Customer Reviews
WAIT!! 
2007-05-14
Let me just say first that this is a great laptop. It has a huge hard drive (slow, but huge), 2 gigs of ram, an awesome video card...all in an attractive, functional package. BUT there currently aren't Vistas compatible video drivers available for it. So if you plan to buy this for the 'ultimate gaming machine' label, then you will be sorely disappointed. I've had my laptop for about a month and haven't been able to play much more than solitaire [...]. Hopefully vistas drivers will be released soon and this problem will go away, but for now this laptop is a very expensive movie player/ word processor.
Great laptop, awkward keyboard 
2007-05-14
The laptop is great. Sturdy, fast, very nice sreen with excellent sound system. My only gripe is the shrunken Shift and Forward Slash keys on the right side of the keyboard. They added another set of up-down-right-left arrows to the keyboard and they accomplished it by shrinking the Shift, point and forward slash keys to half their size. This makes regular typing a little awkward and needs getting used to.
Excellent hardware but Vista ruins it. 
2007-05-12
This laptop is only worth buying if your only planning to use it for e-mail, websurfing and word processing. It was designed for gaming but can't play any 3D games without having a stuttering frame drop every 2 or 3 seconds. Vista is to blame. I removed Vista and installed WinXP Home. This was the only way I could play games like "Hitman - Blood Money" and "Supreme Commander". With Vista, even some 3D screen Savers suffered the frame rate hit. By the way Nvidia, does not have Vista drivers for the 7900GS posted on their site. They refer you to Toshiba to get the latest drivers. Toshiba doesn't have a new driver for the video card either and are in no rush to post one. If you are really in love with the looks and specs of the P105-S9337 then I would recommend the Toshiba P105-S9722. It's the same exact machine with Win XP Pro instead of Vista. You can always upgrade to Vista later when the drivers have matured. Also note that these laptops come with large 200GB hard drives that run at 4200 RPM. This is a little slow for some people. I installed a 160GB 5400 RPM SATA Western Digital drive in mine and left the original 200GB drive fully loaded with Vista just in case a miracle happens and new drivers are issued for the Mobo & video. Good luck
love it 
2007-05-05
first high end laptop i have bought i love it.
however i may install XP pro on it instead and see if it runs faster. i love speed i hate waiting on computers. =)
i have a desktop P4 overclocked to 3.9Ghz =)
its fast
Toshiba Gaming 2007-03-28
The hardware is fantastic. All of my games run perfectly on full, all way better than my desktop. The speakers are really good for a laptop, looks stunning out of the box, and the screen is very nice. Another thing I think is definitely worth noting is that it runs phenomenally quite, even under heavy use. You literally can't tell if it's on unless you get in close. Of course, the fan does speed up every once in a while when necessary.
There is, however, one very poor aspect of the laptop. This computer and Windows Vista do not mix. At all. At first, the only problem is that the internet was almost completely not working. The problem was the antivirus software that came preinstalled. After uninstalling it and getting avast, everything worked normal again. However, this is advertised as a gaming laptop, and I feel I must warn everyone that it runs games very poorly on windows vista. It's basically a performance hiccup in any game, no matter how intensive. Every few seconds, it goes from perfect performance to below 10 frames per second. This is not an isolated issue, that is 100%. When I first started experiencing this, I looked through forums, and every other person with this laptop had the same problem.
That being said, I dual booted windows XP on my computer and it runs fantastic. It was the same with all the other people on the forums. Basically, I would hold off on this version of the laptop and go with the p105-s9722, which has identical hardware, but it runs windows XP. You can always upgrade to Vista when they work out the kinks, but I doubt that will be very soon.
excellent machine but vista problems 2007-06-14
I like many are throughly impressed with this computer and its value for the money.
HOWEVER, there is a slight compatibility problem between the computer and windows vista. there will be stuttering in video games under vista, by stuttering i mean a drastic decrease in performance for a second followed by full performance. In addition DVDs would occasionally stutter as well. However, this is merely a problem with vista and the computer and will hopefully be resolved. I got off of tech support and they said their software engineering department is aware of the problem and are planning a fix for an unspecified date.
other than that it is awesome, when new drivers are released by toshiba I would have no problem giving this machine a 5/5.
BEWARE of Toshiba's entire P105 line 2007-06-01
Toshiba won't tell you two CRITICAL facts about their P105 line of computers:
1. It has a NONSTANDARD KEYBOARD LAYOUT, and you probably won't realize this fact until you actually see it and use it because, to my knowledge, all their product descriptions fail to mention it. People who are proficient with a standard keyboard layout will probably not like this keyboard. The right shift key has virtually disappeared relative to a standard keyboard, and the arrow keys are very awkwardly placed. This will slow down your typing speed considerably, at least until you 'relearn' typing to accommodate these handicaps.
2. Although Toshiba's own website admits that silicone keyboard protectors are "must-have protection" for a notebook computer (and they ARE essential), you can't buy one for a P105 from Toshiba - OR FROM ANYONE ELSE to the best of my knowledge (and I've spent hours looking). This means that a single drop of water spilled on the keyboard can ruin it, resulting in the need for a very costly repair. Toshiba even went so far as to have at least one sample keyboard protector made for the P105 line but they failed to have any made available to customers.
I have done battle with Toshiba over this obvious problem, which required the writing of several letters and the filing of a Better Business Bureau complaint. Toshiba to this day fails to believe any problem exists. I had always been a huge fan of Toshiba products (including computers) until I bought a P105.
Other problems: the 'Super-Multi' DVD drive failed to read ANY form of blank media and had to be replaced. A bit of web research revealed this to be a problem that wasn't at all isolated. By the time I realized the DVD drive couldn't be used to record data, I had lots of data that needed to be backed up somehow before taking the unit in for repairs... without a working disk drive backups are very problematic. Finally, for some reason my P105 frequently stalls out during web browsing and no one can figure out why... it has done this since it was brand-new. My previous Toshiba notebook computer had none of these problems (although a Toshiba DVR I own also had a faulty DVD drive).
Toshiba Satellite P105-S9337 17" Notebook 2007-05-24
This computer was beyond expectations. It works very well for what I needed.
It's a Keeper 2007-05-22
Let me start by saying this is my third Toshiba laptop. Nuff said. As a working journalist and screenwriter I put mine through daily paces that the average user will never see.
This is the first laptop I have actually modified and with great results. *more on this later.
The stock system starts with a huge 17 inch screen with adjustable brightness. While not as overall bright as my previous, M35-S456 15.4" laptop, this is bright enough with a very warm feeling to it.
The Intel duo-core processers (yup, there are 2 processors doing duty) is lightening fast. The huge 200 Gig hard drive is suitable for the masses but I wanted a faster spinning HD which I got. I swapped out the 4200 RPM stocker for a 5400 RPM 80 Gig HD. I plan on getting an adapter to put the stock 200 Gig HD in and use it as a USB external HD rather than clogging up my laptop with pics, vids and other such. Trying to keep only the writings on this one.
The machine comes stock with 2 GIG of very fast RAM and is adaptable to 4GIG if you really want to play high end video games and such. I am not going to upgrade for that since for what I need it for the machine is plenty quick already...besides, I dont want to spend 400-800 dollars for that.
The S9722 (and its variants) comes with a whopping 256 MEG of dedicated Nvidea GeForce video memory...thats more than enough to edit home movies and such or play all DVD videos without freezes or glitches. If you edit movies for a living or are an engineer using CAD-CAM programs you might want to get Toshiba's top of the line gaming laptop with over 500 MEGs of video memory.
The keyboard on the S9722 is full size and includes a number pad. I often get confused when I use the number pad and forget to turn it off, this renders the 'home' and 'end' keys useless. 3 or 4 other keys have been shrunk to make the number pad fit. I am not so sure if I would've wanted a number pad that badly but it does not get it then way when in use as a writer.
When I bought mine it came with Windows XP with a waiver for a free Vista upgrade when it became available. My upgrade went flawless and the machine is dream to use and look at now. MACs, eat your hearts out.
You will likely see this same computer with a different badging because if it comes with Vista to begin with it is technically a different model.
I bought mine at MicroCenter in Long Island for 1999.00 and with the added cost of the smaller faster HD of 55 for the unit and 70 for installation, and 30 for Operating System and file tranfsers from Geek Squad I am into the machine for unde 2200 dollars. Go price a Dell or Sony with all of these same features and come back to me.
*things to look out for: 1.) ALWAYS use a laptop cooler base with any laptop. I experience no heat related issues others have squawked about. 2.) Cnet, a good place to check stuff out, reported the sound on the Harmon Karden speaker could be louder. Yes, it will be louder if you look very closely and realize the plastic covering over the speakers is so well cut it looks like there is nothing there. Trust me, it is there. Peel it off and this computer is loud enough to hear almost anywhere in a house and definately anywhere in an even a large apartment. :-)
3.) There are a ton of "free Microsoft software" titles that will work for 60 days. Don't waste your time, it's like a drug dealer comping you stuff knowing that you will come back to pay premium later on. DELETE THEM right off the bat. Buy only what you need or fnd free versions online.
Happy shopping, hope this helps.
"Ellis"
Fantastic computer !!! 2007-05-16
I can't say any bad thing about this equipment. It surpassed my expectation.
