Any L300/L305 or L350/L355 owners here? Opinions?

I'd be interested to hear from any owners of the Toshiba Satellite L300/L305 or L350/L355 laptops. Some basic feedback on what you like and dislike about your laptop would be great! Any problems or concerns with it?

I'm considering ordering the L300 for my niece, but haven't heard anything (positive or negative) from anyone about this model. I routinely suggest it to other NBR members who are looking for a solid budget laptop. But my suggestion is based on my previous good experience with Toshiba.

Input and comments are welcome!

 

I have the L300D with AMD Turion X2 '64, 3 GB of Ram, 320 GB hard drive space, ATI Radeon x1250 which is an...okay card I guess.

Overall I like this laptop. I recommend it to her. Really great speakers on the machine. Dislike is common..A tiny bit of a squeal from the CPU it sounds like. Not really annoying though. If she uses Balanced battery mode it will last her for about 2 and a half hours.

 

Mine's (L300-ST2501) in my sig.

I feel I got a great CTO deal with the post xmas sales: $723 USD (Tosh paid tax and shipping). I added my own RAM and am soon adding a Seagate Momentus 7200.4 or equivalent.

I think it is a good, but somewhat mundane, budget lappy. I don't mean "mundane" as derogatory, since I like a plain no-nonsense/no gimmicks lappy. It has been extremely solid. I also got a similar model for my kid for University work last year...she also likes hers and has found it solid and dependable.

The good:

- Very cool and very quiet, and I mean very (P8600 and T5750 vers)
- Decent ergonomics and aesthetics - The all plastic exterior is rugged while also have a somewhat soft and comfortable feel...the edges are very slightly radiused.
- Standard KB layout - Well, at least what I'm used to
- Real multimedia keys - No crappy tactile- less "soft keys"
- Reliable - No known glitches yet

The Fair:

- Flat finished keys on KB - I prefer glossy contoured keys
- LCD display is OK, but has a relatively tight vertical viewing angle
- Battery life is maybe 2-1/2 hrs or so in general use
- 15" - 5-1/2 lbs...slightly porky, but goes with the (15") territory I suppose
- X4500MHD onboard graphics has worked excellently so far, surprisingly well, actually, but I would've preferred a modest hdwr gfx card option for future-proofing

The Poor:

- Speakers suck - Seriously, they are barely adequate for voice reproduction, at best.
- VGA out, but no HDMI - Only way I've found to stream to a TV is via a VGA adaptor for video + a separate audio cable out of the HP jack.
- The HP jacks come directly out of the middle of the front of the lappy - Makes it somewhat a PITA to use HPs with straight jacks when reclining with the lappy on your legs or stomach...I use a USB to SPDIF (TOSlink) adapter feeding a Little Dot HP tube amp driving my AKGs, Senns, or Denons (Don't ask...I hang out at Head-Fi too much).

I wouldn't take the "fair" and "poor" criticisms too deeply, tho. I'm being extremely critical. The lappy has an overall decent feel and performance of quality, and just plain works well. Inexpensive quality, albeit, but decent for the price point. I would liken it to, oh, a Toyota Corrolla (I own two of them, too, LOL). Inexpensive, but dependable and an overall feeling of decent quality and refinement for such an inexpensive, product. The words "basic" and "serviceable" and "reliable" come to mind.

The Toshiba s/w works well and is useful, too. I often use the Tosh function keys, and just last nite burned a good .ISO of W7 beta x64 using Toshiba's "Disc Creator". Burnt fine on 1st try, and installed w/o a hassle on 1st try on my sig lappy in a new partition.

*whew*

This was almost mini-review synopsis...sorry about the length!

HTH

EDIT:OK. I just hit the Tosh Direct site for the first time in a while, and see why you may have started this thread. The current discount price looks pretty decent. No idea what tax + ship currently is for you, but yeah, it could be a pretty sweet budget buy.

Don't hesitate to ask me any specific Q's you may have.

 

I bought my mom an L305D (actually got it free with my United miles )with an AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core QL-62, ATI Radeon 3100 Graphics, and 2.00 GB memory and it runs fine for whatever she does. Probably email, surfing the web, watching movies... I've used it a couple times and I can say that it runs Vista flawlessly, but the left hand palm rests do get a bit warm... maybe it's AMD's fault...

 

Typing right now on our new L305-S5941....3GB's with a 250 GB hard drive. This thing is blazing compared to our 7 year old compaq desktop.

Pretty sweet rig for $450.

I would like advice on what specifically to disable/delete. I've taken off a few things already....

FYI...this was the display model at BB...only on the display shelf for 1 week and the guy who helped me said it was now a discontinued model. No more coming in after this one. There was a lady standing next to me the whole time waiting for my decision on the display model

 

The crapware (trial software) included on new Toshiba models (and most other major manufacturers) is frustrating and has an impact on performance. For starters, download Revo Uninstaller (it's FREE- LINK). It runs the uninstall function for each program you want to remove PLUS searches for any associated files and registry entries that would normally be left behind to junk up your hard drive.

Create a recovery disc BEFORE you start deleting things! Use the "Toshiba Recovery Disc Creator" utility.

Looking at the Toshiba specs, you can get rid of the following-

WildTangent Orb Games Console
Google Toolbar
Microsoft Office 2007 60-Day Trial (unless you plan to use it, in which case you might want to uninstall MS Works)
Norton 360 All-In-One Security (unless you plan to buy it, otherwise try AVG AntiVirus for free)
Amazon Online Shopping
Intuit QuickBooks
Skype
eMusic
Computrace/LoJack

Anything else you see that you don't want...Revo Uninstaller will be your best friend for clean-up!