Toshiba Satellite U200 / Satellite U205 Review (pics, specs)

Toshiba's ultra-portable notebook, the Satellite U200, with a 12.1" screen and weighing in at only 4.1lbs offers affordability, durability, mobility and power. It has the same chassis and components as the Tecra M6, which was designed for business users. However, since the U200 is part of the Satellite series it is geared more towards the average user.

Note to readers: The Satellite U200 is also sold as the Toshiba Satellite U205 in the U.S.

The following is the configuration on the U200 being reviewed:

• Processor: Intel Core Duo T2300E 1.66 GHz
• Memory: 2x512MB DDR2 @ 533MHZ
• Hard-drive: Toshiba Serial-ATA 100GB, 5400RPM
• Optical-drive: Matshita Super-Multi Double Layer DVD+/- RW
• Graphics: Intel GMA 950(integrated, 128MB shared)
• Display: 12.1" Widescreen TFT XGA with TruBrite
• Connectivity: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG, Bluetooth, LAN, 56K modem
• Operating System: Windows XP Home w/ SP2

Reasons for Buying

Over the past two months I have been looking for a notebook that was light and durable enough to carry to school everyday in my back pack, but be powerful and feature-rich. I have looked seriously at the Compaq V2650CA, Acer 5502, Toshiba Satellite UF0H, and the Toshiba Satellite M100. Out of these, I found the M100 to have the better build, however I thought the weight and dimensions to be too high. Finally, I came across the U200 on Toshiba's web-site. The quality build of this practical looking, light and feature-rich machine won me over.

Where and How Purchased

After looking around for awhile, I bought the U200 preconfigured from a BestBuy, in Canada, for $1,599. After tax, the price was $1,801. Both Futureshop and Staples had their U200's for $100-$200 more, so the decision was a no brainer. I chose to purchase from a brick-and-mortar over a web retailer because of their close proximity, return policy and price protection.

Build & Design

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The overall build quality of this machine is very good. It comes designed with a magnesium alloy chassis, air pocket cushioning, padding materials, HDD protection and a spill resistant keyboard. The notebook feels very solid and durable. There are no creaks when I lift the notebook from one of its corners. The overall design of this notebook is simple and practical with its gray and black exterior and only six, small external buttons.

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When I press against the back of the screen there are no ripples, at all. However, the screen frame twists a little when moderate pressure is applied to the top corners. There is no wobbling when opening and closing the lid. Also, only one hand is needed to open the screen.

The U200 isn't the thinnest notebook in its class being about 2.5cm (or 1") thick. To get a better idea of the thickness, I put a Canadian $2 coin on the side.

Canadian $2 coin for thickness comparison (view large image)

This laptop has 3 USB ports, but I think one more would be better. Another thing to note is the location of the memory. Both slots for the memory are located underneath the keyboard. Thankfully, Toshiba provides easy to follow instructions on how to access these slots in the manual.

Screen

A look at the U200 screen (view large image)

The 12.1" WXGA TFT w/ Trubrite screen came without any dead pixels. The screen is very bright and evenly lit. The highest resolution is 1280 x 800. The horizontal viewing angles are excellent, allowing very wide viewing angles with very little ghosting. The vertical viewing angle is not as good but still satisfactory. There is minor leakage along the bottom of the screen as I've tried to show. Another thing about the screen is that it only opens to about 135 degrees.

Some light leakage can be seen at the bottom of the U200 (view large image)

Speakers

The speakers are nothing special. They are located in the lid, just below the screen. They are not as tinny as were the speakers on the Acer 5502, but being as small as they are, provide very little bass. However, I watched March of the Penguins without head phones and had no complaints. They were clear and loud enough to listen to from across the room at half the maximum volume. Still, for someone who listens to a lot of music or watches a lot of movies, I recommend getting a good pair of headphones to hook up to the external headphone port. A nice added feature to note is the built in microphone which provides fairly clear recording.

Processor and Performance

The preconfigured U200 has handled every task I've thrown at it without slowing down with its Intel Core Duo 2300E. Windows XP boots up quickly. The hard-drive is a 100GB, 5400 RPM Toshiba. However, the HDD only shows 93.1GB. The memory is 1GB at 533MHz, enough for a typical user. One complaint is the time it took to shutdown, restart or go into standby. When I first started using this, it took over three minutes. However, after about a week of use the problem disappeared and it now shuts down quickly.

Benchmarks

The benchmarks shown are about average compared to laptops with similar specs.

Super Pi Comparison Results

Notebook	Time
Toshiba SatelliteU200(1.66 GHz Core Duo)	1m 28s
Asus W3H760DD (2.0 GHz Pentium M)	1m 33s
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
Dell XPS M140 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 41s
Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 53s
IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 45s

PCMark05 Comparison Results

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Toshiba SatelliteU200(1.66 GHz Core Duo)	2,860PCMarks
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
Dell Inspiron e1405 (1.66 GHz Intel T2300)	2,879PCMarks
Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400)	3,646 PCMarks
Toshiba Satellite M70 (Pentium M1.86GHz)	1,877 PCMarks

HDTune Results

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Heat and Noise

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I've been monitoring the CPU and HDD temps using Everest. Both cores running light tasks such as, Firefox, iTunes, and MS Word, gave temperatures of about 30-40 degrees Celsius. Under heavier loads the CPU reached almost 60 degrees Celsius. This is somewhat cooler than the other laptops I've tried. Also the HDD runs at about 35-40 degrees Celsius under non-intensive use. The HDD is very quiet. The fan on this thing is really quiet even at its fastest setting. In fact, I can only hear it when I put my ear close to the exhaust in a silent room, so I don't really know how often it's running. This notebook came preinstalled with an acoustic silencer for the optical drive. In "Quiet mode" I can barely hear the drive running. After several hours of use, there is a minor amount of heat produced under the palm rests, where the HDD lies.

Keyboard and Touchpad

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I have found the keyboard to be comfortable to type on. The keys are laid out very well, without too many extras, just some media buttons on the top. Also, the keys have more travel then the others, with a very Thinkpad feel to them, and do not feel squeezed together. One thing to note is the flex in the keyboard. This keyboard flexes a little more than any of the keyboards I've tried on other laptops.

The track pad is very tiny but, very responsive. The track pads buttons are also very tiny, but have a nice quite click to them. I would definitely recommend buying a portable mouse to go with this laptop.

The U200 also comes with a fingerprint reader. The finger print reader is very useful. With one swipe, I can log onto windows or any web-site requiring a user name and password. There is a "My Safe" folder that can only be accessed with the finger print reader, allowing safe storage of any private data. It was quick and easy to setup and register my fingerprints.

Input and Output Ports

This laptop has three USB 2.0 ports. For me, one more USB port would have been nice. It also has FireWire, 1 PC Card, a 6-in-1 media adaptor, RJ11, RJ45 and RGB. As well, it has a speaker and microphone jack.

Front side view of Toshiba Satellite U200 (view large image)

Left side view of Toshiba Satellite U200 (view large image)

Right side view of Toshiba Satellite U200 (view large image)

Back side view of Toshiba Satellite U200 (view large image)

Wireless

This laptop comes with an Intel Wireless 802.11 a/b/g card. It also has Bluetooth, which is a nice feature because it allows me to use a Bluetooth mouse and free up one of the USB ports.

Battery

Overall, I am very impressed with the six-cell battery. Using the Long-life power setting the battery gave me up to 4.5 hours of use. One down side is the charging time of 4-5 hours while off and almost 12 hours while on.

Operating System and Software

The laptop came with a preinstalled Windows XP Home edition. A nice feature was the added system recovery disk with Windows XP Home on it. I know that with Acer or HP/Compaq these disks need to be ordered or burnt after purchasing. One thing to note are the pre-installed Toshiba utilities. Some of these are more useful than others. I particularly like using the Power Saving utility over the Windows power settings. I've also found the HDD protection software to be useful. Not including Toshiba's utilities, this machine did come with some bloatware installed. I found most of these apps to be useless and have since uninstalled them. One application I've kept is the Express Media Player, which allows DVD or CD playback without loading up Windows.

Customer Support

So far I have not had any experience with Toshiba's customer support. From what I have heard, their support is one of the poorest in the industry. It came with a one year parts and labor international warranty. The battery is also warranted for one year.

Conclusion

Overall, I'm very impressed with this laptop. It is great for me to carry around, take on flights or to school everyday. It's a great laptop for business but also has a lot of consumer oriented features. The widescreen is great for viewing worksheets side-by-side or watching movies. The fingerprint reader provides extra security for the business user. I'd recommend this laptop to anyone looking for a notebook that is very durable, light and powerful. It's not too expensive price makes it a good option for the business user or student, looking for portability, durability, and performance, but not gaming.

Pros:

• Good build quality
• Simple, practical look
• Good, quite performance
• Toshiba Power Saver Utility
• Long battery life
• Active hard-drive protection
• Fingerprint reader
• Comfortable keyboard

Cons:

• Long charging times
• Bloatware
• Only three USB 2.0 ports
• Tinny speakers
• Small track pad and buttons

 

Nice review.

 

nice
good price
seems better than the dell 710m

 

Great review!! So nice business laptop. Not for gaming but yes for travellers and business

 

Nice review. The U205 is a nice business ultra-portable.

 

Good job! I've always liked toshiba's ultra portables

 

I need to check one of these out in a store, I've heard some questions regarding its build quality and I'm always a little bit leary about the Satellite quality of build but it seems that you're quite positive on this aspect.

Thanks for the review, seems to be a nice entry into the ultraportable space.

 

Thank you for this review. Sorry, I didn't understand what you meant by "It comes designed with ... air pocket cushioning, padding materials". Are you referring to how the computer was packed in the box or are these components of the notebook?

What do you think of the size of the display? Are you using it at the highest resolution (1280 x 800)?

 

Nice review. I have seen this model several times in person, it is a well put together machine. One other part of it I was surprised at was the keyboard - it's really nice, and would be a selling point for me.

I also like how it has an integrated optical drive and a decent amount of ports. A standard Core Duo vs. a low voltage one is another plus.

 

Thanks all

These are part of the notebook to prevent the internal components from being damaged.

I was really worried that it would be too small to work on for long periods, but I've since found the screen comfortable to work on at 1280x800 resolution. I even watched a movie from 4-5 meters away.

 

actually, staples had the u200 on sale for $1499CDN with some sort of free flash drive or something a week or two back.
if it goes on sale again, i'd price match.

 

How long is the battery life, lets say you use it for internet browsing ?

 

I havent tried it for just internet browsing, but I think I'd get close to 5 hours with medium-low screen brightness.

 

Looks like a possible new favorite in the subnotebooks sector. It is not expensive even in Europe (The lowest price I saw in Germany is like 1030 EUR).

Your review seems to be the most positive of all I read about this notebook.

I wonder how your shut down times have improved on their own after few days.

 

Heh, I considered one of these before my Toshiba coupon expired (it's gone, expired two weeks ago, marking the aniversery of my old laptop's death) and getting the preconfiged one off Toshiba Direct. No bluetooth, but hey I could by a dongle. Nice to see a good review on it finally.

 

Hi,

This is another review, perhaps you've already read it :
http://notebookreview-cnet.com.com/Toshiba_Satellite_U205_S5022/4505-3121_7-31952945-2.html?tag=sub

It contains some other competitors to this laptop, that's interesting I think.

bye
arnaud

 

hi i am new here...i have a toshiba satellite u205 and wouild like to install more memory...my manual states that memory slots are under keyboard and rather than give installation instructions, state that job should be done by authorized service center...this post states that instructions came in manual and that it is easy...i would like to know how...toshiba's website is not helpful and neither is their telephone support...thanks for your help

 

It writes too pop off the black piece of plastic along the top of the keyboard. Then take out the two screws holding in the keyboard. Rest the keyboard upside down on the wrist rest area. Then there is a semi-translucent piece of plastic covering the memory slots. Unscrew them and you will have access.

This is my interpretation of what I read before, since the manual is in the box stored away now.

I am suprised that your manual does not have instructions. You say you have the U205 whereas the one I tested was the U200. Perhaps that is why our manuals are different. To not have instructions would defintely be a con for this notebook.

Keep in mind that since no instructions were provided to you, your warranty may be voided by upgrading ram? However I saw no stickers or any way they could tell. Anyway, now u know. Good luck.

 

hi again and thanks for your help...i am sure i can install memory now...it seems that toshiba had support problems with customers removing keyboards and messing things up...u can download user manual for u200/u205 here
http://askiris.toshiba.com/ToshibaS...iceId=&dialogID=14114797&stateId=1 0 14112891
on page 53 it states what i said about memory installation

 

Hi,

pbrane83 and rlmerriam, you seem to be the only owners of that laptop on this thread, I have a question regarding the warm on the palm rest.

In your review pbrane, you say palm rests can get warm but do you mean both side of the touchpad or only the left one ? According to the pictures I saw here and there, I can guess the HD is under the left side of the touchpad.

I know it's quite difficult to evaluate such a thing but perhaps your two feedback about that warm feeling could help me on this... Is it annoying for you or not at all ? I spend a lot of time writing things on my laptop so my wrist always stay on the keyboard (especially the left one), that's why it's an important point for me, perhaps can you tell us more on this ?

Thanks a lot,
bye,
Arnaud

 

Hi Arnaud,

It's actually just the right palm rest and touchpad that gets warm. It is not annoying at all. It's cooler than other notebooks I've tried.

Since the hard drive is located under the right palm rest and it only gets slightly warm, I think you will be fine with it.

Cheers,

Pbrane

 

You could solve a problem by replacing SATA hard drive with the one from another brand which develops less heat. I can't advice you about the SATA 2,5" drives, as I was not studying and comparing their specifications yet.
However, among 2,5" ATA drives, a replacement of Fujitsu by Western Digital lead to much less heat and noise in my case.

 

Hi Pbrane,
Thanks for your feedback.

Did you try any games on it yet ? I know the latest Geforce isn't included in this laptop but maybe you have tried something playable on it ?

Thanks,
arnaud

 

Hi Arnaud,

I haven't tried any games so I can't tell you what may play on it. Though, I think somehing like AOE3 will play on medium-low settings.

Cheers,

Pbrane

 

Hi Pbrane,
Thanks !
It seems the U200/U205 is a good laptop, I'm looking for a T2400 version of it, the T2300E has no virtualization ( http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/reseller/asmo-na/eng/products/server/platform/xeon/learn/250640.htm) and perhaps it could be useful one day. We don't have the very useful toshibadirect.com here in Europe, we can't configure ourselves the laptop's components
Actually there's only a T2300E and a core sole T1300 version right now.

bye,
arnaud

 

Arnaud,
it may help you:
http://geizhals.net/eu/a202025.html

German (reputable) internet shop cyberport.de seems to have u200 with t2400 for 1079 EUR only!

 

Nice one, thanks ivar !

bye,
arnaud

 

Arnaud,

my pleasure . I have checked that their sending cost to France is 25 EUR which is normal. The store is based in Dresden.

 

Hi All,

I really like this notebook, has anyone tried a Linux LiveCD or tried to install Linux on it? If so, did you have any problems?

I've looked high and low and can't find any info about this notebook and Linux and the people at staples won't let me try a LiveCD

Thanks

 

Hi,
I found on a french forum a guy which seemed to have some difficulties to make the network card being recognize under Debian, that's all that I can say... I didn't see other threads with problems about linux reported, so I guess it's quite ok. It seems it's not as linux friendly as a Acer 3628 it was compared to on that thread, but that's all...

bye,
arnaud

 

Thanks, Arnaud. I appreciate the quick response.

 

I ran the latest Ubuntu from a Live cd but I didnt spend enough time on it to see if everything worked. No major problems though.

Cheers

 

Hello everybody!

[This is cross-posted with the appropiate Dell page]
I intend to buy a laptop and can't really decide between the Satellite and XPS. Maybe you could give me a piece of advice?

Satellite: has far better protection (air cushioning for HDD, display and display invertor --not sure what that is, though!--, accelerometer for removing the HDD heads should your precious piece hit the ground, *spill-resistant* keyboard). Seems to be built on a "professional" platform. The fingerprint reader might be geeky, or useful; I never forgot my passwords, so probably not the main issue here.
Downsides:

• Takes ages to charge the battery;
• Does it have a light sensor to adjust the screen brightness? Is it really worth having one?
• Now, there's also a localization problem: I am an expat living currently in Germany, but would like to get a US [i.e. QWERTY] keyboard, not the german QWERTZ; I am not so sure that I could change that. Any ideas whether one can order a separate keyboard and exchange it at home? How much would that cost?
• the one I've found [in Media Markt --looked only in brick & mortar stores up to now--] came with a Core Duo 2x1.66GHz processor and a MS/xD card reader (i.e. no SD/CF) and they definitely, positively can't change anything in it. Note that I live in Europe and, as far as my understanding goes, you can't customize your laptop, the way you do it via toshibadirect.com in the US.
• rumours are there that their customer support is, ummm, sucks.

Dell:
Pros:

• one can configure it the way you want. I am thinking about getting a 2.0GHz Core *2* Duo chipset, which comes with a faster FSB (667 vs. 556MHz), faster memory --still 1GB-- and maybe 100GB of HD instead of 80. That would add maybe 300EUR to the starting price [at equal configs, both laptops have roughly the same price]. Any cons for these upgrades?
• our IT people over here are in good relations with Dell and they might shave 10-30% off the price, although it's highly variable and unpredictable.
• given point 2 above, they can also order it with a QWERTY keyboard and English software [can't ask for this in any shop; one poor shop assistant told me that they have countless requests like this, tried once and ended in a total chaos --not necessarily with Dell!]

Cons:

• people seem to complain that heat is more of an issue with this computer
• heard rumours about the "sliver gloss" over the keyboard prone to wearing off
• mushy keyboard problem (though it seems that it got fixed in newer deliveries).
• power management problems, like never waking up from "sleep", or doing it at own will. [http://tinyurl.com/jmcmk point 2 of the update]
• not so good accident protection (physical, not insurance): the HDD is in a kind of "foam" to dampen the shock, but that's it. Is keyboard spill-protected? (I know of people whos keyboard got killed by a cat...)

Any other recommendations? Better screen quality in one versus another?
For the time being I plan using it more for work-related stuff: word processing, some graphics (quite intensive), browsing, mail. Not sure about gaming, although I enjoyed playing some time ago.
Any input these days would be welcome.

Thanks,

Alex

 

I don't own any of those two. However, if I were you I would get Dell, as you may get it like 20% cheaper. The cons can be either fixed or are statistically irrelevant, while the bad service and irregular quality of toshiba may hurt you really.

 

Is the bluetooth internal on your machine? Just wondering as mine did not come with it and I am hoping I can add it like I was able to do with my previous machine. It says on toshibas website when you customize them, that you cah either choose no bluetooth (antenna only) or bluetooth. It would be awesome if it is not a dongle that sticks out of the side of the computer and plugs into a usb port but rather somethign that is built into the machine. If anyone has or finds any info about this, try to get part numbers and service manuals if possible. My greatest thanks go out in advance.

 

I finally opted for Dell for various reasons: Toshibas can't be configured as Dells can (in Europe, that is) and I would have gotten a slower and a bit outdated machine with software and keyboard for Germany, not US/UK. I ordered mine with BT, so I don't have to worry about that.

I am more than pleased with my Dell (just two days now, though!), it's VERY speedy, extremely quiet (when the extra fan kicks in you can't hear it from more than 3 meters away). And the trackpad comes with an awesome driver. It's a shame no one mentioned it: you can set how responsive to be to touch (think about "brushing" it with your thumbs while actually typing), you can define how wide the scroll areas should be, can have hot corners. Kicks ass!

 

As many know, this has been upgraded with the T7200 Core 2,
and includes 120 gb drive and 2 gb RAM.

I find it to be the perfect small portable -- with enough
power for audio editing that I do professionally, very light,
beautiful screen.

It would be interesting to determine if the T7200 is
upgradeable on this.

 

Athough i have to agree that the poster here did a very good job of a review for this product....I have to disagree with his results.

I myself have gone thru a few pc's. Hp...dell...toshiba...compaq...etc, but this was my first laptop. When i purchased it at a best buy also i was attracted by the high processing speed and amount of ram it had for its price. 100's less than any other brand that had the same setup. The nice little stickers that i still have on btw at the bottom of the unit sold it for me.

This was only 3 months ago at best......

Since then i have had to reformat the drive twice at the request of toshiba techical support. Ive had to have it sent out to have the hard drive replaced for 2 weeks. Ive also had, from what toshiba tech tells me a bad network card and battery.

Now i understand as a slight computer geek myself that pc have problems. I have had bad experinces with both compaq and hp and always found myself only satusfied with the dell i now own. But this time i tried to put aside my passion for dell and try toshiba.

Horrible mistake!!!

Now i constantly have the old saying " You get what you pay for" running thru my head. If a company can offer the supposive same setup pc or anything for that matter at a much lower price...theres a reason for it.

I am now having to go back and send this basically brand new laptop back to toshiba yet again. I much rather have just payed the extra hundred or so and gotten the dell or even sony.

As good as people say this pc is....and im sure it can be when running at optimal performance....its not worth the constant headaches and reoccuring harware problems.

Do yourself a favor and get yourself a dell.

 

Btw dont mind the typos on my reponse...Im still half asleep. Only had 5 cups of coffee so far. Im down on my normal by 3...got to catch up...lol

 

I bought a U200-PT7. It is a Canadian model with T2250 1.73 in it. It came with Vista Home Premium installed. Overall I am quite happy with my decision. I had a hard time deciding between this and the M1210. I decided against the M1210 because of the higher price. I didn't think I really needed the Go7400 and a Core 2 Duo. I am quite happy with the speed. I have recently added another 1gb of ram so the system now runs 2gbs. Vista is super quick. Vista Aero is smooth as silk. The build quality is quite good. All the parts seem solid and gap free. I am impressed with the fit and finish. I checked out the M1210 at a Delldirect store and didn't like the silver/grey finishing. I figure it will probably wear off, especially on the keyboard. The top cover is made of a black plastic material that actually looks cheap and gathers oily fingerprints like crazy. As much as I am impressed with the fit and finish, I am hoping that I don't run into any reliability problems though. I have two other Toshiba laptops and they run great.

 

Coming back after some time: my hard drive crashed about 6 months of not very heavy usage. Called Dell service Friday evening and I was told to come back on Monday. Monday I was led through the diagnostics (although I did that myself, but probably they wanted to be sure) and they agreed that the drive is dead. They wanted to send me a new drive, but I was leaving for a short vacation, so we agreed on a different moment. From there on, everything went smooth:
- drive arrived exactly when agreed
- they suggested that I replace it myself (after all it's four screws only)
- they suggested that I mount the old drive in a different computer, to recover the data (which I did)
- old drive sent via UPS at their expense pretty much at my own leisure
- so now I have a (bit noisyer) WD instead of a Samsung. Probably a good thing.

So I can only give thumbs up for the service!