Customer Reviews
great.... but not out of the box 
2006-06-29
this is my third toshiba laptop but my first time diving into this solo core technology. i was a bit worried since i rather have others test the new things on the marked instead of me, but after quite a bit of tweaking and deleating garbage that this thing ships with, i'm finally getting the performance that i hoped for.
battery life is very decent, the machine is pretty light, considering the size of the screen and quite slim and 'sexy' as well.
Lovely screen resolution, easy on the eyes.
i love the placement of the three usb ports (the old p100's had two of them in the back which where a pain to reach). firewire on the side as well which is good. and the speakers are way better than my last two toshibas. you can actually listen to something with them....
so, bottom line: i recommend this laptop but i also recommend getting into the operating system (carefully) and disableing lots of the 'features' it ships with if you are planning to use this machine for some serious audio, video, or photo production.
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FANTASTIC 2006-06-28
I'm very happy with this computer, it really has all that I want in this moment, It's fast, small, lightly, anf very confortable
Beware of non-universal keyboard layout ! 
2007-01-14
Toshiba has changed the universally used key sizes and/or locations of several of the keys on their 17" laptop keyboards (ie: shift . / ; ' up arrow). Also added a 2nd forward slash key. I would not have bought this laptop had I known about this.
Do NOT Buy from Toshiba! 2006-12-25
This computer was outdated when I bought it in May! Core Duo was already around the same price range, yet Toshiba sells the computer with Core Solo. I do not understand how this computer is so thick; other manufactuers have made their 17" laptops amazingly thin.
When I bought it at Circuit City, it came with many problems that included reinstalling Windows multiple times. After exchanging it for another one, it came with dead pixels and the fingerprint reader's driver was faulty. The placement of the WiFi switch is inconvinient; it constantly gets pushed "off" while I'm using the computer. The keyboard layout is strange. It seems that Toshiba tried to squeeze every key onto the computer by shrinking the right "shift" key and adding another "| \" key.
I have always had problems with Toshiba. My first one, an M35X-S161, constantly shut down randomly and a faulty AC port. However, Toshiba support is very helpful, in giving the RMA numbers and setting up with UPS for shipment. This computer, as a replacement for that one, is starting to show problems as well, which requires reinstalling Windows again.
An Excellent choice 
2006-11-03
This is a greate piece of equipment. The finger print works 90% of the time. The mouse touch pad is a little bit small, it has too many functions in too little space, but you get used to it. The keyboard is great. The screen is amazing, the speakers are good too. I dont like the possicion of the headphone jacks, I would rather have them at the right side. It seems to be a heavy laptop but it is not. If you are thinking about buying a labtop I have to say, you should buy this one. In my opinion is better than many, many others.
Great pc but could have been better........ 
2006-09-06
Actually I give it a 3.3 but the system doesn't permit fractions. This notebook pc was a gift to me and I agree with everything that B. Cole "pixelgryphon" says, especially the clock speed, in addition to what j.s.bach said about the `extra garbage' which I have also deleted; and I really like the fingerprint reader security. Overall I have to give this package a 3.3 out of 5 for the following reasons: Since this is my first Toshiba laptop (the last one was a Dell) I am very disappointed about the single sized teeny tiny right-hand shift key; I am continually hitting the up arrow instead after having used keyboards with the expected 2 1/4-sized right-hand shift key for the past 20+ years. Instead, Toshiba could have eliminated the duplicate "|"and "\" key (why did they do that, anyway?) below the Enter and above the UP arrow, moved the UP arrow to the right and used the extra space for a larger right-hand shift key. I'm also not happy with the END and HOME key location on the PgUp and PgDn keys only via access with the Fn key. If they are going to resize keys why not make the NumLock and "/" next to it (also a duplicate) key half-sized and put in full time, even if they are half-sized, END and HOME keys?? How often do you use the NumLock and numeric keypad "/" key, anyway? I guess it depends on what you use the pc for, but for me END and HOME get used a lot. After looking on their website it appears that all Satellite 17" laptops with the separate numeric keypad have this same setup. The Qosimo series seems to be the only other Toshiba model with a 17" screen and a normal r-h Shift key but without a separate numeric keypad, which I would gladly give up for the standard r-h Shift key and other down-sized keys. My biggest problem was with the wireless setup/software which did not work out of the box. I struggled with that on and off for over 10 days before calling Tech Support. I kept getting error messages quoting some arcane references like (a-30), (a-27), etc. which I never did find out what they were for; and neither did their Tech Support. One big plus was that T-S answered almost instantly when I was ready for a 45 minute wait. I hope that was not just a coincidence that time! Bottom line was that after 40 minutes T-S told me to completely re-load the software! I was going to do just that but decided to try reloading just the wireless drivers (after removing them), since the wired port and everything else worked just fine. THAT DID IT, and now the wireless works and I didn't have to replace everything! Omitting the wireless problem I would give this product a 4.0 for the inaccurate description and teeny tiny r-h shift key.
Not exactly what Amazon says it is 2006-07-08
First of all it is a very nice laptop, but Amazon's picture of the unit is misleading. It does not include a remote control. Further the product discription lists the processor as 2.16 Ghz, 1.63 Ghz & 1.66 Ghz. Correct answer is 1.66 Ghz. The screen is sharp and bright. Last thing Amazon doesn't clearly state is that this computer has the mist gray finish on the top lid. The keyboard is closer to a full size desktop keyboard than most smaller laptops. It is packed with more software and features than I can keep straight and the documentation is minimal, it is difficult to determine which features your model has because there is no single listing for this computer and many features are referred to by the software and manuals that arn't on this computer. The most obvious one is the software for Bluetooth in the programs list, Toshiba Assist and in the manual but, there is no hardware.
Lastly, the fingerprint reader. It works well as long as your skin has some moisture. If your fingers are dry use moisturizer before trying to use this function or you may not be able to use your own computer. It is a nice feature for a laptop and not only can prevent someone from using your computer, but you are also able to protect specific files by placing them in your "safe" it also allows you to assign different applications to specific fingers. To start the application you simply run the assigned finger through the reader.
I would have been happy to have given the computer 5 stars (so far) had it not been for the vague product description.
