Customer Reviews
EXCELLENT PRICE AND PERFORMANCE 
2008-09-30
I have had the A215-4697 for almost a year now, i purchased it Nov 07' during a sale at circuit city. The price was unbelievable..Paid 550. I have never had a problem with a blank screen, or with Vista. The only upgrade I performed was to add memory (my machine came with 1GB, the minimum to run Vista). However, a friend of mine has an older model, A135----, and she has had problems with the power cord and shutting down, and missing hibernate, and a over-hot touch pad. I had her download the bios for her model and it seems to help. My point is that I think toshiba makes an excellent laptop, although they had problems in the past. I previously owned a Dell Desktop, which was trash in comparison.
Excellent for simple tasks...horrific for anything else 
2008-09-24
I've had this laptop for over a year in college (it survived my dorm room, so kudos for that), and the fact that I had bought it for about 650 dollars is a pretty good deal. But like the title suggests, this laptop is really only suitable for simple tasks, such as typing essays and doing basic research on the internet. The screen is bright and there are no bubbles or discrepancies of any kind, and the fact that the LCD panel is on one giant hinge basically ensures you won't get a flimsy hinge (common to Dell laptops, with two small hinges positioned at each end of the panel), and the battery is sufficient for small tasks (excel sheets, writing essays, watching movies on a plane, etc). I've had no boot up problems, no black screen or blue screen of death, and no software issues.
But that's about it.
The fact that Toshiba would even consider creating a laptop which runs the increasingly idiotic Vista on only 1 gig of ram can be considered a sin to the modern consumer, but making the ram shared with the integrated graphics card means Toshiba has made the prince of darkness look like a pansy. The shared graphics card makes the graphics absolutely terrible for any type of gaming or movies, and the compromised ram results in slow and often non-responsive performance. When doing research, I usually have several tabs on firefox open at any given time- between 4 and 5. I always cross reference my research, so it takes a lot of websites to make sure what I'm getting is at least valid to the extent that two websites agree. This and the fact that I run music, am usually typing on Microsoft Word, and I need to switch between programs quickly makes the laptop's ram wheezing for breath. Literally. I can hear the heatfan rev up every time I start typing.
But then again, I play video games and type pretty fast, and always click things fast when working on the computer. I'm more used to a high end desktop, I guess.
Oh yes, and when I first got this laptop I had to clear out the junk programs (including the vile McAfee virus "protection" that further leeched my ram and eventually kept bothering me to purchase their full year protection for a nominal 89.99-what kind of college student would dish out ninety bucks for virus protection when there are better ones for free on the internet?) or else the computer just wouldn't start up within the first week you press the power button. And when you type, be sure to press FN + F9 to disable the over sensitive finger pad so that your cursor doesn't jump around. The slightest heat or vibration from the keyboard when you type makes the cursor whiz around the screen, highlighting text while you type so you naturally type over the text and have to painstakingly press ctrl+z to undo the keypad's overzealous malfunction. Press FN + F9 to start up the pad again. I ended up just shutting the pad off permanently, disabling Toshiba flashcards to save ram (it controls the finger pad) buying a readyboost drive to help cope with the ram deficiency, and buying a portable mouse.
But if you're just an average joe or jane who needs a versatile, affordable and easy to use laptop for typing up drafts and e-mailing consumer reports, this is a laptop for you. If you're at all not, I don't recommend this laptop for you, because there were many times where I just wanted to throw this laptop out my dorm window.
blue screen of death!!!!!!! 
2008-08-24
I bought the laptop a year ago. After two weeks the computer would crash at random times. I thought adding more Ram would help so I upgraded to 2 gigs.....still happened. I called tech support and they told me to reinstall vista. I did this and the problems still occured. I then sent the laptop back to Toshiba for service....problem not fixed. The warranty has now expired and this piece of junk is worse now than ever. The computer has crashed 28 times this month (Aug 08) I would give this laptop 0 stars if possible. Save your money!!!!!!
Toshiba became better 
2008-06-02
I've been using various companies' laptops to test.
A215-S4757's only flaw is that it doesn't have a bluetooth built-in. You can have an add-on, which is not a big deal.
The HD is abundant - 250GB. Though the screen is big, it is light compared to others.
I understand some people's coomplaints about the mouse-pad that makes typing fast annoying and time consuming because the mouse-pad is too sensitive and often knocks off what you have been working on.
(TIP: Uninstall he current driver and install "ALPS" mouse pointer software instead of "Synaptics."
I don't believe it 2008-03-19
I recently bought this computer, the first time that I turn on the computer everything seems to be working just fine. The second time the computer put itself a BIOS password and now I cannot access my laptop, I researched about this and apparently this is a well know Toshiba issue and they don't do anything about it. I call costumer service and they told me that I should take my computer to the support company in my country and wait for their solution.
THIS IS THE FIRST AND LAST TIME I BOUGHT A TOSHIBA. DELL is much better concerning new computers and costumer support.
Great Laptob at a great price. 2008-03-13
Taking your computing on the road doesn't mean you have to leave anything behind. This notebook is powered by the AMD Turion 64 X2 processor and 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM. A combination that can easily handle your day-to-day business apps, as well as more demanding creative and gaming programs. For your entertainment, this laptop is also outfitted with a DVD SuperMulti drive, which can burn to and read from up to 11 different types of DVD media. Built-in Wi-Fi support is also included, giving you wireless Internet access wherever you can find an 802.11b/g wireless access point. DVD SuperMulti Drive with LabelFlash 15.4 Widescreen TruBrite LCD Native Resolution - 1280 x 800 (WXGA) ATI Radeon X1200 with up to 319MB of shared memory (memory is shared with the main system) Webcam and Microphone is built into the LCD bezel Fingerprint Reader Ports - 1 VGA Out, 1 S-Video Out, Microphone In, Headphone Out, 1 Firewire, 4 USB 2.0 Unit Dimensions - 14.3 x 10.6 x 1.55
3 New Toshiba..... 2008-02-21
I have exchanged the Toshiba three times for a new Toshiba A215 each time due to the fact that at least daily on each one I have had the black screen of death occurs!!! I am extremely disappointed due to in the past Toshiba have had great inexpensive laptops. I am taking this worthless laptop back to Best Buy to find something else. Please don't buy this laptop as I have been through 3 in less than two weeks with the same reoccuring problem.
computer 2008-02-15
i never recieved the product and i am currently requesting an answer as to why. ive ordered several things from you this past year and had no problems till now.
solid, fast, cheap, stylish 2008-01-29
I purchased the s4747 a couple months ago for <$600. I have found this laptop to be pretty amazing. I am able to run games such as Oblivion, ,GTA:SA, Battlefield 2, and World in Conflict. As well as watch 1080p content on my DLP via the vga out. The quality is amazing and smooth. I didn't have any problems with the screen going out but did have a problem with the SD drive not recognizing re-inserted cards which was vista related. Everything booted and connected perfectly out of the box.
The 200gb harddrive is nice although at 4200rpms its a little slow, but for the price, the size makes up for it and if you really need a faster harddrive buy one, they are cheap, it also supports solid state drives so I am just going to wait until those are affordable, so it's fairly future proof in the ram/hard drive department. Also, I bought some more ram. While 1gb is enough to run smoothly most of the time, sometimes it filled up to 80% when running multiple applications. 1 gb of readyboost helped out a little bit.
The s4747 is capable of running 4gb of ram(which is pretty amazing) and you can find 4gb online for $80. Oh yeah, the 1.8ghz turion 64x2 cooks, the built end web cam/microphone is nice and has pretty good quality, speakers are adequate not horrible, but leave more to be desired. S-video out is good for watching movies on older tv's, vga out looks amazing.
The design is very low profile, I am able to pick it up with 1 hand fairly easy from any position. I have dropped it twice, still works although I smashed a usb flash drive in the process. I also dropped a remote control on the screen which left a very small light spot for about a week before disappearing. When on my lap both fan locations are almost always open. Having a volume wheel in front is really nice, as well as the headphone, mic, wifi switch, and memory card reader in front. Over all the design is perfect. The glossy finish does fingerprint and smudge easy but just as easy, a damp cloth returns it back to brand new with minimal effort.
The ONLY thing that I don't like about this laptop is the battery life. It is really bad. I have it plugged in 95% of the time and haven't needed a time where I needed more than the hour or so it gives you on high performance, on low setting you might be able to squeeze out 2 hours. But it might be wise to buy a better/extra battery/different computer if you plan on using it without the plug a lot. Oh yeah, built in bluetooth would of been cool, but you can get dongles for a few dollars.
Great laptop, except for black screen of death 2008-01-13
I really enjoy using this laptop, everything was as expected. lots of people complain about the mouse cursor jumping around when typing, here's how to fix that: when you type, to disable the touch pad, press the FN button (located on your keyboard, next to the CTRL button), hold and press the F9 button, located on top of the row of number button. Doing so will disable the touchpad. to enable it again, simply hold FN and F9.
about black screen of death: i don't know how to fix that. Does any know how to do that? i would really appreciate it if you can email me and help me out, it really annoy me. my email is: madison010101@yahoo.com. thank you and god bless all those who help.
