Toshiba Satellite P25-S607 17" Media Center Laptop (2.80-GHz Pentium 4 (Hyper-Threading), 512 MB RA

I purchased a P25-(s)607 about a month ago and have been nothing but pleased with its performance.

Pros-

a. HUGE screen that really allows you to see a lot at one time

b. really fast computer. Benchmarks were outstanding for this product when I ran them right out of the box. They did nothng but improve after I did all the recommended steps (esp. driver upgrades)

c. Lots of goodies that no other laptop has... 4 USB 2.0 ports are great, and the DVD R/RW is really fast (4x) by today's standards. The 5400 rpm hd is fast, though with 60GB isn't the biggest out on the market these days (though with a dvd rw you really can't mind too much)

Cons-

a. This puppy is BIG... and heavy. Even though the screen is a whopping 17 inches, there is an area around the screen of unused plastic (about a 1-1.5 inch edge) This only adds to the huge footprint of this laptop.

b. The keyboard is relatively big, but is still not quite full size. In fact, the keyboard on my 15 inch compaq laptop is actually wider by almost 3/4 of an inch. It is still a capable keyboard though. It is also placed in about the center of the huge case, which can make using it a bit uncomfortable.

c. Lights, Lights, Lights... boy, this thing has a lot of pretty blue and green lights... and I can't find any way to turn them off. This can be a bit distracting while watching a movie in the dark.

d. Battery/TV tuner issues. there is only one battery port, and if you want to use a secondary drive (or the included tv tuner for that matter) you have to remove the battery. I know it seems semi-logical as you will be plugged into a cable anyway for the tv, but at the same time, you would think toshiba would find a way to incorperate a battery.

e. pricelets face it... this isn't the cheapest laptop on the planet... though it is one of the fastest and best equipped

All in all, I would probably rate this as a 4.5 star computer. I haven't fallen in love with it yet, but the courtship is well on its way.

L.

I waited a long time for a windows laptop to get a 17" screen, and this model made it worth the wait. This machine is huge! It weighs almost 10 lbs, and dwarfs my old 15" machine. If you plan on taking trips with this, think again.

The screen is very crisp, and gives you the room to place two windows side by side. So far, everything seems very fast, probably due to the faster hard drive and the extra video memory. But, I would have liked to have seen a 7200 rpm drive instead of the 5400 rpm one.

One thing I will say is that the machine looks much better than the pictures indicate.

This machine has just about everything you need in a desktop replacement. Surpisingly, it runs very cool with a 2.8 GHz processor. There are 3 fans on the bottom and a huge heat sink in the back.

I would have liked to see a separate keypad since Toshiba had the room to put one in, but the overall feel of the full-size keyboard is good. The small tab key, though, is tough to get used to.

Another major annoyance is the touchpad. It will select items with a slight touch, and I have not found out how to turn it off. I have called tech support 3 times on this to no avail. Toshiba's tech support has not impressed me on this issue, and I have had trouble understanding the tech support staff.

***Update***

Tech support has told me that this machine does not support the features most touch pads have, like being able to turn off the tap to click feature. However, I believe it just needs a different driver.

***

I have also had trouble with the supplied TV Tuner. The machine will not boot with it installed, nor will it allow me to connect to the TV. Tech support's solutions so far are to re-install all of the drivers, which did not work. This has not been resolved yet.

Having said this, I am very impressed with the product, and would highly recommend it. But I think some of the lower models may be a better value. It depends on your needs, but you will not go wrong with these computers as long as you don't mind the size and the short battery life. The issues I am having look like they can be resilved.

Buy Toshiba Satellite P25-S607 17" Media Center Laptop (2.80-GHz Pentium 4 (Hyper-Threading), 512 MB RA Now

Hello. I love this machine, You should know that the TV receiver can only be used without the battery, (the module goes in that bay) so you MUST be plugged to an outlet. Also needs an external antennae conection (includes conector) The Remote Control for the media center is quite nice BUT you need to attach an IR receiver (also included) to one of your USB ports so this is not that practical after all... Great buy, but I just wanted you to know what I did not when I ordered... :)

Awesome screen, very useful.

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I have not generally been kind to Toshibas, but I must say I took a liking to this one the first time I booted it up. It is impressive to look at, quite high-tech with great lines and lots of cool colored lights. But it's what's inside that counts.

It has a very, very fast 2.8 GHz CPU with an ample 512 megabytes of 800 MHz FSB RAM (expandable to 2 gigs), a 64 megabyte dedicated vidcard and a 17" display that is unbeatable. The 60 gigabyte hard drive, though, is a bit smaller than I would have expected.

That it has a digital TV tuner, can play and record DVDs as well as CDs (so it can be used as a true media center instead of just as a PC) and that it features a full function remote control are all just that much more "lagniappe" (oh, that's a cajun word for 'that little bit extra' you didn't expect but were pleased to get).

Anyway, why only 4 stars? Well, mainly because this computer is not really a laptop, unless you have a very, very big lap. This is a desktop masquerading as a laptop, and believe me, at a whopping 10 pounds it isn't going to be making very many trips. That may all be fine and dandy, but there is a significant penalty for it being called a laptop, namely a higher price than an equivalent desktop media center (look at the Gateways, for instance) would command.

For most folks, this is overkill. Where would it be perfect? I would say it would be true Nirvana in some lucky person's dorm room, though it would also look most handsome under anyone's Christmas tree!

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I will never buy another Toshiba Computer again. I've owned 3 laptops made by Toshiba (P25-S607, M30 and P25-S676) and am impressed with the machines. However, Toshiba's support is by far the worst that I've ever encountered; in fact, I would go so far as to say that they have NO SUPPORT!

One day I was working on my P25-S676 and I shut the lid of the computer, which would obviously put the system on standby. When I opened the lid again and tried to turn the computer on, it wouldn't give me anything but a blank, black screen. I found out that the motherboard was fried (???) and that it needed to be sent into the Toshiba Support Depot. I sent my laptop to Toshiba on 1/15/2005 and here it is 2/25/2005 and it is still not fixed. It's not the fact that I've been without my laptop for over a month that bothers me; it's that I was promised EIGHT different E.T.A.s! If I was told that it would take two months to fix my laptop, I would've been disappointed, but respected the honesty. However, it really ticks me off when a company lies to me eight times and counting!!! I have no faith that I will receive my laptop back in the next month, or maybe even this year. I've contacted the Better Business Bureau and I'm hoping that they can light a fire under Toshiba, since Toshiba's customers can't.

When shopping for a laptop, shop for support first and performance second.