Toshiba 15.6" Satellite C655D-S5136 Athlon II Laptop 3GB Notebook 320GB Computer PC

The first key item of note in reviewing this laptop is that I now own it as a replacement for a slightly cheaper HP with almost identical specs but suffered a massive hardware failure just 31 days after purchase. Between a solid prior experience with Toshiba and results read in an online study on laptop malfunction rates (where Toshiba came in second only to Asus and ahead of pricer brands like Apple and Sony) I feel far more confident that this machine will last for me.

Now onto the specifics of this model....

The specs on this fall within the general standard of what I call the level-2 laptop (one price-step ahead of the single core celeron/sempron pure budget machines).

The keys are as follows:

Athlon II Dual Core 2.2 GHZ with 3 gigs of DDR3 RAM, Mobile Radeon 4250 Graphics, and a 320 Gigabyte hard drive.

These are all a good blend of price and functionality that won't be able to run the hottest games on the market (as is the case with any integrated graphics) but handles normal day-to-day along with programs like photoshop or low-res settings of newer games without any problem.

The hard drive size is a nice boost from the 250 gig you normally see at this range, though it would probably still behoove anyone with a fair amount of digital media to pick up an external hard drive.

Battery life is pretty good as a reflection of it's modest power at about 3 1/2 hours, which should be plenty for most-people's purposed.

The one place this machine does lose points however would be peripheral-type hardware.

The keyboard is fairly nice with and included 10-key that doesn't cramp the regular keyboard at all. It also has a memory-card reader built-in that is especially handy for those with phones/cameras/etc. that use sd/microsd/etc.

Beyond that however the machine is noticeably lacking in this department with no webcam, only two usb slots, and a smallish oddly textured touchpad.

Final Verdict:

As long as you are willing to pick up a USB hub this is a great multifunctional machine that is powerful enough for all regular home needs (power gaming and HD video editing aside) while still falling within that budget (i.e. sub-$500) range.

As with all of these machines however I recommended you shop around, Amazon's listed price of $488 is about $90 more than I paid, just enough to take it from a great machine for the price to a somewhat average value.

I bought this machine at Best Buy on 2/1/11, when it was on sale for $. What a fool I was. On 3/3/11 when I tried to boot up I got screen saying it was attempting to repair itself. After 12 hours (I'm not kidding), it finally booted to the desktop, but I immediately got error messages saying my applications were having problems. Frustrated, I took it back to the Best Buy, where one of their "Geek Squad" morons told me it needed to be "restored," and to come back in 4 hours. When I returned that night, another guy told me the hard disk was defective, and I needed to pay for and procure a "restore disk" from Toshiba. Even though it's under warranty, Best Buy refused to fix it or refund my money. Toshiba refuses to provide the "restore disk" unless I pay for it. This is a fraud, and this "computer" is a piece of worthless junk.

I refuse to pay, so I took the computer back from Best Buy. They demanded I sign a form saying I was satisfied with the repairs! I refused to sign and took my computer. Now, it doesn't even boot to the desktop.

Don't ever buy from Toshiba OR Best Buy. They are partners in crime.

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