Customer Reviews
Solid value, but nothing spectacular 
2007-04-13
This is a good computer with a lot of features and high-end specs for the price, but it's not a *great* computer. I bought this to replace my old Toshiba Satellite M35, which conked out (video problem) after three years of very heavy use. I liked my old computer so much, I wanted to stick with Toshiba. But I must admit this one isn't quite as dreamy as my old one.
Cons:
*Toshiba has made the screen super shiny, which is the worst change. What on earth was Toshiba thinking? On my old Toshiba, the screen was matte, and glare was never a problem. On this one, the glare is terrible. Worst of all, the maximum brightness has not been improved (a somewhat dim screen was one of my few complaints about my old Toshiba), so a glare screen will compound that problem. This issue alone has made me consider returning the computer.
*The manual warns that resting your hands on the palm rests for an extended period of time can result in burns. Huh? You can't rest on the palm rest? This is thoughtless engineering, pure and simple.
*The sound isn't as great as my old computer. Also, my old computer had slots in the lid for listening to music with the computer closed. It didn't sound as good as with the computer open, but it wasn't bad. With this one, the sound is very muffled when the lid is closed.
*The earphone and microphone jacks have been moved up to the front, which, to me, is in the way.
*The volume scroll is still on the front, which, again, is kind of inconvenient, but even worse now, the jacks are on a little outcrop right next to it, which makes the scroll kind of hard to get to.
*The volume scroll turns endlessly. In other words, you can't turn it all the way down. Say you're starting up your computer in a meeting or in bed or in some other place you don't want to be hearing all the chiming and beeping that goes along with startup. You can't scroll the volume down all the way first. It resets itself to a medium volume each time you turn on the computer, no matter where you had the volume before. It's baffling to me why they did this. You also have to turn a lot more to adjust the volume up or down, and it doesn't seem to increase/decrease smoothly. It's actually kind of difficult to get the volume adjusted to where I want it.
*The USB ports have been moved around, and to me, they are not as convenient. There are two on the right towards the front, one on the back left, and one towards the middle of the left (the one on the right towards the rear is what I miss).
*The fingerprint reader is a cool feature, but it's not quite ready for primetime. Even with very careful use, it does not consistently read my fingerprint. It is very far from being reliable enough to depend on exclusively. When it works, it's neat to be able to just scan your finger instead of typing a password, but when it doesn't work, you waste far more time than you've saved. In the tutorial, they show a finger being pulled straight across the scanner, like a box of Cheerios on a grocery-store scanner. But it works nothing like that. You have to press hard (uncomfortably so), and you have to scan all the way to the very tip, curving your finger up as it reaches the end. For a woman with anything but a close-cropped fingernail, this will be difficult, if not impossible.
*Those blinding blue indicator lights are alive and well and more numerous. Now the on/off switch has a one-inch-long blue band. You could land airplanes on this thing. Whenever I use my computer in a low-light setting, I have to put something over the lights, otherwise it's like driving with brights in your rearview mirror.
There's also a new light indicator (amber, for some reason) to show when the wireless switch is on. This might be handy, because some people complained that they accidentally turned off the wireless switch without noticing it. But I never had that problem, and I find the light to be annoying.
*Accessories from my old Toshiba (battery charger, battery) don't work with this one. I didn't really expect they would, but it would have been a nice, thoughtful thing for Toshiba to do.
*The plastic lid covering is pretty, but it does show fingerprints very dramatically, it attracts dust like a Swiffer, and it feels like it would crack or scratch very easily. I very much prefer the matte silver lid on my old Toshiba.
*This model makes a lot more noise than my old Toshiba. There is something running internally (it sounds like the fan, but it's not; I'm not sure what is is) that makes a continuous low-pitched noise. The fan also kicks in frequently. My old Toshiba was virtually silent, and the fan seldom came on.
*The keyboard is far too stiff and unresponsive. I'm a very accurate, fast typist, but I find that many letters get missed when I'm typing on this Toshiba. With time, I'm sure I'll adjust to pushing harder, but I wish this keyboard had the soft, accurate touch my old Toshiba had.
Pros:
*Despite Toshiba's warnings about burning yourself, this model actually gets far less hot than my old one. The palm rests have yet to get too hot to touch. I think I'll leave the stickers on, though, because they are clearly helping insulate.
*For the price, you are unlikely to find a computer with a bigger hard drive than this.
*The position of the touchpad is better than on many other brands. On some, such as HP, I find it difficult to type without inadvertently moving the mouse because my hands contact the touchpad.
Overall this isn't a terrible computer, but Toshiba has lost my loyalty. I will look to other brands next time before considering what Toshiba has to offer.
Best purchase for the money...... 
2007-03-20
I researched every laptop on the internet before I decided on this one. It runs Vista Premium with Aero like a dream and everything works fine, no glitches found whatsoever with Vista or the Laptop. It has 2 gig of memory which is needed to run Vista smoothly, with memory prices being back up to expensive, this extra upgrade was worth it to just buy the laptop with the upgraded memory already in it. It has a 5 in 1 media card reader which I have used many times and runs flawlessly with either the Windows Media software in Media Center that comes with Vista Home Premium. It also has a large hard drive to store recorded video or TV to and you can burn them to DVD all at once. The Vista Premium program itself eats battery life so I don't think it is this laptops fault that the battery lasts more than 2 hours. You can shut down unnecessary running programs to extend the battery life if needed. My travel car charger works just fine in the car with the laptop so it works out fine for my portable notebook needs. I would recommend this or the models with a lesser hard drive to save money in a second, I love it so far.
very pleasent 2007-03-09
this computer has very good features.It is very fast, has a huge hard disk space, and compared to other firms toshiba is cheap. I searched a lot of web sites before I BOUGHT this laptop,and I decided that this is the best laptop whit this cost.now I AM VERY PLEASENT
TOSHIBA A135/S4487 
2007-03-05
THIS IS MY 3RD LAP TOP AND SO FAR I HAVE TO SAY IT IS THE BEST. THEY HAVE COME A LONG WAY AND YES IT IS MORE POWERFUL THEN A DESK TOP THE BATTERY LIFE IS NOT GREAT BUT, YOU CAN GET A MORE POWERFUL ONE.
THANK YOU TOSHIBA FOR REALLY TRYING TO MAKE THE BEST LAP TOP OUT THERE.
Heavy and no battery life 
2007-02-27
The battery barely lasts 2 hrs. And the computer feels so much heavier than I thought it would be. I pretty much have to use it as a desktop, instead of a laptop, with it plugged into the wall all the time. Not very portable.
Toshiba Motherboard 2008-04-30
Worked great up until April 25 afternoon. In the evening, turned on the computer but nothing happened. No Hard Disk Activity. After calls to Toshiba Tech Support, I was told the Motherboard is bad. I only bought the computer last year - February 25.
Outstanding 2007-05-13
I have had noproblems with this computer at all. I love it and I am so glad that I purchased it. I recommend buying it.
Very Good Toshiba Notebook... So-so Windows Vista 2007-05-03
This is my second Toshiba notebook, being the first a Satellite 2410 series buyed (gasp!) 4 years ago. I've always liked my first Toshiba because it never give me any problemas, it is reliable (even now) but time is cruel and it was time for a change.
In my search for a new notebook, I considered only Toshiba models and found that the A135-S4487 was the perfect combination of price and resources. I buyed it 3 weeks ago, and I'm happy with my choice. I've captured video from my home movies, only with the software included out-the-box and the speed of the system is very good too.
The only reason I'm giving "only" 4 stars for this notebook is Windows Vista. I know that it's a new operating system and because of that is prone to little fails, but Vista gave me a little headache over my
first weekend with the notebook!!... only thing I'm saying is please search on the internet for advice (mostly on hang-ups and the blue screen of death)... I mean, hey Toshiba guys!!, I trusted you've extensively checked your notebooks preloaded with Vista before putting them for sale!!.... Now it's everything ok, but not without a little suffering :)
NO LA COMPREN TIENE FALLAS... NO BUY IT!!!!!! 2007-05-01
EN ABRIL 1 COMPRE ESTE MODELO, TODAVIA NO LA HE PODIDO USAR.... TRAE FALLAS EN TECLADO. EL SOFTWARE WINDOWS VISTA NO FUNCIONA.
NO LA COMPREN TENDRAN UNA MALA EXPERIENCIA, MAS DE $ 1200 PERDIDOS...
UNA PC QUE NO LOGRO ENCENDERSE POR FALLAS , Y LA GARANTIA NO INCLUYE REPONER LA PC COMPLETA SINO LAS PARTES , AUNQUE NO LOGRO ENCENDERSE PARA CONFIGURARLA. AL DIA DE HOY 30 DE ABRIL AUN NO PUEDO USAR MI PC. ESTA EN UN TALLER "REPARANDOSE" ...
NO LA COMPREN... TENDRAN UNA MALA EXPERIENCIA... LA COMPRE EN TIGERDIRECT.
NO LA COMPREN , ES UNA PC QUE NO LOGRARAN ENCENDERLA.
NO COMPRAR, NO COMPREN, NO BUY IT!!!!!
Don't get if you plan to install Windows XP 2007-04-19
This is supposed to be a good computer for a good price. But if your plan is to install windows xp on it. Forget about it. Toshiba until now does not have the drivers for this computer for windows xp! If you think it is not important to have wi-fi, the Fn keys working but able to use WinXP... go for it!
