I wanted to write a review on my laptop since long. But I resisted because I really wanted to see it pass through my grueling hands before I wrote about it! Finally, when Kishore mailed me asking about the laptop, I decided to write down the review. So Kishore this one’s for you!
Okay! Now let me mention what my laptop to offer to us:
TOSHIBA SATELLITE PRO 4600 SERIES
Specifications
Pentium-III 1 GHz Mobile processor
256 MB SDRam
30 GB hard disk
Yamaha Sound Card
DVD-CDRW combination drive
87 key, key board, pointing stick for a mouse
Wireless LAN enabled ( 802.11b-explained later)
Ethernet (10/100 Mbps) card built in
Software modem
16 MB 4x Trident AGP video card.
15” XGA display.
Win 98/ Win 2k pre-installed
A free printer!!
The mandatory floppy drive
Batteries!
2 USB ports, TV out, line in, mic, one serial, one parallel port
2 PCI card slots.
A few words
At the very outset its clear that this laptop is a robust machine! With a 1 GHZ Pentium, and 256 MB ram, there is hardly anything you could ask for more. Though I must commend MICROSOFT for making Windows 98. Even after such a configuration, the boot up time doesn’t even show the slight difference!
One good thing about the laptop is it is wireless enabled. What it means simply is if I have a wireless environment, then I can do away with the wires and be completely mobile. Its fun to boast this feature in front of my friends by using it in the college here!! About 802.11b, this is a standard currently implemented by industry, which allows speeds of 10 MBps over wireless environment. Though this feature might seem a luxury to begin with, I seriously recommend this feature as a necessity now.
The display is superb! The 15” screen doesn’t make it feel like a laptop. Add to that, a decent graphics card doesn’t disappoint either. In-fact with a robust graphics processor, the DVDs are crisp and clear. The audio is fantastic, though I would have loved to have a SoundBlaster card inside!!! The graphics card gives a decent performance in games, but it is nowhere what NVIDIA graphics cards are able to give. Some of Toshiba’s other models have the card, but then you got to pay a price too!
The built of the model is good. The antenna for wireless reception is located right on top, and is integrated with the body. The advantage with this system is that it offers excellent reception quality. The size is around 2” thick, which is pretty big for a laptop.
One bad part is it weighs 7 pounds ( roughly 3.5 kgs) which is pretty heavy, and carrying it could be a weighty task! But then as this laptop is more of a desktop alternative than a mobile station, it is understandable!
The laptop comes with 2 USBs and with it you can connect almost anything and everything in a jiffy. The TV-out enables the laptop to be used in combination with TV, and its fun watching DVDs like that. There are 2 expansion slots, so if any need arises it can be done by adding cards.
On the battery, the laptop is able to sustain itself for 2.30 hours nearly. Its not much, but then its not bad too! The laptop offers two modes of operation…one is performance optimized and the other is battery optimized. The battery optimized version runs quite slow, and could cause a lot of problems with office applications!
One of the things difficult about the laptop is the mouse. Unless you get used to it, its pretty difficult to manage a pointing stick! But once used to it, its a breeze...and now I prefer this to a touch screen!!!
Hardware/Software
The software included the mandatory recovery CD which ships with all branded computers. In addition to that, Toshiba has included good amount of software though I would have loved to have more of them! I mean, the laptop comes with Real Player basic 8, but they could have given us the full version! Any how, now here are some interesting things about the software:
The recovery CD or the installation CD ( as it is called ) allows you to restore your system if anything ever goes wrong ( and if its Win 98, it will and it will!). The worst part of the installation is that it installs Windows 98 in a FAT 16 mode ( I hope the techies understand the stupidity here!!) for no apparent reason at all! Then it creates another partition of FAT 32, something which I haven’t been able to figure out why the installation CD does it.
The other CDs belong to the DVD software, and one for the CD-RW software. The software for CD-RW is Easy Creator CD software, and its one helluva software. The CD-RW speed is 4x…which is pretty slow, but nonetheless its there!
The laptop also allows memory expansion upto 384 MB ram…which is more than enough for anybody!!
The BIOS allows a user to enable a hardware lock the laptop so that no one can do mischief with it…its one feature which I personally like to have.
The laptop comes bundled with AOL for three months…but the service of AOL leaves a lot to be desired.
Customer Service
Isn’t this important! It is, and I must say honestly, Toshiba hasn’t been too good at that. First of all they messed up my laptop order, and in spite of paying extra for a quick delivery, I didn’t get it any sooner than I would have got otherwise. And then in-spite of clear instructions to make 5 partitions of my hard-drive, they still shipped it with one HUGE 30 GB hard-drive! If they didn’t intended to do it, then they shouldn’t have offered to do it in the first place!!!
The technical support needs to improve. I had called them up to enquire about why the damned software installation installs in FAT 16, but they had no clue why it did that!!
There are actually two types of technical support available. One is called Ask Iris which is on web, and is normally good enough to solve most of the problems. However you need to contact them if your problems are not solved.
I don’t know how they service internationally as I haven’t got the opportunity to do it. Until something drastically goes wrong with the laptop, I don’t think I will be able to comment on that aspect of their service! On the whole though the customer service is just about okay.
Final Words
To put the laptop in a nutshell…its GREATTT! But then one should really decide as to what you want out of the laptop. This is certainly not a business laptop, rather it is a desktop alternative. Secondly, the pricey price makes it a little costly, but then its got a configuration to die for!! All in all, its definitely a great laptop to keep!
Do I recommend this product…Definitely YES!!
