Home > Consumer Reviews > Toshiba Satellite X205-SLI5 17-inch Laptop (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 Processor, 3 GB RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, DVD Drive, Vista Premium)

Pros: 3 gigs of RAM, an 8700 GT, and a competent processor run all of today's games nicely. The speakers are the best built-in laptop speakers I've ever heard. They really fill the room. Toshiba's software provides a number of media options. There are six USB ports. The integrated sound is better than other onboard sound I've heard. HDMI ports. Sleek, if somewhat girlish-looking, design on the back cover. 320 GB of storage space.


Cons: Some relatively minor complaints: the feel of the keyboard is a little untraditional, though that may wear off; there is no DVI port; the computer comes loaded with too much annoying trialware; the big obnoxious Call of Duty 4 sticker on the laptop advertises a game that isn't even included; the keyboard shortcuts (like Fn+Esc to mute the sound) are done via software and not via hardware. The only significant complaint is the viewing angle on the monitor, which is actually worse than my 2005-era Dell XPS gaming laptop. This means you may have to do some adjusting of the physical angle of the screen to get it to look good.

Other Thoughts: A much better deal than the Dell XPS gaming line of laptops, without sacrificing performance. The machine is hefty, but that's to be expected.

Our big leonberger puppy Bronco chewed on my oldest sons Asus G1 series computer. Thus he lost his homework stored on the computer and his computer. However, this is the replacement for it, and it is a decent computer. We told Best Buy the truth and they still replaced it, which was nice of them (we had a service plan). However, I noticed that Amazon has this computer for about $100 less than Best Buy sold it for.

The specs for the laptop are very good, 3GB of RAM, 2.4MHz Intel core 2 Duo T8300 processor (fast), NVIDIA SLI Dual GeForce3 8600T GT with 512MB VRAM (a very good graphics card), 6 USB 2.0 ports, HDMI output, and 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet, Quad-band Wi-Fi LAN (we use both wireless and Ethernet), and it has a fast access (7200RPM) 320GB hard drive (and much more).

A large hard drive is nice, because the kids always run out space and I have to buy external hard drives that are a real pain to drag around on trips. Personally I am very tired of the puny 60GB and 80GB hard drives. Those hard drives I fill up in one week.

The sound is very nice, and the screen is a 17 inch high quality WSXGA (TruBrite, 1440X900), which makes the graphics look bright and clear. The DVD player is top notch, and the laptop is quiet, and it runs smoothly. The kids have used it for a while and they have tried some programs with demanding graphics like garry's mod and it still ran smoothly.

However, my son still felt that considering the great spec, programs should have loaded faster and the graphics was not as fast as he had hoped. This laptop is also quite heavy (9Lbs). So I think we got a decent deal, but not a perfect deal. Maybe Bronco should chew on some more laptops. Well nah, his homework was lost for ever and that is not good (he did not back up his hard drive for two months).

I could not be more pleased with my new Toshiba Satellite x205-SLI6 laptop. It is very fast, and way faster than I had expected for a laptop. In fact, it is much faster than my 3.2 GHz single core desktop. This laptop runs Windows Vista Ultimate flawlessly. As for gaming, I ran Call of Duty 4 and Oblivion on the highest settings, and ran Crysis on medium settings--all three looked and played great. All these are optimized for NVIDIA SLI configurations--so this laptop's two 8600M GT video cards really pay off. Meanwhile, the Harman Kardon speakers are the best I have heard on a laptop--another great feature for gaming.

My only complaints are minor. As I expected, this laptop is heavy--when you carry it around in a shoulder bag, you don't forget it's there. It does not, however, feel that heavy on my lap. The other complaint is its pretty short battery life, but I don't spend much time away from a wall socket anyway. These are the only things that keep me from giving this unit five stars.

For the price, I am very pleased with this purchase.

My daily driver is a tiny VAIO TXN17P - I really like it - it is my fifth in the 10.25 inch screen series - I treat it like a blackberry - it goes everywhere with me - it is lightweight.

And that is also its problem - just short of the performance I need for some creative work.

So I bought the Toshiba Satellite X205 SLI6 so I had a powerful machine, dedicated to work I mostly do at home, but "luggable" for when I want the freedom to move around.

First I should say that the machine came out of the box and worked perfectly in all regards from the start. It is a work of art - nice to touch and nice to look at.

I'm not that much of a "gamer", so I can't help by reviewing the machine's potential for that use

For me, it is dedicated to the Adobe CS3 suite and to MS Visual Studio. I use its monitor and when it is in its normal place a VS 21 inch side by side in dual screen mode. The graphics on both are fast and stunning for my work.

As to performance, I have a love/hate relationship with Norton 360. I believe it does a really good job protecting me, but at the same time, even though I've done lots of configuration to improve performance, it hurts a lot on my little VAIO. So you can see how I'd use that as a subjective benchmark on the Toshiba. The result? I don't even notice it running and I have not tuned it. I rate it at 100 nortstones.

I do have a couple of complaints. I'm sure this first item is my bad for no doing due diligence, but I had thought that the T9300 processor was 64bit, I knew the machine was configure with 3GB, but also had seen the spec that it could go to 4GB, so I made the assumption that I'd be getting a 64bit Vista OS. Not true - it is 32bit. It is not that I need 64bit desperately, but (still assuming it could be upgraded), I was really expecting to get a machine that I didn't need to do all the driver upgrades and so forth for.

The second complaint is with the power brick. It is a whopping 2 pounds and draws 180W. I'm afraid to use my 130W iGo to charge it. And another Toshiba adapter is $85.

Overall, a good value. Hope this was helpful.

I purchased the x205-s9810 back in July to replace a Dell Inspiron I had. I did it primarily to play WOW and get more than 12 FPS ;-). I haven't tried any other heavy duty games like Crysis or anything, although I hear that it runs very well with it. (I did try Star Wars Galaxies, but that game's graphics suck anyway....)

Pros:

[...]

Ports: All major inputs and outputs (6 USB, HDMI, etc...).

Touch Pad: Touch pad is very cool (especially the volume control).

Keyboard: Keyboard layout rocks. Ilove the silver matte finish.

Speakers: the Sound!!! WOW. Best sound out of a laptop I've heard.

Media keys and camera are a cool feature. Overall aesthetics are nice.

OS: Vista is fine if you turn off all the annoying admin pop-ups, configure the windows and views, etc... I've only ran into problems doing heavy networking, WebDav, etc.. But then again, it's not for business, but pleasure and gaming.

Fingerprint Scanner: I use this everyday to log in. Very nice feature.

Cons:
These are MINOR cons (and why I gave it 4 stars; wish they had 1/2 stars....):

Glossy Finish: As others have said the glossy finish, both on the monitor and cover, grab finger prints like nobody's business. BUT did I buy it for looks? No. So that's not a big deal to me. I wouldn't pass this computer up just beacause of looks...

Fans: The fans blow out to the right and left. This means that if you use a mouse a lot (like I do), your hand will burn up in no time. I have resorted to taping a piece of folded paper to the right side to deflect the heat away. This heat really only comes into play when you're gaming. They should have made the fans blow out the back instead.

DVD Drive: I've only used the DVD drive once to install something and it was VERY loud; vibrated like crazy. I'll have to try another soon to get a better idea. The laptop was, however, sitting on a stand at a 30 deg. angle so that might have had something to do with it.

Standby: For some reason, every now and then, when I put the unit on standby, and try and unplug a USB device, it shuts down. Now, this is probably my fault due to the pulling of the USB device andnot stopping it first. If I pull it out first, and then put it on stand by, everything is fine.

Power Brick: Yep...it's a brick. Heavy and hot especially when gaming. BUT AGAIN, what do you expect from a gaming laptop! Doesn't bother me a bit.

Weight: Heavy, heavy, heavy. But I don't care as I would expect that from a gaming laptop. Not a big deal to me. I'm not a wimp so I can handle carrying it around the house and to the local gaming coffee house.

Conclsions:
For the money and features, and especially if you're a casual gamer, this is the best gaming laptop on the market so far. If you are a intermediate to advanced computer user, the computer will end up working like a charm once you configure Vista like you need it (I had bought a copy of XP in case Vista was as bad as people said, but I didn't need it). I am very happy with the laptop so far.