Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527 Review

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by Trip Ericson

Overview

My grandmother's Toshiba Satellite 1805-S207 has never been a speed demon, and to say that it was slow was an understatement.  This unit would crawl from one screen to another, and even my grandmother would leave a Solitare window open so she could “play a bit while the computer caught up.”  When her birthday rolled around this year, I suggested purchasing her a new laptop computer.  Upon checking the circulars on Easter weekend, a Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527 was on sale for $599 at Best Buy.  So, with her consent, we went and purchased it.

Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527 (view large image)

I can't say that I looked up any others; I've always been a Toshiba loyalist myself.  My grandmother, cousins, several friends, as well as the school system I attend and work for all have Toshibas, and all have fantastic track records.  Some friends who have Dell, Acer, and HP have all had major problems.  So it was only natural that I would continue to buy Toshiba.

The system has very nice specifications for the price:

• Processor: Intel Core Duo T2080 (1.73GHz)
• OS:  Windows Vista Home Premium
• RAM: 1GB PC2-4200 DDR2 RAM
• Hard Drive: 120GB Hitachi SATA
• Screen: 15.4” Tru-Brite WXGA (1280x800)
• Optical Drive:  DVD±RW/DVD-RAM Drive
• Graphics:  Intel GMA950 Graphics
• Slots: Type II PCMCIA (left), 5-in-1 Card Reader (front)
• Ports: 4 USB 2.0 (two right, one left, one back), 1 4-pin Firewire (left), 1 VGA output (left), 1 S-Video output (left), 1 Headphone jack (front), 1 Microphone jack (front), 1 RJ-11 phone jack (back), 1 Power jack (back), 1 RJ-45 LAN jack (back)
• Wireless:  Atheros 802.11g

The Screen

The first thing that I looked at when I opened the box was the screen.  I've been annoyed by the prominence of the high glare screens in most notebook computers sold today, and took the opportunity to see just how distracting my reflection and the glare would be.  The “Tru-Brite” screen isn't nearly as annoying as I thought it would be, though it is more annoying than my laptop's matte screen.  (I have a Toshiba Satellite A15-S157)  It is certainly much brighter than mine, though that could also be explained by the fact that my system is nearing four years old and has been almost constantly used during that time.  I also notice fingerprints beginning to show up on the screen, which are more distracting than the various reflections and glare.

(view large image)

The screen itself was of good build quality, seeing as it had no dead pixels that I could see.  There is no leaking at the edge and the backlighting seemed very even.  Even when I booted Kubuntu and had just a command line, the lighting seems to be quite even.  The screen on the unit, especially with the “Tru-Brite technology,” exceeded my expectations with its quality.

Build Quality

The case is a thick plastic that is black on the inside and on the bottom, with a gray finish on the outer shell.  It feels well-built, as there's not much “give” to it when pressed on.  Pressing on the screen from the inside or from the shell causes no change in the appearance of the screen, and it feels well-protected from normal pressures, especially compared to my current Toshiba.  I attempted to twist the screen and though it was definitely not flimsy, it does twist a little bit.

Top view of Satellite A135 (view large image)

The screen is held on by two hinges on the unit, and they provided a nice amount of resistance.  My laptop's hinges failed after two years of heavy use and were repaired under the extended warranty, but initially felt just as sturdy as these, so only time will tell as to the quality of these hinges.

Underside view of Satellite A135 (view large image)

Speakers and Sound

One of the first things I noticed about the Toshiba is that the classic sound dial on the front of the machine was no longer a hardware control.  The dial now controls the master software volume control, and for this reason was quite a bit less sensitive.  It took several turns of the dial to adjust it from high volume to no volume, though I imagine this could be adjusted in software.

The speakers themselves seemed to be of moderate quality.  I did not try to max them out, but after a certain point the sound did become distorted on the music I was listening to, a Q8 Ogg Vorbis recording downloaded from Jamendo.

The sound jacks are on the front of the system, which is somewhat of a mixed blessing.  My current laptop has the sound jacks on the side, and this makes angled connectors favorable in all conditions.  By moving them to the front, they seem more awkwardly placed.  Without an angled connector, it seems that a plug could be easily pulled or leaned on, but with an angle connector the cable would then go out to the sides better.  However, it seems that by putting them on the front, you gain a greater ability to reposition yourself with respect to the system without worrying about pulling too much on the cord if you pull too far to one side or the other.

Processor and Performance/Heat and Noise

The system features a Core Duo processor, a last generation chip, but for the simple tasks my grandmother will be using it for, it functions just fine.  In fact, the system was quite snappy in its response compared to what I expected from a system running Windows Vista.

One thing that sticks out about this system was how cool the area under the processor fan is.  Unlike my current system (Netburst Celeron 2.2GHz), which can get too hot to touch, this system never felt hot to the touch underneath, and even the air that blew out of the side never got very hot, even under stress.  The processor fan is also much quieter than my own system's fan, and the palm rest stays cool. 

Benchmarks

Following are some benchmarks that were run on the Satellite A135-S4527 so you can have an idea of how it stacks up to other laptops.

SuperPi Benchmark Results

Super Pi tests the speed of a processor, in our test we force Super Pi to calculate the number Pi to 2 million digits of accuracy:

Notebook	Time
Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527 (1.73GHz Core Duo)	1m 38s
HP dv9000t (1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo, nVidia Go 7600 256MB)	1m 37s
MSI M677 (1.8 GHz Turion X2)	1m 53s
LG S1 (2.16 GHz Core Duo)	1m 11s
Dell Inspiron e1505 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 16s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Toshiba Satellite M100 (2.00GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo)	1m 29s
Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 53s

 

PCMark05 System Results

PCMark05 measures the overall system performance, here's how the Satellite A135 stacked up to other laptops:

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527 (1.73GHz Core Duo, Intel GMA 950)	2,816 PCMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	4,234 PCMarks
Fujitsu LifeBook A6010 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo, Intel GMA 950)	2,994 PCMarks
Fujitsu N6410 (1.66GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400)	3,487 PCMarks
Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60, Nvidia Go 7800GTX)	5,597 PCMarks
Sony Vaio SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400)	3,637 PCMarks
Toshiba Tecra M6 (1.66GHz Intel T2300E, Intel GMA 950)	2,732 PCMarks
Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400, Nvidia Go 7400)	3,646 PCMarks

 

Below are the detailed results from the PCMark05 results:

PCMark05 Detailed Results
HDD - XP Startup:	5.38 MB/s
Physics and 3D:	59.24 FPS
Transparent Windows:	1628.47 Windows/s
3D - Pixel Shader:	7.12 FPS
Web Page Rendering:	1.32 Pages/s
File Decryption:	42.42 MB/s
Graphics Memory:	64 Lines  188.76 FPS
HDD - General Usage:	3.93 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 1 / Audio Compression:	1649.88 KB/s
Multithreaded Test 1 / Video Encoding:	230.99 KB/s
Multithreaded Test 2 / Text Edit:	68.72 Pages/s
Multithreaded Test 2 / Image Decompression:	19.72 MPixels/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / File Compression:	3.42 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / File Encryption:	20.24 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / HDD - Virus Scan:	36.6 MB/s
Multithreaded Test 3 / Memory Latency - Random 16 MB:	7.24 Maccesses/s

 

HDTune Benchmark Results:

Below are the results of HDTune when run on the A135, HDTune measures the hard drive speed and performance

(view large image)

 

Keyboard and Touchpad

The A135 line looks to be the last line to use the classic Toshiba keyboard layout, that puts the Windows and Menu keys at the top right, and the Ins and Del keys below the right hand.  I've always preferred this layout on laptops, seeing as I am primarily a Linux user and the Windows key could easily be replicated with Ctrl+Esc. 

As far as the construction quality on the keyboard itself, it seems to be well-made.  It has almost no flex to it, and the keys are much quieter than the keys on my current system.  The keys are shifted to the right on this system to allow for the power button and four media buttons to be placed to the left of the keyboard.  These keys seem to perform their purpose, though admittedly I haven't spent much time with them.

The touchpad is correctly placed so that one can easily type without touching it.  As with both old systems, this unit will also scroll by sliding up and down the right edge of the touch pad.  I was disappointed to find that the included software would not emulate a middle-click by clicking both buttons at once, but this is a driver issue rather than a hardware issue. 

Input and Output

The system is covered in ports.

Slots:

• Type II PCMCIA (left)
• 5-in-1 Card Reader (front)

Ports:

• 4 USB 2.0 (two right, one left, one back)
• 1 4-pin Firewire (left)
• 1 VGA output (left)
• 1 S-Video output (left)
• 1 Headphone jack (front)
• 1 Microphone jack (front)
• 1 RJ-11 phone jack (back)
• 1 Power jack (back)
• 1 RJ-45 LAN jack (back)

Front view (view large image)

(view large image)

Left view (view large image)

Right view (view large image)

Back view (view large image)

I don't understand the logic in placing two of the USB ports on the right side right where one would be using a mouse, but it's good to at least have them.

Battery

I timed the battery on the system, and during an intense session of uninstalling default software and then installing things that were required, the battery life hit 3% after 121 minutes.  This is a bit shorter than my current system's battery when new, and I wish that Toshiba could have squeezed an extra half an hour out of it.  However, it is difficult to know how it would perform when merely surfing the Internet.

Wireless

The wireless card included in the unit is an Atheros card.  My grandmother's old laptop had no internal wireless, and thus was connected with a D-Link PCMCIA wireless card.  This system works flawlessly all over her house, whereas the old system would lose signal in the Family Room where she would watch TV most often.  The unit also includes a switch on the front to turn this functionality on and off.

Windows Vista

My expectations were so low for Windows Vista that it should come as no surprise that I was mildly impressed by it.

The first thing that struck me was how slow it was to start up, given how Microsoft had claimed to speed up the boot time on Vista.  After sitting on the BIOS screen for 13 seconds, Vista then took 2:01 to get to the desktop, with system tray applications still loading. 

The 3D effects and translucency were all very nice, and I'm finding that I miss those now that I'm away from that system.  They certainly add to the experience and make things feel smoother.

Another thing that annoyed me was the sluggishness of I/O operations.  File transfers seemed to take forever and a day.  I tried to move 300MB worth of files off of the hard drive and onto a USB disk and gave up after the first twenty minutes. 

The system came with much less junk software than I'd expected.  It came with a collection of quickly-removed Wild Tangent games as well as a McAfee Security suite that was also quickly removed.  I left the Office 2007 trial on it as well as Works 8, which I have not yet tested. 

Kubuntu Linux

I took a few minutes to boot up the Kubuntu 6.10 Live CD on it and see how it responded.  Naturally, the Atheros wireless card was detected but was not in a functional state.  In addition, though the 5-in-1 card slot was detected and even detected when disks were inserted, apparently the driver that actually reads the card does not exist.  With those exceptions, the system seems to run Kubuntu just fine.

Conclusion

For the typical user who only plans to surf the Internet and use a laptop for light use, this machine seems perfect.  It is no high-end monster, but it's adequate for the common non-gamer.  My grandmother is very pleased with it and its capabilities, though she's still getting used to the changes that Windows Vista brings.

Pros:

• Inexpensive
• Feature-packed
• High build quality
• Stays quite cool
• Amount of junk software is relatively small

Cons:

• Battery life is short
• Tru-Brite screen shows a lot of glare and fingerprints

I would definitely recommend this machine to anyone in the category of users who aren't looking for the most powerful machine for the heaviest of tasks, but are light users and are not so demanding on a computer.

 

It's a very complete review. There is enough information to base a buy on. But I think you should let your grandmother open the box herself...

 

A good review, and the computer is a very good choice for the proposed usage.

I didn't know until reading this that Intel have sneaked yet another Core Duo variant out of the back door - it is not listed on the Intel website. The T2080 is a slightly faster T2060 or alternatively a T2250 with only 1MB of cache. What next, as they work through the pile of CPUs which failed the tests for the original range?

John

 

A good review. Rep given

 

I love the fact you got this for your grandmother and that she's "adjusting to Vista". I went back to Windows XP for now so she's probably going to ahead of me on the curve.

The $599 price is a bargain, I can only see this laptop for $799 now so you landed that deal at the right time.

 

Nice review! Its a good machine for that price.

 

nice review
Thanks to this review,i know same system which i will upgrade to 1Gb ram cant run smoothly vista.still staying with XP

 

Nice Review im looking for a friend atm

 

Hey, does Toshiba include a HDD bracket and screws for dual HDD upgrades??? this feature is kinda cool when u're a heavily downloaders and a photographers .

 

Excellent and thorough review... and it makes me wonder why I got my A100 last summer and not when Vista came out.

I believe the reason why the usb ports are on the right side is because it makes attaching a USB mouse a lot more convenient, and how USB dongles and keys are also very accessible (rather than in the back).

 

Toshiba is crappy, most of them show certain problems, like overheating, power adapter failure, dim backlit. They are only two years old. Not sure with the current model though.

 

That's a good machine for the price. My roommate also has a Toshiba, and he has become dedicated to them himself. There must be something about Toshiba laptops that get people addicted.

 

Really? I've never experienced any of these issues. All Toshibas I've dealt with have worked nearly perfectly.

My personal system overheated one time when I left it on the bed with all the vents covered, but that was my fault. The hinges did wear out after nearly three years of heavy use, but that was covered under the warranty I had.

My grandmother's old laptop had no problems.

In fact, I can't think of any friends or relatives with Toshibas that have had problems with them. Meanwhile, most other brands I have stories for.

- Trip

 

I've repaired around 10K notebooks over the course of a few years, and I've yet to honestly say that one brand was any worse then any other, just that a few brands excelled beyond the norm. (Thinkpads and winbooks fit here)

 

I bought this computer last week and I love it. I paid $599 at BestBuy (not online) and for my modest needs, its a great deal.

I also own a Toshiba Satellite 5205-S505 and my new computer blows it away. Much quicker, lighter and cooler (no heat issues).

My only problem - what do I do with my old computer. If I sold it for $300 (I bought it in 2002 for more than $2300), it wouldn't be a great deal if the buyer could buy a new computer for just a few hundred more. Any good ideas?

 

great review....


bought this laptop last year for $599 at Best Buy....still works great, very happy with it for the price....

 

My brother has this laptop. The first thing I noticed was that it is not the most attractive machine. I ridicule it for being so massive! I have a Toshiba satellite from 2004 and it is downright sexy compare to this current model. And mine is 15 in screen, not much less. It is also waaay thinner and weighs a lot less. A great question is why are the Toshiba satellite display becoming worse by being bigger and bulkier. The Toshiba I use now looks like one of Toshiba's protege models when you compare.

 

I bought my Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527 last December at Circuit City. It was my first laptop and it ran great and did everything I needed it to do. Now, I am having to look for another or spend about $500 to change the MotherBoard (parts and labor). It started using the battery instead of the AC while plugged up. I had the Power cord checked and it was good. It won't boot up at all by just using the Power cord and no battery. I have seen this in other forums and it seams to be a common problem with this laptop. I hope everyone else has better luck. I think I bought my first and last Toshiba.

 

Very nice all around review!