense like installing software.  At first I chalked it up to bloatware and Vista being slower than XP.  I went about the process of cleaning out the bloatware.  After I finished clearing it out, it still moving at a moderate pace.  Again it's not horrible, but I would think the marginal cost of going with a 5400RPM drive isn't more than a few bucks.  Going with a faster hard drive would seem like a smart move on Toshiba's part.

I've used and worked on many notebooks with AMD CPUs.  I know they sometimes get a bad rap in the mobile arena compared to Intel processors, but for probably 95% of users out there they are more than adequate. 

CPU-Z

AMD processors don't get quite as much battery life as Intel chips, but for a lot people (especially on a notebook like this which isn't likely to stray from the the couch often) that's not that a huge issue.  They're also usually easier on the wallet too. 

As I alluded to earlier, the slow hard drive hampered performance on the A215 some.  I had just upgraded the hard drive on my ThinkPad.  I had a spare 7200RPM drive laying around.  I decided to throw it in the A215 just to see well it performed in relation to my R60.  Perhaps that's not a valid test since most buyers of this notebook are going to run out and upgrade the drive when they get it.  After I upgraded the drive, performance was quite good.  I think the extra generous 2GB helped offset some of Vista's slowness.  There are no XP drivers on Toshiba's site for those looking to downgrade.  Without the upgrade, performance was acceptable, but could be better.  All of this points out, you're only as strong as your weakest link.

Benchmarks

Super Pi

SuperPi gages relative CPU performance.  SuperPi loves L2 cache which is why the Intel CPUs always score better in this benchmark.  It makes it a bit unfair to AMD CPUs.  The PCMark05 score below is probably a better indicator of overall performance

Notebook	Time
Toshiba A215-S4757 (1.8GHz Turion64 X2 TL-60)	1m 55s
Vostro 1400 (1.6GHz Core 2 Duo T5470)	1m 10s
MacBook Pro (2.4GHz Core 2 Duo T7700)	53s
HP 6515b (1.6GHz Turion64 X2 TL-52)	2m 05s
ThinkPad T42 (1.8GHz Pentium M 745)	1m 58s
HP 8710w (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo T7500)	55s
Dell D830 (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7300)	59s
Toshiba X205 (1.8GHz Core 2 Duo T7100)	1m 07s
HP dv5000z (2.0GHz Sempron 3300+)	2m 02s
ThinkPad R60 (1.66GHz Core Duo T2300e)	1m 26s
Lenovo C100 (1.5GHz Celeron M)	2m 19s
VAIO S380 (1.86 GHz Pentium M 740)	1m 45s

HD Tune

There's really no contest here.  While it's a bit faster than other 4200RPM drives I've seen, it's still a 4200RPM drive.

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The 4200RPM Fujitsu vs the 7200RPM Seagate.

PCMark05

The Turion's performance looks pretty decent.  If all you are doing is office and internet, you probably don't need more.  The A215's 3DMark05 score was 877 if you wanted to know.  It's not really a gaming machine so I opted not to include a chart.

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Satellite A215-S4757(1.8GHz Turion64 X2 TL-56, Radeon x1200 )	2,760 PCMarks
Toshiba Qosmio F45 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo T5450, Intel X3100)	3,261 PCMarks
ThinkPad R60 (1.66 GHz Core Duo T2300, Intel 950)	2,975 PCMarks
Fujitsu A215.  The pluses would include the nice glossy screen, good keyboard, and pleasant sound.  The minuses would be the slow hard drive, and the stiff and clicky touchpad buttons.  If you are just looking for a basic at home notebook to do web browsing, office applications, maybe some movies and music, the A215 can fill that role with aplomb.  Like most things in life, it all boils down to value.  If you are paying close to M.S.R.P., you probably have better choices.  If you can find a decent deal like the A215-S4697 I spied at Circuit City for $600 (It has the Turion64 X2 TL-52 and 1GB of memory, but more importantly has a 160GB 5400RPM drive), the A215 offers a lot of value.[/p] Pros Bright Vibrant Screen Good Sound Cool and Quiet Operation Firm and Light Touch Keyboard Easy to Upgrade Simple Toshiba Applications Partitionable Recovery Discs Cons Slow 4200RPM Hard Drive Stiff and Clicky Touchpad Buttons Poor Screen Protection

 

Just like HP - Toshiba seems to be treating AMD as a "poor relation" to Intel. Any idea why they stuck this system with a rinky-dink 4200 rpm drive?

 

Probably because the 4200rpm drive is made by Toshiba. Toshiba makes hard drives of various speeds and sizes used in many different notebooks from various manufacturers. Since Toshiba can use their own low-end drives in their notebooks it saves them some money in production costs.

Believe me, if Dell or HP made their own 2000rpm hard drives then Dell and HP would be using 2000rpm hard drives instead of 5400rpm and 7200rpm.

It's also a matter of cost for the consumer. Right now affordable 200GB and larger notebook drives tend to be 4200rpm. Faster large-capacity drives are VERY expensive.

 

Great work dude, nice comprehensive review. Question: never heard of the Radeon X1200 before. Is it a slower varient of the the X1250? Also, is this chip faster or slower than Intel's GMA X3100?

edit: Nevermind. The 3DMark 2005 score already proves how fast it is already. As compared to the X3100, the Radeon X1200 scores 40 points less.

 

True enough, but not entirely on point since Toshiba is equiping plenty of its Intel offerings with 5400rpm drives, including drives up to 160GB. Granted that someone wanting buckets of drive space and not concerned with drive speed might choose a 4200rpm 250GB drive over a 5400rpm 160GB drive; nonetheless, for those of us who would prefer a faster on-board drive (because, e.g., we store all of our pix and whatnot on an external drive), Toshiba should have offered the option to get the new AMD system with one or more 5400rpm drives. That they did not, particularly when even the basic Intel toshibas have that option, suggests that Toshiba is intentionally slighting AMD.

 

Indeed, I would echo that sentiment. Notwithstanding my griping elsewhere on this thread, I must say that I am truly impressed with both the quantity and the quality of the reviews that routinely come from notebookreview.com users.

 

I second that. I think NBR users are trying to do outdo each others reviewing skills - Only good for the rest of us leecher/readers

It's nice knowing the performance of the TL-56 chip as I just bought an Acer Travelmate for my parents with the same CPU.

 

Forgot to mention:

Zaz, could you be so kind as to post a screenshot of the Experience Index in Vista?

 

I was really waiting for the review to be posted.
I am happy knowing that its a good laptop for basic use, but am concered about the 4xxx rpm hard drives.

Does anyone know whether we can upgrade the hard drive later on.
I am planning to buy a 7xxx rpm drive during boxing day sale.

 

I think there are versions of the A215 available with 5400rpm HDD. Zaz did mention in the review about the 160GB 5400rpm HDD being used in the model being sold at CC-> A215-S4697. For some reason(price??) they decided to use the 4200rpm HDD with this particular model even though this one costs more than the other one.

Yes, it should be upgradable. I think ZaZ(reviewer) did use his spare 7200rpm HDD to test the system.

 

You absolutely can upgrade the hard drive. Just needs to be the same interface sata-sata or ata-ata.

 

I am considering the 215 that CC offers, the one with a 160 GB (5400 rpm). I'm intrigued by the integrated video system, ATI Radeon® X1200. I can't find any info on that card. I need the laptop to perform light duty 3d work such as being able to run 3DS Max, Maya and other 3D packages that use D3D and OpenGL but with moderately populated scenes (less than 100k polys). As far as games, all I care about are flight simulation programs such as MS FS X (willing to sacrifice scene complexity for faster frame rates) and Aerofly Professional Deluxe for R/C practice. Anybody has something to say regarding the 3d abilities if this ATI video system?

 

Information on the ATI Radeon Xpress X1200 can be found here: http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Radeon-Xpress-X1200.3775.0.html

I believe that is the same GPU as the one in this Toshiba. According to the page linked above, the GPU can manage VISTA effects, but not serious gaming.

 

Shyster, I saw that card but the one used in this Toshiba 215 laptop never uses the Xpress moniker at all, neither at CC's site nor at Toshiba's. I wonder if it's all a marketing strategy and whether they call it a Mobilty Radeon X1200 or a Radeon Xpress X1200 is totally irrelevant as the card is one and the same regardless of its name. Thanks for the info.

 

I had the same question - whether the "Xpress X1200" was a different creature from the "X1200" on the Toshiba. I think it's the same because they both have the same base graphics memory - 128MB. AMD doesn't really clear things up - a search on "Xpress X1200" doesn't reveal much, and the AMD chipset on the Toshiba is M690V which, according to the AMD Spring 2007 motherboard/chipset catalog, at: http://ati.amd.com/products/pdf/Motherboard_Catalog_with_AMD_Chipsets_March_2007.pdf

appears to be the same as the 690V chipset, which comes with the Radeon X1200 (I'm not sure if that last sentence makes grammatical sense).

 

I see that CC has the A215-S4807 on sale this week for only $699, which is quite a steal. Comes with free printer & router, which makes the price really only about $600 or so. This one has the 160GB 5400rpm HD and 2 GB ram. Has a great screen. It's nearly the same laptop as this one so I was really glad to see the review. I had been looking at the Dell 1520, but it's price has gone way up over the last couple of weeks out of my range, so I'm seriously considering the Toshiba now.

 

Hey Zaz! You didn't include a picture of yourself in this review. I miss seeing boy genius. Great review anyway though!

 

Keep in mind that not only are 4200RPM Hard drives cheaper in general, they offer more capacity for less than their faster counterparts. Right now, you'd be hard-pressed to find a 5400RPM Hard drive that big (250Gb) in a notebook, and if you found one, it would be very expensive.
Here, Toshiba wanted to market an inexpensive entertainment notebook, so they chose a large-capacity drive for entertainment purposes (movies, music, pictures, etc.) and chose 4200RPM to keep it nice and affordable. For the market they were aiming for, I think they made the perfect choice.

Now in my case, I would definitely want a faster hard drive that had a lower capacity. After all, I could always buy an external HD if I needed more space. So I understand that a big but slow HD isn't for everyone. But to the average consumer looking for a cheap entertainment notebook, it would be just right.

 

Great review ZaZ. I didn't like Toshiba's new line of notebooks vs. the old A100 series at first but now they are growing on me. The keyboard is better for sure and the design looks more modern. They are a bit thick but people looking for machines like this probably are not that interested in that.

The 4200RPM hard drive is a con for this particular configuration. Fortunately it is easy enough to find other configurations.

 

The TOSHIBA logo on the lid is not big enough , and they have so much space left ( and right ) .

And something is missing from the review -- where is the annoying kid ? booked to another review ?

 

The Windows Experience score is 3.0 mainly due the slightly better than integrated X1200. The X1200s 3Dmark score was 877 so it isn't really going to game.

I think Toshiba went with the slower drive cause it's cheaper, no big secret there. A lot of people only look at the CPU and don't consider anything else. The drive's easy to upgrade, but who wants to buy a notebook then run out and spend more for new drive.

I did include a shot of myself from the webcam, but there was a bit of cheesecake in the background maybe they left it off cause of that.

 

Nice review, but really, you should utter the truth here, which is that these new Toshibas are cr*ap. Readers, just go to a retail store and try one: the keyboards sag like wet towels, the plastics are cheap and bendy, the silver paint job looks worse than the old inspirons (if such a thing is possible), and to top it off the machines glow all over like cheap $70 boom boxes -- including a pointless glow-in-the-dark Toshiba logo facing the user! Last thing I need is for my laptop to shine a neon sign into my face while I work.

This from the manufacturer that made the modern laptop the effective, usable tool that it is today.

 

I've come across other Toshibas that were some of the worst keyboards I've ever seen, but honestly this one was pretty decent. This is a consumer notebook, not a business notebook. You will get no better from Dell, HP or Gateway's consumer notebooks.

 

I recently bought the A215-S4757 prior to reading this review. I took it on a trip and used it for wireless Internet and to store photos. I agree with the review, the case probably wouldn't stand up to daily abuse but for a home user who needs occasional portability it seems like a good machine.

Vista takes a very long time to boot and to shut down. I've not used Vista before. Any suggestions?

McAffee is preloaded and is constantly wanting to be registered and upgraded. Annoying. Vista already has a firewall and phishing protection built in, yes? Can I just blow away McAffee, turn on the Windows firewall and load a a free virus protector like AVG? Any suggestions or instructions for a good security configuration for home user with some portability / wireless use?

Where can I get instructions for getting rid of the bloatware without deleting something important?

Touchpad is a problem in Explorer. Just touching the pad sometimes activates links. Also, sliding across pad sometimes makes screen jump back a page. I can't find where to turn this off. Very annoying. Suggestions?

I am new here and hope these are relevant questions for this thread. Thanks.

 

Slow boot times are almost always due to a slower hard drive. When I put in the 7200RPM drive in it, it was a lot faster. Get rid of MacAfee. ZoneAlarm and AVG are both free and compatible with Vista. You can download the driver's and Toshiba apps from Toshiba's website. You'll lose some of the others like WinDVD if you need it, but there are free apps that work good too. The S4757 does have a Vista Anytime Upgrade disc. I am fairly certain you could do a clean install of Vista with it as you have a Valid COA though I don't know for sure as I haven't tried. I didn't notice the touchpad issue you had. It does have scroll zones on it if that is what you are referring to. If it's note, I suspect a clean install would clear things up.

 

I'm deciding on a A215-s4807, with CC 4 year warranty (with accidental coverage). What is it that would likely make this laptop obsolete in say 4 years? Specs: AMD TL-56, 2GB, 160GB 5400rpm, ATI Mobility Radeon x1200, pretty similar to the machine reviewed except the hard drive.

This is mainly for general home use and kids school work. Would have been nice to have a decent gaming machine, but not willing to pay for that now (and I really don't want the kids using it for that purpose anyway).

Some may think it's crazy to pay nearly $350 for a 4 year warranty for a laptop that costs $699, when that money could be used to upgrade to a much better machine. I'm thinking it may be crazy too. But I really like the idea of a guaranteed laptop for the next 4 years, especially with kids around, and am really seriously thinking of keeping it.

Back to the obsolete question, I figure that Vista Premium will probably be around for a while (unfortunately), and that most bread-n-butter apps like Office tools etc probably won't bloat up too much more than they already have in the next 4 years. The built in 802.11g router may be outdated soon, but not too soon I hope, and there's always the card slot alternative. There will probably be some apps we'll want to run that may not due to the graphics, but hopefully not too many. Thanks.

 

You might want to look at the Dell 1500/1520 which you can get with a decent GPU for gaming around the same price. There's lots more deals to be had on dells.

 

Wow, I just for the first time really looked through some of the Dell deals and reading through the forum. They look like pretty good deals, I need to find one to see how sturdy they feel. If I wasn't hung up on the warranty issue, I could get a machine that kicks the A215's butt. Once I add something like a 4 year warranty, the difference compared to where I am with the A215-s4807 with 4 year accidental is about $250, for a whole lot better specs..

But it adds something like $500 to the Dell for a 4 year accidental plan. Starting to think about getting the dell without the extended plan. Really need to find out how sturdy they are, I've read mixed reviews so far on the Inspirion which I assume the Vostro will be similar to.

 

Check out the warranty guide.

 

I read that the hard drive is a fujitsu, and the cd tray is a pioneer. Fujitsu make good hard drives. Toshiba can give a huge amount of space and less heat with this speed. Not to mention these are the first computers with AMD in a while.....I'm sure other models will follow with different variations....

 

I wanted to get a satellite A200-205, even possibly an A215....but i can't have XP.
So now I'm going with a Tecra A9..I cann get XP Pro, and it's built like a tank with quality components. Hitachi HD ( I believe) and A toshiba Cd drive.
I hear alot of peoples not happy with Vista. I don't have time to deal with Vista if it's buggy....anybody?? any advice...?

 

I don't think it real buggy, but it is slower than XP for the moment.

 

I won't PM you with notebook questions....what does "PM" even mean???
No I won't harass you. But I am trying to find out if I should for service packs to come out for vista, or screw it and go with the high quality tecra with XP Pro. I am used to XP, I like it, and it never gave me any problems....
The advantage with Vista is that I can build a killer Satellite for decent monies.

 

Oh please tell me you're joking.

PM = prive message.

 

Hi. I am a newbie here and am also wondering about getting rid of bloatware. I just purchased the a215 and am looking forward to fireing it up for the first time, but I REALLY want to get rid of all that suff right off the bat! Please tell me what the easiest/quickest/ most effective method is for removing all that crap.
Mine is the 5200 rpm model, and I plan to run Premiere with a seperate HD spinning at 7200 rpm.
Any thoughts/ sugestions are greatly appreciated!
Thanks everyone!

 

Hey, I just got my Toshiba Satellite A215 like, not even 3 days ago. And I HATE Windows Vista. Are there any drivers supporting this model of laptop for Windows XP?? Thank you. I dont check this websit very much, so if anyone has any good advice, please email me at josephrow at gmail dot com

 

and... what the hell is bloatware???

 

I have this laptop, which I bought for college use back in August. This laptop has been extremely reliable for me. I know of some users on these forums who have complained about their screens blanking out randomly during use, or complaining about Vista in general. I have not had any such issues. My suggestions would be to download the latest drivers, and I would also suggest downloading the latest hotfixes from Microsoft. There were some recent hotfixes from the MS Database website which considerably improved my laptop's battery life, so look into these hotfixes if you have a battery life issue. I have not had any issues with hibernation or sleep...I actually left my laptop in sleep mode for 2 days straight on battery power, then resumed it and it worked perfectly fine. Also used it for a number of hours straight in the 2 months I've had this laptop, and have had no issues whatsoever. A word to the wise, though: Toshiba has some pretty outdated video drivers for this laptop. I got sick of waiting around for Toshiba to update the ATI Video card drivers, so I used a program called Mobility Modder to install the latest drivers to my laptop, and it works perfectly. If you want the latest ATI drivers, I would suggest using it. Here's a URL:

http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool/

Follow the instructions and everything should go perfectly, as it did for me.

Also, if you want to question performance, after I removed the bit of bloat that was on it and performed some optimization tweaking, things are working very well, with great responsiveness. About slow boot-up/shutdown times, that has also improved a lot over the 2-month span, primarily because of recent Window hotfixes which decreased the time needed to boot-up and shutdown Vista. Hope all of this information helps anyone out there who has this laptop!

 

Can I upgrade the X1200 to a better card?

 

can anyone tell me where i can get WIN XP PRO device drivers for the A215-S4747 toshiba laptop?
i reinstalled it and i cannot locate the drivers
btw toshiba support site sucks