Question for any U200 or u205 owner - build quality

Hello,
I would like to know from other owners of this notebook if theire keyboard flexes (my doed for half a cm), also the LCD cover flexes for about half a cm.

I got this toshiba yesterday and I'm disapointed in the build quality, I previously owned a DELL.

 

I saw one at Best Buy. The keyboard flexed quite a bit on it.

 

Thank you Zaz, did you also saw if the LCD cover flexes?

 

I have a week old U205 and I think it is very solid. I am coming from an HP DV 1000 flexed like crazy. Overall my only gripe is the smaller keyboard, but is less a complaint and more an adjustment to a smaller keyboard, and offset touchpad.

 

I didn't check the cover.

 

The keyboard or touch pad is not a problem since I use an external keyboard and mouse. I saw a dell latitude d520 yesterday and the LCD cover flexed like my, but the keyboard was rock solid.

 

And another question for the U200 / U205 owners: The specifications here show the battery life for T5500 + 512MB + 60GB as 5:01 Mobilemark hours, but the battery life drops to 4:27 hours for T7200 + 1GB + 100GB. What battery running time are you folk seeing in real life? Does the T7200 take a lot more power than the T5500 (we would have to blame the extra cache)?

John

 

Hi,
I ran my notebook yesterday with "Long life" profile, I was working 90% of the time (browsing, office stuff) and had about 3 hours of battery life. Its a T5600 with 1 GB ram and 80 GB disk. I hope this helps.

 

Thanks very much. That is well short of the 5 hours which Toshiba suggest. What was your display brightness?

If you download Mobilemeter from here you can see the power consumption when running on battery. It would be useful to know the wattage for different power management settings (maximum and minimum brightness, different CPU power settings, Toshiba power management enabled / disabled). To get 5 hours running time out of a 54W-Hr battery (my best guess for 6 cell) means an average power draw of under 11W.

John

 

Hi,
OK here are the facts.

Full CPU power, Full brightness: 23 W
Full CPU power, half brightness: 18 W

"Long Life" CPU power, full brightness: 17 W
"Long Life" CPU power, half brightness: 17 W

I dont unerstand why with "Long Life" profile the screen brightness doesn't have andy influence on batter consumption.

-

 

Thanks for the extra info. 17W power draw is consistent with 3 hour running time. Which CPU do you have?

John

 

Core 2 duo, T5600 1.83 GHz

 

Thanks.

Anyone with a Core Duo version of this notebook who can chack battery life / power consumption?

John

 

I have tested this laptop too. what do you mean by "flexing"?

how many hours maximum do you get with your battery if you have wifi-on, and browsing the internet, maybe listening to some music and word etc..? what do you think about the computer in overall except the build quality? anything else?

 

Hi, flexing = bending. I now have this laptop for about 3 weeks and I don't see this as a problem any more.
The batery last for about 3 hours when I set the power profile to "Long Life". Check my previous post for batery drain testings.