Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A Perfect Blending of Performance and Affordability
I looked at laptop offerings from Dell, Gateway, IBM, Compaq and Toshiba; HP, Sony, Fujitsu, and Winbook were never seriously considered, because I have had bad experiences with all of those manufactures notebooks in the past. In the end I choose the Toshiba Satellite 1905-S301 because I thought it provided me with the best combination of price, performance, and quality available. I bought my laptop at Circuit City for $...which included a $...instant rebate. That added to a $...Toshiba mail-in rebate, drew down the final cost to ...! For this tidy sum my new notebook came with the following features:Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor @ 2.0GHz;
Screen: 15" XGA active matrix display (1024 x 768);
Memory: 256MB PC2100DDR SDRAM, max 1.0 GB;
Video Card: ATI M6-P graphics controller w/16MB external DDR VRAM video memory;
Removable Storage: DVD/CD-RW multifunction drive;
Fixed Storage: 40GB Hard drive;
NIC: 10/100 Ethernet;
Modem: V.90/56K Modem;
Ports: 1x Parallel printer port; 2x USB 2.0 ports; 1x VGA; 1x 1394 Firewire; 2x Type II PC Card (PCMCIA) slots; 1x S-Video out.
OS: Windows XP Home Edition.
First Impressions: I love this laptop! The speed of the CPU; the sharp, clear, vibrant richness of the display; the overall performance of the machine; I love this laptop! And quiet, this machine is quiet. While my Tecra's one cooling fan was obnoxiously noisy, the 1905's two cooling fans (one on the left side in the rear, and one on the bottom of the computer) are surprisingly and wonderfully quite. Ditto for the hard drive and CD/DVD-ROM drive. Sometimes the computer is so quite I forget it's even on! The only problem I've had thus far has to do with the touch pad and the multi-feathered software the comes with it. Word to the wise, disable the "Tap" portion of the software it will interfere with the normal operation of the computer whenever your thumb or finger accidentally touched the pad. Product Features: a closer look: Processor The Satellite 1905-S301 features a 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 processor, with a 400MHz FSB (Front Side Bus) which runs the machine at lighting fast speeds. I have read a lot about the possibility of over-heating with this barn burner, but so far it has not been an issue. I regularly leave the computer (named Khufu, after the ancient Egyptian city of the same name), running over night; and in the morning it's still quiet as a whisper, and as cool as an ice cube. Memory The Satellite 1905-S301's predecessor the Satellite 1905-S277 shipped with 256MB SDRAM, but Toshiba upped the ante with the S301 and slipped 2100 DDR memory under the hood. The stock 256 megabytes is more then adequate for everyday computing needs and multimedia applications, but more is always better in my book, so if you can afford it spring for 512 megabytes do so; I couldn't so I didn't. The maximum amount you can add is 1.0 GB. Storage The 1905-S301 features a generous 40GB user accessible hard drive, which is again quiet as a mouse exploring for bread crumbs in the dark of night. Some 5 GB is used up by the OS and application programs out of the box, leaving 35 glorious GB for storing those need to listen to MP3 files, and those all important documents and spreadsheets. The CD-RW/DVD combo drive is built into the system. And while I would have been happy with just a CD-ROM, having a RW/DVD drive at this price point is a bargain hard to pass up. Toshiba included WinDVD for viewing DVD's and Drag' n Go for burning them. A 3.5" floppy drive is also built into the built into the system. Some might think this antiquated, but believe there is still a need to have a floppy drive. How else can one easily swap briefs and outlines with ones fellow students, not to mention the need to print that last minute, hastily completed assignment at the school computer lab? An extra spindle for a second battery or ZIP drive would have been nice, but not expected at this price point. Display This is the real selling point of the Satellite 1905-S301. The display is beautiful; bright, sharp, crisp, and vibrant. The 15" XGA TFT screen brings graphics to life like a regular display never could, and the text is well defined, bright, and easy to read. I vacillated for a time between the XGA, SXGA, and UXGA display, but in the end I didn't want to spend the extra money for the higher end displays. I went to the local CompUSA and compared them all side-by-side, and while there are some subtle difference between them, in the final analysis the XGA display proved adequate for my needs. DVD viewing is a wondrous experience even at full screen; who needs a big screen TV? And while I will probably never mate my 1905-S301 with an external monitor, it's nice to have the ATI Radeon video card with 16MB of DDR video memory at my disposal. Unlike the 1905-S277, the 1905-S301 is equipped with an S-Video out port. Conclusions: At this price point you would be hard pressed to find a better desktop replacement computer. Toshiba has found the right combination of price, performance and features and incorporated them into the Satellite 1905-S301. For the student, or professional on the go, this is the one! Note: Toshiba offers another notebook in this line the Satellite 1905-S302. The only difference between the two is the OS; Windows XP Home for the S301, and Windows XP Professional for the S302.
Rating: - Great price, decent features
This notebook looks great on paper: 2.0 GHz P4 CPU, 15' display, and a very low price. It sounds almost too good to be true. Well it is true, but naturally Toshiba had to cut cost somewhere to sell it at this price, and it is important to know where:CPU ' a desktop 2.0 GHz P4 not a lower power mobile P4-M. The P4-M will give you longer battery life and will run cooler at the same frequency, however the P4-M cost more and we are clearly looking at a 'budget' model here. Display ' 15' LCD 1024-by-768 pixels. Not unusual but better notebooks will have 1280x1024 or higher displays. The response time, contrast and luminance on this model is okay but not great. More expensive models tend to have much better displays. If the quality of the display is more important than the size, then get a notebook with a good quality 14' display instead. Graphics - ATI M6-P (aka Mobile Radeon) chipset with 16MB of video Ram. This chipset won't satisfy 3D gamers but it will work fine for most people. It's not my first choice and it is slowly giving way to the superior Radeon 7500c in notebooks in this price range (see the HP xt125). Amazon.com has some of the specs wrong (or missing) that I thought I would clear up: RAM - DDR-SDRAM not SDRAM. This is important since the 266MHz DDR-SDRAM is twice as fast as 133MHz SDRAM. Only the oldest and cheapest notebooks still use the slower SDRAM. On die L2 Cache - 512K not 256K. This equals a 10-15% performance boost over the 256K-cache model. (If you a curious 'cache' is a small but very fast block of memory that sits on the CPU. This is the first place the CPU looks for data it needs. If it isn't there it will get it from the RAM. The less often it has to go to the larger but slower RAM the better.) One other note that may interest you - PCWorld magazine has this to say about this model: 'The Toshiba Satellite 1905-S301 lasted 4 hours, 11 minutes on one battery charge, shattering all previous records for Pentium 4 notebooks in our tests.' This may not hold true for everyone, but it is a good sign. However don't try watching a DVD and expect it to last this long. The DVD motor, CPU usage and the constant LCD refresh will cut this time in half. However under a normal software load you should do quite well. Soin this model you are getting a very well featured laptop with a large display of average quality. Yes, if you spend more you can do better, but at this price it would be hard to beat this model.
Rating: - Excellent battery life
I got the 1905-S301 which shares the same specs as the 1905-S303.
The best feature of this notebook is its battery life. I got 2hours and 50 minutes playing DVDs and 3hours and 20min normal use. Note that I only set the screen to power saving mode and all other hardware were functioning at full power.I read a lot about the battery before. Some said it lasted long, other said it did not. I run the test for myself. I previously had an HP ze5155 (1.8ghz, 512mb ram, 40gb HD, 32mb video ram). But the battery life [wasoor]. I only got 1hour and 30 minutes playing DVDs and 2hours normal use. Toshiba uses a 12-cells battery while HP uses an 8-cells battery. The toshiba battery has a 33% higher capacity than the HP battery.
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