Anyone with insight on new Toshiba E205-S1904

I'm looking to replace my wife's old Dell and in the market for 14". Browsing at Best Buy yesterday and came across this sweet machine:

http://laptops.toshiba.com/laptops/satellite/E205/E205-S1904

Looks like it just came out this week, as part of Best Buy's new "Blue Label" laptops. I think it's one of the first, if not THE first, to feature Intel's Wireless Display. Aside from that the specs look real good, reported 6-hr battery life, nice LED screen. Going for $899 at BB.

Haven't seen any reviews yet, but wondering if anyone has any thoughts. Everything looked good in person, but the only thing I didn't like were the trackpad buttons were a little "sticky" and a little too far to reach naturally by my thumb (but then again I'm used to one-button multi-pad on my Macbook).

 

A very nice lappy indeed. Specs are good except for the Intel graphics...

 

I was just looking at this laptop today at BB, as I'm looking around for a 14" model. Looks pretty decent, but it will DEFINITELY be a fingerprint magnet. Also, the screen and hinges setup seemed kind of floppy, especially if you compare it to the 13.3" Toshiba U505 model they have there. BTW, the U505 is a very nice machine, solid, great cover material, and it has a 16:10 screen for more vertical screen viewing. It also seemed to run cooler than the new E205 model, both bottom and top.

If you can wait a few weeks, Lenovo is coming out with their new 14" Y460, and the pictures of it look great, and it looks like it will be a strong performer. Hopefully it will run cooler than the Y450 that it is replacing.

 

I actually purchased this laptop this week. Overall I would say it's pretty nice. IMO, not heavy (but I'm coming from a Dell E1705). My only real gripes are the hinges for the LED screen and the keyboard.

Hinge: Though I don't intend to do this, the screen doesn't bend all the way back. Soooo, if you happen to drop your laptop, and it lands on a bad angle, it could possibly force the hinge to snap. I'd say it is 20 to 30 degrees short of full 180 extention.

Keyboard: It just doesn't feel as well made as the sony blue label. I also don't like the glassy look to it, but I can live with it.

Speaking of keyboard, a Backlit Keyboard was a must for me and this met my expectations. I don't know if Lenovo will adpot one, doesn't seem like it to me. The sony laptops backlighting is much cleaner, but the toshiba's does the job. You see some light seeping out but it's not a big deal. The backlit settings are on, off and 15 seconds. The only place I was able to find to change the backlit timer was in the BIOS. But I'll go take another look when I get home. I like the light sensor since it automatically adjusts the brightness of the keyboard and screen to the light of the room. The sensor is just above the F3-ish keys. The sound is weak, but what do you expect. The touch panel on the right can get a big annoying. When I use the enter, backspace, or arrow keys, my hand occasionaly drifts over and touches one of the functions controlled by the touchpad. I feel like this is just an adjustment issue, I'm already getting better at it. Also, the touchpad makes a louder noise than the speakers, a beep everytime you hit something. So I would advise going into the Realtek controls and lowering this. It gets quite annoying. The mousepad is decent, I find it wide and not high enough but still usable. The mouse buttons are lower than I am used too and they look like they can be pushed from the side edge of the machine, they can't. The multitouch works pretty well, zoom being the worst one that I've tried. I haven't tried rotating yet. The resolution is nice and it has a built in sensor for HDD movement. The ports look recessed in the machine but I've tested most of them out with a few cables and all of them fit without issue. The only one I haven't tried is the eSATA and the HDMI port.

Lastly, don't forget that the E205 is a bundle. It comes with Kaspersky antivirus for 12 months and the Netgear PUSH2TV. Don't buy the warranty, it has 2 years from toshiba. The laptop itself comes out to 899.99 and the bundle is the same price. Some guy who got this laptop before me didn't get the whole bundle, he just got the laptop. I didin't realize until later when I decided to take the plunge. So don't assume they know what comes with it. The discount will apply after they do the whole bundle thing. Overall, I feel that it's a good value. For 100 less than the dell, I'd definetly take the Toshiba. I think the only thing I wanted more was bluetooth and USB 3.0 but decided that bluetooth wasn't that important to me and I can live with eSATA instead of USB 3.0. The sony is 150 more and just didn't seem worth it to me. Hope that helps.

Update:
So I went home and double checked. The hinge is more like 40 degrees from full 180 and I wasn't able to adjust the backlight keyboard timing in any other area than the BIOS.

 

Actually, in order to stop the beeping, click on the start menu

In the search field, type "HWSetup."

Click on the HWSetup icon to run the hardware setup utlity.

The utility will have several tabs. Click on the tab that says "Button Setting."

Under "Button Setting," there will be two fields to select from. The lower field is entitled, "Function Button Sound Notification."

Click the button that says, "Disable" and that will take care of the issue. You will be prompted to reboot, do so and upon reboot, the sounds will be disabled.

 

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/toshiba-satellite-e205.aspx

 

@jmschn

can you clear up a few things for me?

I read in a review that the touch pad does not support multi-touch gestures. Just want to clarify that it does...

Speakers... are they as bad as everyone says?

Battery life... what are you getting with normal usage w/ wifi?

Heat... how hot does it get under normal usage?

Finally, would you recommend the keyboard to someone who is looking at this laptop from a writer's prospective?

Thanks for answering,

Michael

 

I also have the toshiba e205, It's an extremely good and well built laptop with a nice metallic blue finish that appeals to my mom who I got it for.

It should have bluetooth, it was rather enraging that of all things, best buy cut bluetooth from this "blue label" laptop, but its not a huge loss.

The push2tv adapter is nice and everything, but there's an unfortunate lag between moving the mouse and having it show up on screen. What it basically functions as is a GREAT way to wirelessly transmit your screen to an hdmi device, as long as you control it while using and looking at your laptop at 720p and duplicating the screens or possibly extending if you felt like it or needed to multitask. Single screen on the tv will make you tear your hair out so I wouldnt recommend it.

The Push2TV adapter supports up to seemingly 1280x800 and when sent at 720p will fill a screen of a normal 16:9 ratio television. It also sends audio at great quality and has composite inputs for when at a hotel or vacation without an hdtv. The screen appears to think it is 1080i so I assume thats how the adapter sends the signal in order to cut down on bandwidth.

Anyways, the laptops best buy offers for their blue label seem to be pretty solid, the sony looks great too so its just about the small details like screen size and weight. Dont hesitate if you're on the fence about it and dont mind some minor wireless hdmi lag.