Toshiba Satellite S855-S5168 15.6-Inch Laptop (Ice Blue Brushed Aluminum)

I purchased this laptop at a Black Friday sale for $600. I am an avid Linux user, so I installed Fedora 17 on it.

PROS:

*OS For the short time I used Windows 8, it worked fine. I just didn't like it.

*Speed The quad-core i7 processor and 8 GB of RAM allow it to run high-performance software.

*Keyboard It feels very nice when typing for long periods of time.

*Hard Drive 1 terabyte (1000 GB) gives you lots of space to work with.

*Webcam As long as you have enough lighting, the webcam looks good.

CONS:

*Wireless Card This thing has an old Realtek; If you use Windows, it is slow. If you use Linux (like me) you have bigger problems. Realtek doesn't have up-to-date drivers for the Linux kernel. I had to buy a Panda Ultra Wifi (b/g/n) 150Mbps Wireless-N 2.4GHz USB Adapter Windows XP/Vista/7/8, Mac OS X 10.6/10.7/10.8, Ubuntu 12.04 TLS, Fedora 17 and Puppy 5.3.3 Compatible in order to access the internet.

*Touchpad Using this thing for long periods of time is horrible.

*Battery Life It only lasts about 3 hours.

OTHER:

*Speakers The built-in speakers are mediocre.

*Graphics The Intel graphics chipset is average.

*Screen It looks fine unless you're looking from an angle.

This was a good buy for $600, but I don't know if I would buy it again for $750.

I'm not a techie, but an experienced user; no benchmark results here.

The lid on the laptop has no catch securing it to the body, so even walking around the house carrying the PC at my side as I would a book, I can feel the lid chattering against the body. The keyboard works well, but that too vibrates and makes a fair amount of noise as you're typing. It doesn't affect typing, and I'm sure it can't be heard from across the room, it just makes more noise than I would expect from a keyboard. I work with numbers so I like the 10 key setup built into the keyboard. The overall build quality feels really cheap; when you pick up the laptop there are a number of creaks as the plastic parts flex and the battery shifts slightly. I would be very concerned traveling with it unless it was enclosed in a snug sleeve (to keep the lid from chattering)and then packed into another case with plenty of padding.

The trackpad is pretty bad. Extremely sensitive at times, oblivious at others. Coupled with the mysterious swipes and functions recognized by Windows 8, you can have a REALLY exciting time at the keyboard watching things come and go on the screen. I use the laptop mostly with a bluetooth mouse and wired keyboard. When I work out of the house I'll be bringing my mouse.

The display is very good, very bright and readable except in bright light, where the glossy finish makes things difficult.

I've had the machine a couple of weeks, cycling the battery to check its life several times, and the battery lasts about two hours.

It's fairly large, at about 15X9. The good news is the large screen. The bad news is the bulk. Choose your poison.

The speed is there. Obviously subjective, but you don't have to wait long for start-up, restarts (a little over 1 minute for my machine, now with 12GB RAM), whatever. It comes with 8GB RAM (2x4). At least one of the 4GBers has to be pulled to increase the RAM.

Windows 8 is OK from the user perspective. Not great or horrible (sounds like a lot of other Windows versions!). Once you get used to it and can navigate through the screens intended for touch-screen use, it only (!) adds a couple of clicks to get to the desktop. You really have to wonder at the design, though, if it has to be adapted to keyboard use.

In spite of what reads as a slightly negative review, I'd buy the machine again. The value provided by the combination of processor speed, RAM, hard drive and price are tough to beat. Both the machine and the operating system occasionally feel like sand in my shorts, but for the price I can live with it.

5/14/13 update

Windows 8: There's no excuse. Same problems. Unless you power the PC down daily or restart daily, something won't work. I guess my biggest problem is getting used to the elegance and easy functionality of my iPad and iPhone, then expecting something similar from the PC. Maybe it's time to spring for an Apple. Sigh...

Buy Toshiba Satellite S855-S5168 15.6-Inch Laptop (Ice Blue Brushed Aluminum) Now

not to say I've experienced zero problems. Out of a batch of 5 of these I bought I had one quick HD failure while under warranty but they are consistently more hardy than my experience with HP / Compaq etc etc in this price range

Read Best Reviews of Toshiba Satellite S855-S5168 15.6-Inch Laptop (Ice Blue Brushed Aluminum) Here

I just bought this laptop, didn't even open the instruction booklet, and was able to set it up with no real problems. It did freeze during set-up (with a black screen) but I restarted it, and that fixed it. Windows 8 is very different from previous versions, so I've played with the tiles and deleted all of the irrelevant ones that're pre-set; I think I'll like it once I get used to it. The laptop itself, I love. It's got a great screen, and it's fastI haven't had to wait for anything to load yet at all. It's a good laptop for the price.

Want Toshiba Satellite S855-S5168 15.6-Inch Laptop (Ice Blue Brushed Aluminum) Discount?

This thing is just as fast as a data center server for half the price.

The wide 64-bit bus and maxed out RAM and the large hard drive makes it possible to run the latest Windows Servers including a fully loaded 2012 DataCenter and minimum of six simultaneous virtual machines with HyperV.

It gets even better if you optimize the server or use a better host liike VMWare.

Business people will appreciate the wide screen for multitasking applications, even if you're onsite to deliver a Powerpoint and the overhead breaks, the brite/sharp screen is practically wide enough to circle around and present your message.

Students will derive a huge advantage when you have the horsepower to replicate and exceed the campus lab slice especially if you're an IT major studying networking, web application development, even graphics since Toshiba's just cleave through Adobe Creative Suite and power through Mathematic whether using 32 or native 64 bit versions.

STOP taking my word for it and just watch it boot an OSX clone without formatting or dual booting the fragile Windows boot loader here:Toshiba Satellite C855D-S5340 15.6-Inch Laptop (Satin Black Trax)

www.amazon.com/review/R3TJ4HRZYVHH6T/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B009AF5736&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

It becomes a weapon when mated to BackTrack 5r2 and better with r3. The included RealTek adapters are more readily willing than Atheros cards for unlocking full wattage (redefined as Belize) with just an iwconfig command one time patched country zone file.

Atheros adapters require a patched driver whose reliability seems to vary from pen-tester to pentest.

What all of that means, BackTrack LinuX which runs just gloriously fast on Toshiba's, easily lets you boost your RealTek WiFi adapter to stronger signal levels than it arrived as and without endangering your computer, card or skin tissues (WiFi is low watt microwave).

Dominate the surrounding area when adding Alfa's and dildo 2000mW 2W 802.11 G / N High-Gain USB Wireless Long-Rang WiFi Network Adapter With Original Alfa Screw On Swivel 9dBi Rubber Antenna and Suction cup Window Mount docklength 15+db antenna'sfor even greater flexibility (Alfa's are majority RealTek's with some Atheros), multiple adapters enables the power of dedicating adapters solely to de-auth probes while repurposing separate adapters for signal interception. Mating dedicated adapters to a wide fast ass CPU gives you full control of the surrounding airspace like a ground mounted AWACS with teeth.