Customer Reviews
My Toshiba U305 is seriously defective, and tech support won't help. 
2007-12-27
When this machine works, it works fine. Unfortunately, I experienced two complete system crashes. The computer won't boot past a blue screen. All of my data are lost.
After doing a complete OS reinstall, the same problem happened again. Tech support won't send me a replacement. Instead, they are steering me towards a regional repair center, which will take 4-6 weeks. I have been on hold endlessly with customer support.
I can understand why most customers enjoy using this machine, but I suspect that a small percentage of customers like me will receive a lemon.
Good Product .... Good Seller but Vista Sucks 
2007-10-19
Very good machine but only negalive point is it has Windows Vista. Option for Windows Xp would have made it a superb product.
Great light, fast, full-featured laptop with extremely good battery life 
2007-10-15
- Battery lasts 4-5 hours easily under continuous "normal" use (with Vista Aero enabled), lasts all day with intermittent use. Earlier review may have been for similar model with smaller a battery - this one (U305-S5127) comes standard with 7800 mAh battery, the best battery I could find in a Core 2 Duo model after many hours of research anywhere near this price range.
- Even if you're considering a laptop several hundred dollars less, consider this one as you'll end up spending that and more if you ever need more RAM (and you will with Vista!), a larger battery, larger hard disk, bluetooth adapter, etc. Check the features on Toshiba.com - it's loaded!
- The screen is very clear, bright and easy to read; I wanted the smallest screen size (i.e. smallest, lightest laptop) that would not frustrate me - this is just as usable as my old HP 15". 12" was just too small. Considered a tablet, but I don't think the hinge would stand my abuse - this seems very sturdy.
- Fingerprint reader works well with every application I've tried, including Firefox, unlike a fingerprint reader I bought from Microsoft. It can be a bit finicky about accepting a fingerprint if you don't run your finger straight across it at the right speed, but with practice, it's not a big deal. I have it set to hibernate on screen closure, with fingerprint required after opening the lid - everything's protected from all but the most savvy thief/hacker simply by closing the lid.
- It does get a little warm on the left side, especially under hard use, but it certainly doesn't "overheat". In fact, I think Toshiba did an excellent job with heat management.The big copper CPU heat sink sits right at the left edge, blowing the CPU heat directly out of the laptop before it heats up and slows down all the other components. This may explain complaints about "heat", which is just a higher temperature concentrated in a smaller area - the rest of the laptop is cool. The CPU fan does cycle often, but I don't find it annoying, you can't even hear it with average background noise, and it extends battery life.
- Touchpad is small, but works fine. My fingers aren't small, but it wouldn't work for an NFL linebacker. L & R buttons are a little stiff, but tapping the pad works far faster on any touchpad anyway.
- Speakers are excellent for as tiny as they must be to fit into this small box - no distortion, clear sound, but obviously there's no bass.
- Really can't stand that all this power is sucked up by Windows Vista, but if I didn't get it now, I'm sure I'd pay extra for it later when some application I need won't run on XP, just like every Windows version to date.
I highly recommend this laptop for anyone needing a truly portable, long-life battery, powerful, full featured laptop at a reasonable price.
Pretty good but the speakers suck! 
2007-09-28
This is my second Toshiba satellite. My previous one (vintage 2002) held up for five pretty good years, albeit one or two kinks along the way, so for me that was enough to recommend another Toshiba. I'm not super tech savvy, just needed something to do the basic functions (internet, Office apps, watching the occasional DVD etc.) for another five years. I've only had it for two days but my biggest gripe would be that the speakers are ABYSMAL. Sound quality is very hollow and there is zero bass range on them. This is particularly disappointing given that (1) the speakers in my 2002 notebook were exceptionally good and (2) this is a pretty pimped out machine in terms of hardware - no reason to include bottom rung quality speakers!
U305-5127 2007-09-23
Good all around laptop.
Like the extra Hard Drive storage. The faster processor with the 2Gig RAM are great for running multiple processes simultaneously.
Really needed to have had the hard drive partitioned. At least offer the software in the prepackaged bundle so others could do it for themselves.
Fan should be reconfigured to cool unit more efficiently. The start/stop action of the fan can become annoying especially in a quiet environment.
Keyboard is good sized. Should shift the touch pad to the right about 1/2 inch for better ergonomic use.
It's a shame the Multimedia button doesn't load just the basics for the laptop to play DVD's. It acted as a second "ON" button, with all the drivers loading despite just wanting to watch a DVD.
Battery life is very good. 4 - 4.5 hours with regular use. After a full charge, I watched a two hour Movie and still had 48% battery left. Speakers are OK. Better to use a headset.
It would be nice if the VGA 15 pin output could actually have the ability to output to an RCA composite or S-Video so you could display the screen on a TV rather than just via an LCD projector.
Great to have the card reader so handy. DVD +/- R/RW is terrific as I'm able to transfer home movies directly and make DVD's to share and back-up.
Overall, I'm very satisfied with the laptop.
I'll never buy a Toshiba again 2007-09-20
Taking your computing on the road doesn't mean you have to leave anything behind. This notebook is powered by the Intel Core 2 Duo 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. This laptop also features a DVD SuperMulti drive. You can read from, and burn to, up to 11 different media formats. 200GB of HDD DVD SuperMulti Drive 13.3 Widescreen TruBrite LCD Native Resolution - 1280x800 Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 256MB of shared memory (memory is shared with the main system) Webcam and Microphone built into the LCD bezel Card Reader Fingerprint Reader Ports - 1 Ethernet, 1 VGA Out, 1 S-Video Out, HDMI Out, S/PDIF Out, Microphone In, Headphone Out, 1 Firewire, 3 USB 2.0 Unit Dimensions - 12.2 x 8.9 x 1.33 Unit Weight - 4.6 lbs.
Toshiba - Most Bang for your Buck 2007-09-10
This notebook is the best notebook that I have ever had. I have been using it for classes now for a month and it has been amazing. It does everything that I need it to do with plenty of extras for future needs. I will admit, before I even turned it on, I bumped the RAM to 4GB and pulled the 200GB 4200RPM hard drive. I installed a 160GB Toshiba SATA Notebook hard drive that runs at 5400RPM. Between the increase in RAM and Hard Drive speed, this notebook is actually faster than my desktop. Using Vista's power management software, I range anywhere from 3 hours on High Performance to 6 hours on Power Saver on one battery.
The only thing I will be adding at this point is a toshiba docking station and a large flat screen so I can do some gaming.
where do i even begin? 2007-09-01
CONS:
1. has a huge overheating problem.
2. trackpad is a bit small
3. controlling the FN options are a bit confusing
4. OVERHEATS
PROS:
1. you can control the volume from the left side
2. it is fast
3. considering what you get for this price, it's a great deal. however, the overheating situation is just too much for me. back it goes.
Awesome non-gaming laptop with solid build quality. Choose Toshiba over other brands! 2007-08-26
I love this laptop. It is made of very high quality materials and excellent engineering design, so I really feel like I got my money's worth. Those who have owned Toshiba laptops know that they are considered one of the best laptop brands next to IBM/Lenovo (but more stylish). In my opinion, Thinkpads went down in quality after Lenovo started making them, but they kept the design so [...] ugly! One must realize that while with desktop computers it is very easy to simply order and replace broken parts, with laptops you really can't and so build quality is that much more important for their longevity and usefulness over time.
This laptop is a little heavy for it's size and slightly thicker than it's 13" competitors (Dell and Sony), but that is because Toshiba uses very sturdy materials that do not flex. They use a generously large copper heatsink (not crummy aluminum) with a whisper-quiet fan, and the monitor hinge is very strong yet the base does not lift when you open the monitor.
Even the Toshiba's laptop keyboard layout is superb, as usual, but I wish the home and end keys were larger. I love how the page up and down keys are so close to the arrow keys. Some people dislike that the fingerprint reader is between the two touchpad buttons, but it is actually recessed deep enough that you will not accidentally swipe your finger over it like often happens with Sony Vaio laptops.
It comes with surprisingly little bloatware and it all uninstalls very fast (compared to the horror that is Dell preinstalled crap). It runs Vista with Aero very smoothly thanks to the X3100 GPU, but does not seem to handle 3D games well at all (good for me, I can focus on work). I am willing to bet it could if I install XP and get rid of Vista.
Battery life is excellent, especially with the 7800mAH extended battery. I get about 6 hours on full charge if I keep my monitor brightness at the lowest, with wifi on.
Honestly I was deciding between this laptop, the HP TX1120 Tablet, and the Dell X1330. The HP is a few hundred bucks cheaper only has a passive digitizer so as a Tablet it would not be very good. It also has a very hazy display, and shorter battery life, and I distrust the durability of the swivel hinge. It's still pretty good and my cousin enjoys his. The Dell X1330 with similar options would be several hundred bucks more expensive, and I have read reports about extremely long delays for delivery and build quality issues with some X1330s.
BTW, I've tried about 5 different laptop brands and Toshiba is by far my #1. I'll do a quick comparison of my previous laptops:
1. Toshiba Satellite A10 - my first laptop, still runs beautifully after 4 years of use. Battery does not hold charge anymore (happens to all batteries over time), so we keep it plugged in as a family computer in the kitchen.
2. Fujitsu Lifebook T4020 Tablet PC - so-so build quality, lots of little hardware and design irritations that forced me to sell it. Very expensive for what it was, and I didn't feel like I got my money's worth.
3. Dell Inspiron 1405 - my dad's laptop. Overall very reliable and awesome battery life but very VERY cheap build materials. Keyboard feels extremely cheap and wireless connection is unreliable at times.
4. Apple Macbook (white) - now my brother's laptop. Nice but I need Windows apps and I dislike Mac OSX (good for people who don't know how to keep Windows secure though). I had overheating problems with mine and other hardware issues, had to take it to the Genius Bar 5-6 times for various repairs. Luckily we have the 3 year Apple Care warranty that cost $300 (ugh). Keyboard feels like it's made of chalk and palm rests get dirty very fast.
5. Sony Vaio SZ120 - utter piece of crap. Flimsiest laptop I have ever owned, the body creaks and flexes and the battery accidentally comes out very easily causing instant power loss. Despite having a Geforce Go7400 GPU, it will crash during gaming due to overheating. One very small, noisy, ineffective fan with cheap aluminum heatsink in the back that constantly spins noisily but doesn't seem to keep the laptop cool. Right now it is with Sony RMA for warranty repair service because the battery won't hold a charge after less than a year of use and the hard drive is dead, but who knows if Sony will even fix it properly.
amazon description wrong 2007-08-15
As of right now there are lots of discrepancies within the amazon description and some things are flat out wrong. First off this does have a X3100 graphics card (not GMA950 as is sometimes mentioned above) and it has 3 USB ports, not 4. There is NO S/PDIF Out, S-Video Out, or HDMI Out. This is also mentioned in the description but no present! Really annoying, hopefully they fix this item description.
The battery life is really good. You can get over 4 hours of use and that is a mix of watching DVD's, gaming, and doing other regular activities. If you are a light user I suspect you might get 5 hours. The keyboard felt right to me, not too small. The integrated video is also quite impressive, the X3100 is MUCH better than the GMA950 as far as gaming performance. I was impressed.
The touchpad has a very small area and the finger print reader in between the 2 buttons actually really annoyed me. I found the finger print scanner kind of gimmicky but it works ok. The laptop gets pretty warm, as is to be expected. When running on AC power the fan switches from low speed to a higher speed constantly! It's not very loud at the higher speed but the constant RPM changes really annoyed me. Upon further observation it happens on batteries as well as AC power. The only power setting which doesn't produce this for me is on low performance mode which is not what I want to run a new high power machine on. It seems the thermal design of this machine is very bad. Can the fan not just run at medium speed constantly instead of shutting off and turning back on to high every 3 seconds?
The laptop is not heavy but I wouldn't say it is light for its size. The large hard drive is 4200 RPM and although it may help with power conservation it does have a bit of a performance hit. Applications not in memory load a bit slower than expected, not unbearable by any means, but not snappy.
The notebook is a conundrum for me. I am dazzled by its long battery life and small physical size but very annoyed by amazons incorrect description as well as the touchpad and a bad thermal design that leads to the fan going crazy. It is also strange to put a 4200 RPM hard drive in a computer that is otherwise built for performance. Users may want to replace this with a smaller 5400 or 7200 RPM drive (At the expense of some battery life).
