A Review of the AMD Powered Toshiba Satellite A215-S6820 15.4" Laptop

A couple of years ago AMD was the first major processor manufacturer to come out with a consumer 64 bit processor. When they first came out they demanded a pretty penny. Now that several years have passed by and AMD has some 64bit competition there have been some serious price reductions making these a serious deal. The Toshiba Satellite A215-S6814 15.4" laptop is an excellent example of a notebook that has seen a recent price reduction and experienced a serious boost in sales. As a result I've decided to take one home and give it a review. Let's get started by popping the hood and seeing what makes this thing tick.

Hardware:

Imaging: A bezel integrated Webcam (displaying an image about as good as a typical cellular phone camera)

Processor: 2.2 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-64

Storage Space: 300 GB hard drive

RAM: 3 GB RAM (further expandable up to a 4GB maximum)

Optical Drive: A CD R/RW drive with integrated dual-layer DVD +/- burner

Graphics accelerator: ATI Radeon HD 2400 graphics card (using up to 319 MB of shared system memory)

14.3" x 10.6" x 1.5" and it weighs approximately 5.8 pounds.

What really stands out on this notebook is the "onyx blue" bezel. While I find it to be perfectly acceptable I do recommend seeing this notebook in person before you buy it just to make sure it fits with your tastes. I think it is a decent departure from the boring silvers and gray manufacturers so often slap on the outside of their notebooks. The performance is great with the 64 Bit AMD and 3 GB of ram smoothly running Window's Vista. The 300 GB hard drive is more than adequate for the abilities of this notebook. The one downside on this notebook is the weak ATI graphics card.

Connectivity:

Integrated Wireless

1 Ethernet port

4 2.0 USB ports (this is the gold standard for peripheral connections, to be used for the likes of mice, printers, digital cameras and MP3 players)

1 FireWire port (to be used for high speed data transfer between digital camcorders or other PC's)

1 ExpressCard slot (this is used to add additional hardware like a cellular modem or even a Bluetooth adapter)

1 VGA port (this is a typical monitor connection)

1 S-Video port (this is used to connect to a projector or compatible television)

1 audio output / 1 microphone input

1 56K modem port (so that this laptop can dial up an internet connection)

5 in 1 memory card (this is so consumers can directly insert their solid state memory from mobile devices)

This notebook has all the connectivity I would expect for this price range and to top it all off they're perfectly ergonomically in line (I'm right handed). The bottom line is this notebook will make about any consumer happy, from students to the professional. It is mobile enough to be carried around and gets a 2 hour plus battery life. It will go to class and without a hitch and for the road warrior it will have no problems on the plane. It is currently priced at an online average of $1000. This is fine in my opinion but be sure to keep your eyes open for better deals as the computer buying high season approaches (early August).