TOSHIBA L305-S5899 REVIEW

TOSHIBA L305-S5899 – A LAPTOP COMPUTER WITH NO FRILLS

These days, we’re in the center of a techno frenzy, no matter how bad the economy goes. Somehow everything we buy becomes obsolete within a couple of months, there’s always something much better and if we try to add even a single option to the list, the price manages to skyrocket and quadruple itself in an instant. I don’t know what you think, but this kind of environment makes laptops like this TOSHIBA L305-S5899 a very considerable choice for me. I know, when you look at the spec sheet, you don’t see anything special and yes, it barely runs Vista (but after all, which computer doesn’t?) but if you accept the idea of using your laptop for 1 year maximum then buy a new one, it’s better to buy one like this and keep the remaining funds enough to purchase the mediocre models of upcoming 3 years… For an untrained mind, this may look like a real waste, it may even be considered as a spoiled act, but no matter what you buy, your laptop is doomed to become “old & useless” within 12 to 15 months anyways!

FIRST IMPRESSION
So, keeping this in mind, let’s start to evaluate this Toshiba… With the first glance, it’s obvious that Toshiba is not manufacturing this model as a catalogue candy. TOSHIBA L305-S5899 is probably one of the most boring looking Toshiba that you can ever find (and I’m talking about a 15 year period by the way), which is kinda good thing because it secures you that you’re paying only for the technical abilities, not a tasteless chrome look-alike cheap plastic keyboard or an incredibly annoying graphic art on the back of the screen (as you can understand, I’m not that much of a fan of HP’s new “artsy fartsy” laptop series. Seriously, which sane soul would want a laptop computer looking like it’s been made out of a dub of a 67’ Impala owned by a drug-selling gang leader in Los Angeles?). If you’re into laptop art, this is a perfect thing to go actually, an empty canvas which can hardly go worse… Besides it’s incredibly simple and boring design, the computer gives the impression of a solid construction, a real work horse.

As you can guess from the previous paragraph, there’s not much to mention about it’s technical specifications, first impression can be summarized as “perfect average”, nothing’s present to make this laptop climb from average to mediocre, or drop to poor…

PERFORMANCE
The computer comes with a 2 GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core T3200 processor with 667 MHz front side bus with 1 MB L2 Cache, which is a very outdated and humble processor to run it’s standard installed operating software – Windows Vista Home Premium Edition. With a processor like this, I guess downgrading to XP or even installing a version of Linux is much more feasible, since the clock speed is not that much and –again- it’s from the first generation of Dual Cores… I know, this may sound irrational to you, but after all, this is a pretty cheap laptop, which you’ll consider either to use as a digital typewriter or as a start up machine, so you’ll not be needing all the fancy stuff that comes with the Vista anyway (I’m aware of the oxymoron here, Vista and fancy?). Seriously the only good thing about Vista is to be able to perform undo action as many cards as you want on Freecell, and that just doesn’t worth to wait for each and every single action for hours…

The size of the RAM you get is 2GB, which is somehow the industry standard for start up laptops these days. The good news is that it’s upgradable to 4 GB’s, and since the type is very common – PC 6400 DDR2 SDRAM- it’s easy and cheap to get this upgrade. If you ask me, giving 30-40 Dollars for such upgrade somehow makes this a pretty decent machine too.

For general storage, the computer comes with a 5400Rpm 120GB SATA hard drive. Since the Vista takes around 15 GB’s alone by itself –and adding the additional vital programs you’ll have-, you’ll probably be facing 70-80GB’s of hard drive space in the end, which is pretty low, especially if you’re a guy like me who downloads almost 20GB’s a day from the net… There’re many alternate brands and models on the market today offering much more hard drive space, and to be honest with you, if the difference is only a couple of dollars and if you’re dealing with these low numbers, that difference between capacities can easily become crucial.

General graphics performance of the computer is no better than the rest of the performance. Yes, as you can guess, it comes with an on board Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M chip, which uses between 128 - 1342MB’s of memory according to demand. Again, if you’re going to use Vista (still ignoring the downgrading suggestion huh?) this will automatically mean that you’ll always be using the extra shared memory, which is quite a kill joy when it comes to watching anything decent on the screen. The 15.4” WXGA TruBrite wide screen provides a 1280x800 resolution, which is enough for web browsing and most of the applications that your general system components allow. The TFT screen also provides native support for 720p content, which means it’s DVD friendly but you can forget (of course!) about true full HD… Bottom line is that this computer is good for creative activities as long as you use MS Notepad for those!

Since we’re talking about DVD’s, for the money you pay, you’ll be getting a Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive with double-layer support which records up to 8.5GB of data or 4 hours of video using compatible DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media. Additionally, this also supports DVD-RAM. You may take this seriously or not but I believe this happens to be the perfect drive choice for a computer like this, since you won’t be having any space to burn your own BluRay discs and not enough graphics power to watch them either. And the double-layer support enables you for any kind of DVD, again perfect for a machine like this.

For connectivity, this computer has all the standards; a built-in Atheros wireless LAN (802.11 b/g) , a RJ-45 connector with 10/100 built in Ethernet card and finally a 56 Kbps fax/modem (does anybody fax from their laptops anymore? Seriously!). It may sound like a problem to you since the wireless doesn’t support standards like a and n but then again, a is not common anymore and once n becomes common, well, this computer will be junk…

As you can guess there are no firewire ports. On the other hand you receive 3 USB 2.0 ports and a multi format card reader which supports Secure Digital, Secure Digital High Capacity, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO and MultiMediaCard formats. I don’t know about you, but these multi format readers are indispensible and it’s refreshing to see one on this laptop although it lacks many other things. Speaking of lacking, unfortunately there is no webcam and Bluetooth , which is unacceptable, think about it, there’re a very little number of things that you can do on this computer and video chatting is not one of them.

The keyboard has a nice layout and the wrist support is decent. Since there’re no sharp edges on the bottom, you won’t be facing any cramps. The track pad is located too close to the edge, which makes using it somehow hard and the buttons on the track pad are really badly placed.

Product Specs
Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium (SP1, 32-bit)

Processor
Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core processor T3200

Processor Type
Pentium® dual-core processor T3200 2.0GHz 667 MHz Front Side Bus

Memory Size
2048MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SDRAM

Display
15.4" widescreen WXGA with TruBrite® Technology 1280x800, Supports 720p content

Graphics Engine
Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M

Graphics Memory
128MB-1342MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory

Hard Drive Size
120GB 5400rpm

Optical Drives
DVD-SuperMulti drive (+/-R double layer) supporting up to 11 fomats

Wireless LAN
Atheros® Wireless LAN (802.11b/g)

10/100 Ethernet LAN

TouchPad pointing device, 86 key US keyboard

Audio
Standard stereo speakers, Headphone jack (stereo), Microphone jack (mono)

AC Adapter
75W (19V 3.95A) Auto-sensing, 100-240V / 50-60Hz input

Battery Type
Li-Ion (4000mAh)
PC Express Slot

1-ExpressCard™ Slot
Media Port

4-in-1 Bridge Media Adapter
USB Ports

3-USB (2.0)

IN CONCLUSION
This Toshiba is a decent working machine which is perfect as a gift to your child or business work for an accountant (but then again, you’ll need an external numeric keypad on that occasion). You can watch your movies, work on your decent sized spreadsheets or word documents on this, as well as surfing from time to time. But then again, this is a very humble computer and it’s not very rational to expect more than what it’s price reminds you of or what it offers. If you ask me, I’ll go for Acer One, since it has a webcam (again, lacking a webcam is unforgivable these days, plus these are more likely to be communications devices) and a bigger hard drive capacity. It’s all up to you, this is a very busy market segment with many competitors around. Just keep in mind that if you’re planning to buy this just because it’s a Toshiba, go for a better model to get your money’s value.

Pros
+ Relatively decent price
+ It’s a Toshiba, durable and proven
+ Comfy keyboard
+ Multi format DVD writer

Cons
- Old and slow CPU
- Very low hard drive space
- No webcam
- Badly placed track pad
- Weak graphics card
- There are many alternates in this price range with better performance
- No Bluetooth

Value For Money

Our Rating

Reviewed by Mehmet Can
Notebookbox.com Review Team