My *NEW* Toshiba Satellite M35X-S329 Notebook Review

Well have been quite busy for the last 2 months so was not able to post much on my personal blog.

Purchased a new Toshiba Satellite M35X-S329 Notebook


Though the existing Dell Inspiron 4110 was a good model but given the price and features I was not able to resist my desire to move to a newer laptop.

The New Toshiba Satellite M35X-S329 is one of the new offerings available from Toshiba. It is good for for college students and people that need to be conscious of space without the desire to give up the power of a desktop.

It has integrated 54 megabit wireless With an impressive Intel Centrino configuration. The special thing about this configuration is a whopping 2 Megabyte L2 Cache on the processor. Couple that with the 400MHZ front side bus and 512 MB of DDR RAM and you have a very impressive system. The 80 Gigabyte hard disk is only 4200 RPM though...a trade off of performance v. battery life (I'm assuming).

The most impressive part of this notebook configuration (and what stands out the most) is the absolutely HUGE 15.4" WXGA TFT active matrix LCD screen. It's wide screen, and when I put it up to my 17" LCD screen it was the same size (Width).

PROS

• Powerful Intel Centrino Mobile Technology enables fast performance for today's most popular applications.
• Ultra-mobile Sleek design is light and thin for maximum mobility.* High-capacity Massive 80GB internal hard drive provides immense file storage.
• Fast IEEE1394 technology enables rapid data transfers, valuable when working with digital camcorders, music systems and more.
• Compatible The 5-in-1 bridge media adapter accepts SmartMedia, Secure Digital, MMC, MemoryStick (/Pro) and xD-Picture cards for quick transfer of digital files.
• Mobile Ready for on-the-go computing with integrated 802.11g wireless and MyConnect, an optional service which enables remote Internet access through Wi-Fi, wired Ethernet and dial-up networks at over 20,000 access points in the U.S.
• Impressive A wide-screen 15.4 diagonal display emulates the desktop experience.
• Light-weight 6.6lbs (3kgs)

CONS

• 4200 RPM drive
• Small touchpad caused my hand to cramp
• TAB button is a bit smaller
• Windows Start button is on the top right instead of bottom left like normal notebook keyboards.
• The bundled Office software is a "trial" version.
• No inbuilt microphone like my earlier Dell Inspiron 4110

Specifications:

• Intel Pentium M processor 725 1.60GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 400MHz FSB
• Microsoft Windows XP Home
• 512MB DDR SDRAM (both slots may be occupied) expandable to 2048 MB
• 80GB (4200 RPM) Hard Disk Drive
• Intel 855GME, 16MB-64MB (DVMA) shared memory
• 15.4 WXGA TFT active-matrix LCD
• Fixed Bay DVD-ROM/CD-RW
• Integrated Intel PRO/Wireless 802.11g
• 8 Cell Li-Ion BatteryRGB (monitor) port
• TV-out
• 3 Universal Serial Bus(USB) port (v2.0)
• External Microphone jack, Headphonejack
• RJ-45 LAN port, RJ-11 modem port, IEEE 1394
• Dimensions 14.4 x 10.8 x 1.16/1.48;
• Weight 6.6lbs (3kgs)
  

Note:

Before purchasing the new laptop I did checked various other sites for product review. Many of them were mentioning that the System gets very hot so quickly / Fan gets noisy and annoying especially when it kicks in, randomly

Well since its pretty new I have note faced any such problems. Yesterday itself I was running it for around 12hours (software installation / windows update and then data transfer and stuff) and it was running smoothly.

Conclusion

All in all the system is a very affordable coming in at just under Rs. 65,000. Make sure you look at some of the other similar system reviews coming up shortly. I would rate it 8 out of 10 stars for the Toshiba Satellite M35X-S329.

I would have liked to see the faster 7200 RPM drive in the system. It is configured to handle video transfers ala firewire, and with a 4200 RPM drive there may be bottleneck issues that could slow the transfer. Given that video transfers implies video editing (at a consumer level) 4200 RPM was not the correct choice.

Well since I already own it now so for me its a Good strong system, peppy, and lots of bonus software (Norton Antivirus, MS Works, MS OneNote, Napster, WinDVD etc).

A solid value at a great price.

View Toshiba Satellite M35X-S329 Product Tour Flash Animation

View the attached PDF for detailed specs: Detailed Specs