Toshiba Satellite P100-222 Review (pics, specs)

by Mohammed Al Khorafi, Kuwait

Overview and Introduction:

I'm a big time gamer and like to watch movies on my laptop. I wanted a machine that I could carry around every once in a while and have it rest on my desk the rest of the time. The most important issue was the graphics card. I don't have a desktop PC so I needed the best. You'd think I'd settle with ATI's x1600 or Nvidia's 7600. Oh no, I wanted something stronger.

Toshiba Satellite P100 (view large image)

After days of research using the web and shopping outlets all over Kuwait, my decision was narrowed down. It was either the Toshiba P100-222 or Dell's XPS M1710. The Toshiba P100 was available immediately, plus I would be getting better bang for my buck, so Toshiba it was. I bought it in person from an authorized dealer here in Kuwait for around $2,200. I could have gotten it for less online but would have waited for another month or so.

Toshiba Satellite P100-222 Specs as Reviewed:

• Intel Core Duo T2600 2.17 GHz
• 17-inch Trubrite WSXGA+TFT Display
• Mobile High Definitions Viewing
• Harmon/Kardon Speakers
• NVIDIA 7900GS 512MB
• 1024MB (512+512) Ram @ 533 (recommend upgrading to 2GB)
• 120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive (would rather have 60GB 7200RPM)
• 802.11 a/b/g Wireless via Intel 3945abg card

Build and Design:

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I never imagined myself with an orange laptop. An orange mobile phone -- maybe, an iPod -- perhaps. But not an orange laptop. You know what though? It looks good. This is one of the better looking 17" screen laptops out there.

The build quality is top notch. It feels as good as it looks. There is no flex at all, anywhere. I believe that this laptop will last a very long time. Everything seems to fit exactly where it's supposed to, no clicks or clacks whatsoever. The black keyboard compliments the matte silver around it.

Keyboard, Touchpad and Buttons:

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The extra space on this stallion was smartly invested by Toshiba with an efficient numeric keypad. However, I have an objection on the rest of the keyboard. It fits nicely with no flex at all, but I don't see why they squeezed in some of the letters on the bottom right hand side of keyboard. The backspace also needs a little getting used to. Ferrari's Testarossa and other older Ferraris have a different gearbox than the rest of the world's cars (first gear is where the reverse gear is supposed to be), but that didn't stop them from being a world racing legend, and as such this keyboard issue doesn't bring the P100 down.

There are six shortcut multimedia buttons along the top of the laptop, just under the screen. The mouse pad is positioned a little to the left of center, but feels right.

There is a hard volume tuner next to an on/off button for wireless, which is a joy to have. You can increase/decrease volume before starting up the machine. I find this very helpful. If you are watching a movie on full screen, you can also change the volume easily.

Screen and Speakers:

The 17" HDtogo screen is plain eye candy. There's enough room to open several applications without straining your eyes. Widescreen is great for gaming and watching movies. With the WSXGA, anyone around you can also enjoy the movie/game.

The Harmon/Kardon speakers are conveniently placed under the keyboard towards the edge of the laptop, facing you when you would be watching a movie. The sound quality is excellent, the speakers produce an absolutely fantastic treble response and the bass shakes the entire notebook.

Battery and Power:

The power brick is bigger than the regular ones but no complaints here. The battery life is really bad. It wouldn't last a short flight, but who plans on using this on an airplane? Wherever your notebook goes, your charger is going with it. You might get away with watching a movie (1hr45) at the most on batteries.

Ports and Slots:

Toshiba P100 left side (view large image)

Toshiba P100 right side (view large image)

Toshiba P100 back side (view large image)

Toshiba P100 under side (view large image)

The P100 has the CardBus slot, a 5-in-1 multimedia port (SD, Memory Stick , Memory Stick Pro, MMC, xD-Picture Card) Ports include: 4 USB (two on the right, one on the left and one on the back towards the left side) 2.0, Firewire, external microphone port, headphone port, VGA, DVI and S-Video out.

DVD Super Multi drive (Double Layer).

Processor, Performance, Benchmarks and Gaming:

As much as I loved Pentium M, I forgot how it used to be. This Core Duo is for real. AMD, you had better do something about this. Benchmarks aside, this bad boy can pack a punch. Out of the box, I left it on for 24 hours straight. My P100 was downloading, installing, scanning and patching some games of mine all at once. It's like having two full time secretaries and an assistant work for you. I only wish I got 2GB worth of RAM, too late now. I'm going to have to wait for 4GB!

All benchmarks were taken on stock settings and all programs running normally

3DMark05 Results and comparison:

3DMark05 tests the graphics processing capabilities of a system:

Notebook	3DMark 05 Results
Toshiba P100-222 (2.16GHz Core Duo, Nvidia 7900GS 512MB)	6,214 3D Marks
Apple MacBook Pro (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 128MB)	2,866 3D Marks
Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60 Nvidia GeForce Go7800 GTX)	7,0783DMarks
ThinkPadT43 (1.86GHz, ATI X300 64MB graphics)	727 3DMarks
Asus V6Va (2.13 GHz Pentium M, ATI Radeon Mobility x700 128 MB)	2,530 3D Marks
Fujitsu n6410(1.66 GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB)	2,2733DMarks
HP dv4000 (1.86GHz Pentium M, ATI X700 128MB)	2,536 3D Marks
Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi(2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 256MB)	4,157 3DMarks

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PCMark05 Comparison Results:

PCMark05 provides an overall system performance evaluation that includes the graphics card and processor.

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Toshiba P100-222 (2.16GHz Core Duo, Nvidia 7900GS 512MB)	4,692PCMarks
Fujitsu N6410(1.66GHz Core Duo)	3,487 PCMarks
Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60)	5,597PCMarks
Sony Vaio SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400)	3,637 PCMarks
Panasonic ToughBook T4(Intel 1.20GHz LV)	1,390 PCMarks
Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400)	3,646 PCMarks
Sony VAIO FE590(1.83GHz Core Duo)	3,427PCMarks

3DMark06 Comparison Results:

3DMark06 tests the graphics capabilities of a system, it is more demanding than 3DMark05.

Notebook	3DMark 06 Results
Toshiba P100-222 (2.16GHz Core Duo, Nvidia 7900GS 512MB)	3,5343DMarks
Apple MacBook Pro (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 128MB)	1,528 3DMarks
Dell Precison M90 (2.16GHz Core Duo, nVidia Quadro FX 1500M)	3,926 3DMarks
Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60 Nvidia GeForce Go7800GTX)	4,085 3DMarks
Compal HEL80 (2.0GHz Core Duo, nVidia Go 7600 256MB)	1,6543DMarks
Dell XPS M1710 (2.16 GHz Core Duo, nVidia 7900 GTX 512MB)	4,744 3DMarks

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Conclusion:

I'm not a big fan of 17" desktop replacements. I prefer laptops that you can actually put on your lap. With this though, I have no regrets and am enjoying the power very much. It's like having a future proof laptop that you know will last. At under 8 pounds, it's not impossible to carry around. I would recommend this for anyone that needs at least two of the following:

• Gaming console
• DVD player/TV
• Personal computer
• Business Machine

Pros:

• Great quality build
• Excellent 17" screen
• Quality HDD with plenty of space
• Core Duo processor
• NVIDIA 7900GS graphics card
• Not bad battery life (considering the power and size of the notebook)

Cons:

• Keyboard takes some getting used to
• HDD could have been 7200rpm
• Ram should have been 667 MHz.

 

Nice review. The P100 is a good gaming notebook.

 

nice review. I just got a new laptop as well with the full sized keyboard including numeric keypad, and I agree it takes some getting used to but definately doesn't bring the system down by any means.

 

THis machine is a moster, it packs lots of power there.

 

nice review bro

 

When considering 17" gaming laptops this would be my first choise. I know there are many SLI laptops out there that are much faster but the Toshiba offers the best package (overall quality, screen resolution-UWXGA is an overkill for 17").
However the battery life is a problem and I would expect at least 2h even for the most hevily equiped laptop with core 2 CPU's.

 

Great review. That is one powerful notebook. Love the gear box analogy for the keyboard.

 

I agree, that was pretty clever.

Nice review and thanks for the feedback on the P100. Even though you like the orange, I'm not sure it would suit me quite so much. At least it's not a bright orange though, more like a burnt orange / autumn leaf color (although I'm not so sure how much autumn leaf color foliage you see in Kuwait!)

 

Thanks for the thumbs up guys.

You can expect a review of LG's P1 by me in two weeks time.

Autumn leaf? You make me laugh. The four seasons that we have in Kuwait are more like; summer-summer-winter-summer. We get maybe a month of spring and a couple of weeks of autumn .

 

Nice review. The color is Sunlight Copper though, not orange.

I know because I have the same lid on my A100 unit.

 

Looks orange to me.

 

Any questions/test requests are welcome.

 

Great review M8.

 

Nice review. For some reason the Canadian P100s don't seem to have the orange/copper (at least the ones I saw) which admittedly I'm thankful for.

 

Great review . Thanks for that.
I have one question: is the DVD-drive removable ? Thanks.

 

Not sure, you mean witha screw driver right?

 

I would like to know both (with and without screw driver).
(I am just interested in unplugging the DVD-drive for playing some games.)

 

Yes it is, with a screw driver. Why would you need to do that to play games?

 

Nice laptop, nice review, congrats.

 

Because of StarForce.

 

This notebook is now for sale. Link here.

 

Very nice graphics with the better 512MB version and the cpu is awesome. The speakers are really good quality on that laptop as well.

Pros: Its a very good laptop for the price for people who are willing to sacrifice the hard drive and memory (which don't make nearly as much of an impact as the cpu/gpu does). Toshiba does a good job giving cpu/gpu enthusiasts top quality at a good price.

Cons: This thing gets hot as hell from what ive seen. I put my hand next to the exhaust fan and i thought my hand was going to burn off. Also the notebook cover itself was also hot. Theres no WAY you could use this thing on your lap.

 

Your comments are valid and very much appreciated, I would just like to point out that the 7900GS doesn't generate nearly as much heat as the GTX version.

 

I have just purchased the top of the line Australian model of the P100. I'll let you guys know in a couple of days what I think of it. For those interested, this is what you get for $3700 AUD:
- Core 2 Duo @ 2.16Ghz
- 1+1 = 2Gb DDR 2 RAM @ 533Ghz
- 200Gb HDD @ 4200RPM (I'm thinking this might be a bottleneck, but the extra RAM should offset this).
- Dual-Layer DVD Burner.
- 17" TFT @ 1680x1050
- 512mb NVidia GeForce 7900 GTX w/ DDR 3
- Windows Vista Home Premium Pre-Installed
- Every piece of connectivity you could dream of (with the exception of HDMI).