Customer Reviews
Huge mistake for Toshiba 
2007-09-08
These laptops were never meant to run Vista, and it shows.
There are numerous fora on the Internet that are filled with people who bought various Toshiba A135 models and then began tearing their hair out. Adding more ram makes little difference. What DOES make a huge difference is to rip out Vista and install XP!
I bought two of the single-processor A135 models in May and threw in XPpro. What a difference! Before, the units were mired in molasses; afterwards, they are very fast and wonderfully fluid. Don't expect to get any help from Toshiba, however. But if you go to the fora you will find various packages of drivers that make these machines perfectly functional in XP.
So with a little bit of sleuthing I have two very quick laptops that cost me $400 each. Sweet.
SOOO SLOoooWWW 2007-04-10
I can only support the prior review about the fact that toshiba should not sell such an outrageously badly configured laptop. Using this laptop feels like your life going into slow motion! Purchasing this laptop was a very bad choice. it would be better to spend a little more and get a better configured laptop with more memory.
startup takes forever, closing a window takes a minute (computer hangs during that time) and there is absolutely no feeling of the dual core processor. the computer I had in 1992 was able to start word faster than this machine can start it.
i have a tecra laptop that is 3 years old and that performs much faster than this new one. to make a long story short, i gave it back and paid 15% restocking fee......
rather than paying more for RAM, just buy a better laptop. battery life is very bad (below 2 hours).
overall a bad omen for toshiba; first you sell badly configured products, and then nobody wants to buy your products anymore...(marketing department at toshiba: please wake up! this paves the road to hell)...i wonder if someone from the company ever tried the laptop himself.....
Speed is Anemic. Expect to purchase ~$100 1GB RAM 2007-03-15
The performance is anemic. It is very slow and takes 75 seconds to open a web browser or AOL. I called Toshiba and spent over an hour on hold.
A Level 1 technician transferred me. Finally, a level 2 technician concluded that the computer was sold with too little memory to run Windows Vista, properly. He agreed to forward my case to Customer Relations in favor of providing me additional memory (it came with 512MB). They never called back as promised. I called back the next day and requested customer relations and was on hold for over an hour again. The customer relations guy was an arrogant foreigner. Immediately, he was very argumentative, rude, aggressive and unsupportive. He told me that they wouldn't support the technician's claim for free memory and said the technician was an outsourced representative and Toshiba did not need to honor his recommendation. He started to tell me that he didn't care about my situation and caught himself as he was completing his comment. He kept raising his voice and talking over me, loosing his cool.
I tried to maintain professionalism, but, still argue my case that Toshiba sold an incompatible system .... "either it should have came with more memory or it should have shipped with Windows XP." Toshiba sells a system, not two separate independent components. I told him I expected more from the Toshiba brand. He told me I bought an entry level machine and they didn't hide the memory requirements and that I didn't do my due diligence (he kept repeating himself over and over with an aggressive loud tone as his way to "convince me"). He was an output device only, I had a difficult time getting him to listen.
It was an awful experience. It changed my opinion of Toshiba 180 degrees. I had expected a lot more from them.
Expect to pay another $139.49 + Shipping (Toshiba selling price)for a 1GB memory module. Expect a long que for customer service. All 6 or 7 folks I spoke to were located in India, Middle East or the Philippines.
If you bought a $25,000 car and couldn't go over 30 mph, would you be upset if you had to spend another 20% ($5,000) for a module to make it go a normal speed? It is easy to blame Microsoft Vista, but, Toshiba is responsible for the system they sell.
Needs more RAM !!! 
2007-03-09
Windows Vista is extremely slow with the notebook running 512 MB RAM. Consider upgrading to 1 GB or more.
Just a little more for 5 stars 
2007-02-28
Pros: Great screen, super fast, super quiet(no fan noise),WiFi and plenty of USB ports.
Cons: The only gripes I have is it only comes with 512 memory, no firewire port and there's too many Trial programs I don't want that run in the background that you have to uninstall or kill thru msconfig.
I've had this laptop for around a week now and am really impressed and pleased with how it performs with only 512 memory on Vista which would have been plenty with XP. I'm not sold on Vista by any means. Great price at Best Buy for 549. For another 50 you can have 1 gig of memory and the total price is still under 600 bucks. Great deal!
Add the memory and you have a little work horse. 2008-05-08
I purchased the computer from Craigslist and waited way too long to add memory. Today I put in 2GB RAM, and this laptop is running like a top! The pluses of the computer are quite keyboard, slim features. The minuses are: not made for XP drivers; not good contrast control of the screen; and does come with only 512 memory. The main reason I'm writing is to let others know, don't dump the laptop because of the speed if you're thinking of adding memory. It's well worth it! I found the memory for a low cost after some shopping. Best of luck with your laptop!
STAY AWAY!!!! 2008-04-26
I bought this laptop in March of 2007. It worked great until last week (oddly enough only a few weeks after the warranty expired). Started getting blue screen of death, a USB port stopped working. Took it in for service, got a loose RAM diagnosis. Had it back from the shop for 4 days before the computer froze and would never boot up again because the motherboard died. The laptop only lasted 12 months (about 2 yrs shy of expected lifespan for a laptop). This is the second Toshiba that I had problems with. My 4 yr old Sony Viao is still going. I won't buy a Toshiba again.
This is a good notebook if you upgrade it 2008-04-22
It doesn't take a rocket scientist (although I used to be one) to figure out that this notebook was sold with insufficient memory (512K). The video takes a pretty heafty bite leaving you with less than Microsoft recommends to maintain adequate performance. Furthermore, Windows Vista Home Basic was a young pup when shipped with this notebook.
The world has turned many times since then and it is time to upgrade:
1. Replace the 512K memory with 1Gig memory stick. Pass the 512K stick down the food chain to a WIN XP notebook or sell it. You can buy these all day at Staples, Best Buy, etc. for around $50. Make sure you pull the battery out before you swap memory.
2. Upgrade to Vista Service Pack 1. Make sure you follow Microsoft's recommendations and procedures. The folks at Redmond have resolved many of the issues that cut into performance, although it still will not work well with 512K. This is free and it is a DIY project.
If you do both of the above you will end up with a good notebook. Don't get mad at it, just fix it!
Toshiba Satellite 135 Problems (Don't Buy!!) 2008-03-31
I purchased this computer about 7 months ago. Currently I'm on my third mother board. The computer has been in and out of the shop roughly 9 weeks. Adding insult to injury I attempted to purchase extended warranty (since there are known problems) and Toshiba refuses to sell it because extended warranty is only available in the first 6 months of service. I have spent at least 20 hrs being bounced around Toshiba with no results. My case number is 1-854159549 in the event a person from Toshiba is reading this and wants to do something.... Don't BUY JUNK
Buying a notebook? Expect to be frustrated 2008-03-30
I didn't get this through Amazon, but this might still be useful if you're looking for a notebook. I did get its twin Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527 15.4" Notebook PC (Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor T2080, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, SuperMulti DVD Drive, Vista Premium) through Amazon and CompUSA (RIP) and that has been a better experience.
If you've done your research you'll know additional RAM is a must, and complaining that it feels slow with 512 MB is like saying a car isn't cornering right with 13 inch wheels; now you know why it costs so little - so do get that extra RAM, which right now costs about 30 bucks for an additional 1 GB and is easy to install. This applies to 90% of all notebooks, particularly the cheaper ones, even Apple's (yes, Macs are PCs unless you've been brainwashed).
With an additional 1 GB this computer was a good deal for around 600 bucks and it worked as well as any computer with Vista can for about a year; then one single major problem plus the normal vicissitudes of anything made by Microsoft have taken the experience to new lows.
The problem is that all 4 USB ports suddenly stopped working, and nothing has been able to solve that - not reinstalling the video drivers, not reinstalling Vista from scratch, not fiddling with and updating the BIOS, not even installing Ubuntu Linux; Toshiba's site and software updates are pathetic and their customer service nonexistent; and other manufacturers are at the same level or even lower - HPs are a major no-no, Dells are generic, Sonys have a better hardware record but at unreasonable premiums.
Interestingly enough everything else is working as it should so I got a PCMCIA (carbus) Adaptec card with an additional 2 USB ports like this one Adaptec USB2CONNECT for Notebooks 1420V. The Adaptec USB 2.0 2-PORT 1420V Kit Pr and can now connect a USB hub and from there a mouse, a keyboard and an external sound card; it's still unreliable as from time to time the mouse and keyboard start stuttering, so I'm stuck with a crippled computer. I suspect the culprits are the BIOS and the Ati Chipset, as its twin has an Intel chipset and has suffered none of these problems (knock on wood).
Would a more expensive computer have proven more reliable? Not unless it has the reputation of a Lenovo Thinkpad - and even then you're still stuck with an unreliable operating system by Microsoft.
Here's what to expect from Vista: Want to connect an external monitor? It will go into visual convulsions until it eventually settles down; want to install a program to rip your own music CDs? Expect to be nagged to death by error messages appearing every 3 minutes; want to print or scan? Sorry, incompatible; want to watch a video? It will revert you from the Vista Premium or Standard look to Vista Basic, aka Windows 2000 - and back again after the end of each video; and the list goes on and on... So if the hardware doesn't get you, Microsoft's incompetence will.
Would a Mac be more reliable? The operating system is certainly light years ahead of Vista in terms of reliability, but a very big part of that is due to the fact that there are way less programs to run on it and even less peripherals to connect to it; and Apple's track record with the hardware is equally abysmal.
Linux was my great hope, but it has been quashed by the many things that still don't work - no sound, no external monitor... And no, I don't have the time to investigate every single detail, I need computers to get work done, not to fiddle with them.
Why are computers so cheap? Because as a consumer your expectations need to be that low. How much can any computer with Vista be worth? Not much, no matter how ugly or pretty it is. How much of a premium can Apple get away with if you're looking for a work tool and not a fashion accessory or a new religion? 100 bucks? 200? 300? Certainly not triple what this computer cost.
In the end the question is how much is your work, communications and entertainment worth? A lot more than the cost of this computer, but it's something no PC manufacturer has been able to address: We need reliability and ease of use, not more bling.
My solution thus far has been to diversify the risk and buy cheap and somewhat reliable computers, so the chances of all of them failing *at the same time* is lower; that will probably mean trying with an Apple Mac mini MB138LL/A (1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, Combo Drive) to see if it can integrate into the pool of computers and lower that risk; in the mean time I'm disappointed by Toshiba and will keep them off my considerations, as well as anything more expensive such as Lenovo 765802U ThinkPad T61 14.1" Notebook or Apple MacBook MB404LL/A 13.3" Laptop (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive) Black or as promising as Asus Eee PC 4G (7" Screen, 800 MHz Intel Celeron Processor, 512 MB RAM, 4 GB Hard Drive, Linux Preloaded) Galaxy Black.
Do you have the means to get the best car? Get a Porsche. Want the best computer money can buy? Move to another planet, on Earth you're going to have to make a compromise. I hope this helps.
