Toshiba Satellite A205-S5855

Does anyone own or know if a Toshiba Satellite A205-S5855 is a good laptop computer or not? I had my mind set on purchasing a Dell laptop, a Vostro 1500 until I began reading comments in Dell's Community Forum about touchpad issues and erratic cursor movement many owners were having with their Dell laptops.

Similar problems were also occuring with Inspiron 1520's and 1525's. I was in an Office Depot the other day looking at their laptops and the sales clerk was trying very hard to sell me a Toshiba A205-S5855. I haven't been able to read many reviews about it, is it new and is it any good?




Stevoreno
06/03/08

 

Have I posted my question in the incorrect forum? I'd like to get some feedback on this laptop by Toshiba.

 

My experience with my A210 (AMD version) is that it is a good laptop with no serious flaws as far as I'm concerned. The keyboard is decent, as is the screen and the performance is very good for the price I paid at the time, but nothing amazing. The speakers aren't too bad either. Toshiba have been good providing updates for drivers that have helped fix a few issues.

My main criticsm is the touchpad buttons are a bit clicky, but I use a mouse 99% of the time so it doesn't bother me and the 4200rpm HDD is a bit slow, but I don't really notice it (the A205 has a faster 5400rpm drive). Also, the battery life is poor for my A210 (around 1h30m with power saving), but that's because I have an AMD CPU (less effecient than Intel) and a dedicated GPU (uses more power than integrated), but I've only used the battery about 4 times so it doesn't bother me, and that A205 will be better, I expect at least 2 hours or more.

Basically, it's a solid and so far reliable laptop (after 8 months). I'm affraid I don't have a clue what you can get for $800 as I'm not from the US. It seems comparable to what Dell is offering for $800, but you could probably do better.

 

I need a laptop to replace a Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop which I dropped here in my home onto hardwood floors back in January 2008 and managed to crash the laptop's lcd monitor. It made me sick because the laptop was almost 2 years old at the time I dropped it. Dell quoted me a price of $368.00 USD + tax to repair it, I told them no so it sits in it's box packed away.

I used the laptop primarily for web surfing, sending and receiving emails and some Quicken. I'm not into playing games on a computer, I didn't do any digital photography or videos. I don't even own a digital camera. I was reading the reviews on that Toshiba laptop on this website and the reviewer said there were some serious heat issues with the laptop.

Does Toshiba have good tech support or is it like Dell's? Outsourced to India or the Phillipines? If there weren't any serious heat issues would the Toshiba laptop make a good replacement for my damaged Dell unit or could I buy something much cheaper to suit my basic computing needs?

 

What review was that? I haven't had heat issues, or heard of any for the A205, but I use my laptop on a cooler most of the time and don't game without the cooler.

Maximum temperatures I tend to get while gaming with overclocking my GPU is 64 degrees for the CPU and 50 for the GPU, which I consider decent temperatures, especially for the overclocked GPU.

Considering that A205 has an Intel CPU which should run cooler than my AMD and it has integrated graphics. I would be very surprised if it had any heat issues.

I've not tried contacting Toshiba customer support before, but I did phone up Toshiba to ask them if they had an A210-11p that I could buy from them. From what I can remember, I don't think it was an outsourced service. But I can definately remember when I phoned up to order a Dell Axim X50v pda from Dell that was outsourced; I remember struggling to understand/hear them properly. But that may vary from country to country and maybe their customer service is a different number to what I phoned, so I can't say for sure.

 

Would the Toshiba Satellite A205-S5855 be a good replacement for my damaged Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop with Windows XP or could I find something by Toshiba that's less expensive? I did notice another Toshiba laptop for less money which also has Vista but only comes with 1 gig of memory. I have read that Vista runs much better with 2.

 

Yeah, I think it would definately worth the small amount extra to get at least 2gb RAM for Vista (that A205 has 3gb RAM, which is plenty). If you have a good clean computer that doesn't have many running processes (around 45-50 is decent with security software) and aren't using it for gaming then 1gb RAM should be fine for general use, but I have never used Vista with 1gb of RAM so I can't say from experience. I had 60-70 processes running when I first got my laptop and it took me a while to get it down to 49 with everything loaded (I exit a few programs for playing games so that I have 43-45 process running).

That A205 should be easily upto what it appears you want it for, as long as you are happy with the larger size (isn't the Dell Inspiron 1300 a 13 inch laptop?) and happy with the quality (I assume you have tried it in the shop).

If the Toshiba with 1gb RAM you refer to is that A215 listed for $599 on Toshiba's site, and you are considering that instead, then I would recommend the extra $50 for the A215 with 2gb RAM and the faster AMD Turion X2 TL-60. But the AMD isn't going to run as fast, cool, or have as much battery life the A205 with the Intel CPU. It is still perfectly fast though, but the system may have more fan activity and it's upto you if battery life is important. There was a problem with the early BIOS on the A215s, but to my understanding Toshiba have fixed it with a BIOS update. Personally, the screen would only temporarily blink (not lock-up the computer) only when not using the High Performance Power Plan. A BIOS update fixed my A210 (UK version of A215) near the end of last year.

It may be worth considering something like this Gateway. It's $699 and has 2gb RAM and it has the same Hard Drive and Intel CPU the same as in the A205.

Acer have a good range of budget notebooks, like this one at Circuit City (not sure how reputable Circuit City are, as I'm not from US), it is only $550 and comes with 2gb RAM, a very large 250gb Hard Drive and an older, but still good Intel CPU. I think Acer's new designs have improved the build quailty over the previous models, so it may be worth looking into them as well.

But the American laptop market is unfamiliar to me; I don't know what shops to go to for the good deals and someone else may be of more help in this.

 

I just bought the A205-S5855 a few days ago. It is my second Toshiba and I'm very happy with it. I got it with 3 gigs ram at O.D. for 599 after rebate.
Pretty quick for Vista, quiet operation, strong wifi, clear bright screen. The one complaint about Toshiba is battery life. My old one (4-cell battery) would last about 90 minutes if I was lucky. This one (6-cell) goes about 2 - 2 1/2 hours normally. However, I usually just keep it plugged in. If battery life is important to you, you might want to invest in a 9-cell battery...
Overall, a great deal for the money IMO

 

My A205-S5855 jumped the lines while typing. I called Customer Service and they advised me not to touch the touchpad while typing. But mine still jumps the line without ever touching the touchpad. Does anyone have this problem and know how to fix this annoying problem? I bought an ACER for my daughter and this laptop for me. The ACER does not have this problem and I am really considering returning this Toshiba for the ACER.

 

vuman1 in your question about the jumping lines on the toshiba satellite A205-S5855 . i had purchased the same notebook about a week ago and i have notice the same thing without me touching anything but the keys.i have notice the battery life isnt that great either but everything else about the computor seem to be pretty great so far. i got mind for $475 taxes and all because it was a floor model. still wondering if thats was a good decision.it was on a top shelf were no children only tall people could really reach. when i started noticing jumping line and not that great of a battery i was wondering if it was because i got a floor model. hmmmmm. well i can tell you i wrote this whole thing w/ no jumping but i have noticed it. as far as the heat goes. im on this lab for long periods of time 6-8 hrs sometimes no heat problems at all.