A Review of the Popular Toshiba Satellite P205D-S8812 17" Laptop

Especially popular with college students and office workers the desktop replacement notebook has become one of the markets best selling sizes. This time of year as students get ready to go off to college in the fall, parents are buying up desktop replacement notebooks. It is easy to transport but has a large enough screen you won't be straining your eyes. I have gotten my hands on one of these notebooks; the Toshiba Satellite P205D-S8812 17" laptop. In this review I'll let you know how it performs for me and who will get the most out of one of these bad boys. First let's start with a few of the basics.

Hardware:

Imaging: integrated Webcam

Processor: 2.2 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-64

Storage Space: 250 GB hard drive

RAM: 3 GB RAM (upgradable to a 4 GB maximum)

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

Graphics Accelerator: ATI Radeon HD 2400 graphics card (using up to 383 MB of dedicated video memory)

Dimensions and weight: 15.7" x 11.3" x 1.8" and it weighs approximately 7.2 lbs.

This notebook has a great 64bit processor in the 2.2 GHz Turion. In my opinion it is strong enough to serve as a good desktop replacement. The memory is great with the 250 GB of storage space and the 3 GB of RAM. This notebook runs Vista smoothly and boots quickly. The graphics card is fairly good but don't expect to play too many graphically intensive games. The screen is clean and crisp and will be fine in a standard office environment. It has a glossy screen but doesn't experience much glare. The size is obviously quite large however this notebook isn't exactly designed to be a mobile PC.

Connectivity:

Integrated Wireless

1 Ethernet port

6 2.0 USB ports (these ports are used to connect a variety of peripherals like input devices such as mice and keyboards to peripherals like digital cameras and iPods)

1 FireWire port (this is used for high speed data transfer between digital camcorders or sometimes other compatible PC's)

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

1 VGA port (this is a typical monitor connection)

1 S-Video port (this is used to connect the notebook to projectors or some compatible televisions)

1 Microphone in / 1 Audio out

1 56K modem port (this is used to connect to the internet via dial up)

5 in 1 memory card reader (these are used so that the consumer can directly insert their solid state memory from their mobile devices directly into the notebook)

This notebook has decent connectivity; I would have liked to have seen something in the way of a TV tuner or even just an HDMI output. For the most part the placements of the ports are all ergonomically considerate for a right handed person. This notebook is a fairly good desktop replacement and it should make most users happy as long as that is what they're looking for. Don't expect to take this notebook everywhere with you without generating a bit of a sore back. It is currently priced at an average online figure of $1400. This is about on target but I would wait around some until early August to see if they'll drop the price when the market gets hot.