Toshiba Introduces A 17"-Screen Laptop

George Wright writes "Toshiba have announced a monster of a laptop with their Satellite P25. Seems they've decided to copy Apple's idea of fitting a 17" LCD on a laptop, but have ended making a true aircraft carrier in doing so. Notable "features" are the 2.8GHz P4, the 802.11a/b and the 10lb weight (!!!). Still a relatively low resolution though :("

And still

That sucker looks HUGE, and yet they still haven't put a numeric keypad on it. What's the deal with that?

Re:And still

As opposed to now?

I don't know about you, but most people I know orient their keyboard so that the whole keyboard (keyboard and keypad) are centered against the monitor, not just the main keyboard. Call it an aesthetics thing. That doesn't even consider the fact that most keyboards are already off centered to the left to a small degree already.

I have to agree with the first post, if you have that much real estate to work with, why not have a keypad on there. Hell, why not just dump the whole small keyboard footprint and go with a full 104 on there?

Re:And still

That configuration may work on a desktop but imagine that on a laptop.

Go on, do it.

You'd be offsetting the laptop on your lap. Either that or position your hands in a very uncomfortable manner to reach the main keys on the left side of the laptop.

When you use a laptop on your laptop you often end up balancing it on your knees by putting your hands on it. With your hands mostly on the left side that won't work out too well, especially with a bohemoth 17" laptop that sticks off your lap.

A full size keyboard just wouldn't be comfortable.

Re:And still

When I visited I got a message "Slashdot visitors please use this link "Satellite P25"" Slashdot is so popular that companys are making cache pages just for it. COOL!

Re:And still

You don't understand... That's not a laptop, it's 1U server with a screen - so you can look at what's going on with your Windows 2003 when you need it most!

Re:And still

that's no laptop...

it's a space station.

Re:And still

so you can look at what's going on with your Windows 2003 when you need it most!

Just a guess, but "what's going on" is probably colored blue.

Why are 17" PC Notebooks heavier than MACs?

Can any Slashdot PC Hardware engineers enlighten us to the sorry state of PC notebook design? Why is this notebook 10lbs, and Apple can design one 3 lbs lighter? Why do PC Notebook components require 3 extra lbs!?? Also why can't PC laptop manufacturers start using DVD/CD Rom drives that do not have a disk tray (e.g. just insert the disk into a slot like the Apple Powerbook)

Re:Why are 17" PC Notebooks heavier than MACs?

Because Apple spends many many R&D dollars in making their entire system work together beautifully. They are in control of the entire set of hardware components and the logic board architecture... They also are dealing with processors that are incredibly energy efficient and take up a lot less real estate in silicon. Couple this with Steve Jobs' urge to put everything in the box on a tiny overengineered scale, and add in the lack of legacy ports and you get a much finer design. Also ... Toshiba is lazy and isn't really trying hard... as all PC makers are... lazy and complacent... nothing new happens in the x86 world... a PC is a PC is a PC... there is nothing to distinguish one box from another.

Re:Why are 17" PC Notebooks heavier than MACs?

Whereas in the Apple world, each box is ugly as fuck, but in a different way. I look forward to the launch of each successive Apple product, as I like to laugh at the price, and marvel at what shade of tacky see-through plastic it's made out of this time.

Hah! The G5 might be a cheese-grater, but plastic it is not! ;)

Re:Why are 17" PC Notebooks heavier than MACs?

There's nothing to really distinguish Macs from other Mac clones. Oh that's right, that's because there are no Mac clones. That's why Macs are $3000 and PCs are $500.


Not really... clones were gutting the market anyway but they are a separate issue. x86 machines are $3000 too... and for a few less features overall as well (gigE standard, Airport built-in, PCI-X (coming), Serial ATA (coming) etc.). $500 x86 machines are made from the absolute cheapest and worst parts someone can slap together. I can't in any good consicence call them computers. Macs are actually only $3000 if you buy the most expensive G5. Most Apple hardware is in the $1500-2500 range.

Re:Why are 17" PC Notebooks heavier than MACs?

Why is this notebook 10lbs, and Apple can design one 3 lbs lighter?

I might be able to tell you why. I have the 15" screen Toshiba Satellite 2805-S603, which is just a few inches smaller. Toshiba builds their laptops like tanks. Mine has done a belly flop onto a hardwood floor more than once from the desk. Without crashing or interrupting my desktop applications.

At my work, Toshiba laptops may be regarded as a little bigger, but they take abuse. I have seen them slide off the vehicles onto the floor and strike fixed objects. They still work. That's important, because no one has got into trouble or lost their job for destroying a laptop. That 3 pounds is mighty nice insurance.

Re:Why are 17" PC Notebooks heavier than MACs?

Apple laptops can withstand the same abuses which you've described and more. I've personally thrown (accidentally) my powerbook across the room -- it was in my backpack and I forgot it was still in there, thinking there were only books. I even remember someone who ran over theirs with their car. And they still both work to this day. Powerbooks have even passed the bake test [slashdot.org]. Can Toshiba's?

In my experience, IBM Thinkpads are the one's which are built like tanks.

Re:Why are 17" PC Notebooks heavier than MACs?

A few reasons:

1) It's cheaper. If you don't have to make parts smaller, and you don't have to worry about the problems associated with high power in small areas, it makes things cheaper since you can put a larger heat sink in instead of designing a better air flow system.

2) Swapable bays. Now I haven't seen this laptop (the link is down) but if they use the swable bays, they have to change how things are controled, drives become heavier and it changes things.

3) Duability. While the powerbook and ibook durability is certainly not horrible, the thicker the laptop, generaly speaking the more durable it is (for example, the old clamshell iBooks could be dropped from fairly decent hights with no damage except maybe a busted CD rom cover.

Re:Why are 17" PC Notebooks heavier than MACs?

Well also the Apple 17" laptop is a 17" widescreen... which is smaller than a "normal" 17" screen. People complain about the high price of Apple hardware, but then complain how crappy PC hardware is in comparison. You can't have it both ways. Any PC maker can make a laptop that's as nice as a Powerbook, it would just cost $4000 and anyone who's gonna spend that much on a laptop will probably just buy the Mac anyway. Also, keep in mind that Apple has more control over hardware than PC manufacturers do. Most PC laptops are just rebranded Taiwanese things anyway. No need to spend money on R&D.

Re:And still

It's alright, he works for NASA.

Erm...why?

I don't understand technology movements these days. Laptops have saturated the market. Most people want a faster/quiter/cheaper home pc, yet no companies seem to be interested in this option. Then again, the majority of home pc's are still slow pentium 1/2 or celerons, as that's all most mums and dads need. Why aren't companies like Dell, Toshiba, HP etc... improving these? I understand a lot of it is out of their hands (hardware size etc...) but still... PS...First post :P

Re:Erm...why?

They are improving. Right now I'm using a Compaq Evo 510 desktop. It's a P4 2.4 and is almost totally silent. I hear no fans or HD. They did a great job. It's also reasonably priced at $999 (when we bought them).

My Thinkpad T30 is light, fast, quiet, and very reliable. The options are out there. Notebooks like the one in the article are for those that want a portable desktop. It's popular to see notebooks as gaming rigs now. Definately not for me.... but would be handy for taking to a LAN party.

Re:Erm...why?

Most people want a faster/quiter/cheaper home pc, yet no companies seem to be interested in this option

You can't make money on those, you only make money on high end systems -- putting an extra 200$ on the cost (for profit) is much easier on a 2k machine than one that costs 500 bucks. (at least, if you want it to sell)

Re:Erm...why?

Apple's laptop sales are increasing while desktops decrease.

In the spring of 2003 Apple's laptop sales made it to 40% of all the Macs sold. In 2001 it was 30%.

Desktops weren't getting much better

Well, the laptop percentage went up because the absolute number of desktop sales was going way way down. Apple's machines were stuck at at 166 MHz FSB, and otherwise weren't much faster than machines that were a year or so old.

Now that the Freaking Awesome G5 machines are about to be released, the absolute number of desktop sales should increase massively, reducing the laptop percentage. With the new machines shipping in September or so, I'd expect that Apples 2003H2 laptop sales to drop to 20% or something (while still showing reasonable growth in absolute numbers).

Re:Erm...why?

Most people want ...[snip]...yet no companies seem to be interested in this option.

I don't know if I buy that. I mean, companies are all about providing what people want. If they weren't... well, their competitors would do it and they'd be sunk. I think it's rather like the discussions of software reliability versus software features: we all say we want reliability, but it's the feature list that makes us open our wallets. That's why developers make feature-bloated, unreliable software.

Besides, there's plenty of low cost computing to be had out there. I'd be surprised if the average personal computer sold today is over $800. It's just that these boxes don't represent technology innovations/improvements. The high-end systems occupy that role, almost by definition. So you don't hear about some new whiz-bang, revolutionary computer that costs $599... because there's nothing to report: it's a computer, it does what computers did last year but a little faster and a little cheaper. No, what you hear about is the $2000 machine that truly represents a New Thing.

Re:Erm...why?

"I don't know if I buy that. I mean, companies are all about providing what people want. If they weren't... well, their competitors would do it and they'd be sunk."

Uh, I don't know where you got that idea. Companies are about MAKING MONEY. Period.

Customer satisfaction is not necessarily part of the equation unless the product is new and differnet and you've got to woo consumers into buying it. All the big PC makers have pretty similar offerings. Even if they are not providing what people want and they're making money and keeping the shareholders happy, they'll happily continue doing it. The market is quite homogeneous except for the diamond in the rough that is Apple. The current business model of providing the 'latest' comptuers and hyping them with adversiting has worked for many years. It's tried, tested and true. And it's quite unlikely that one of the big PC makers will have the balls to break out of a pattern that is known to make money, even if it would increase customer satisfaction. Their boad of directors would eat them alive.

Remember, it's 'raising shareholder value,' Not products or customers.

RAM, RAM, RAM

you don't understand it? I don't see why. There's no real innovation to be had these days for joe sixpack.

Mom and dad can get to their hotmail account and check their stocks just fine on their pentium II (or even pentium 1...my wife's grandparents only upgraded because lightning fried their modem and screwed up their motherboard). Usually all they need is an operating system reinstall or a larger hard drive since they aren't capable of actually cleaning out their files themselves.

Saying that most people want faster computers is primarily the fault of Microsoft (flamebait, blah blah) wanting to up the number of features at the expense of speed, as well as these users not knowing how to defrag or that they should get rid of the dozens of things running in their system tray. And let's not forget Longhorn's aspirations towards 3d-accelerated desktops. Something Joe User simply doesn't need but will "have to have" once he hears about it. That and upgrading their RAM.

Saying that most people want quieter computers is the responsibility of chipmakers, not of OEMs. Put a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP into a box and it's gonna have fans. No question. Put a Crusoe or a C3 into a box for grandma, and you might even be able to go fanless if you do it right. But she wants that Pentium 4 the TV told her she had to have.

As far as cheaper goes, as long as mom and pop are buying from OEMs like Dell and Gateway, it's not gonna happen.

Personally, as far as desktops go, I think it'd be far more beneficial for people to stop looking at megahertz or gigahertz. A 1.2 GHz Athlon with 1GB of RAM is going to run faster than a 2.4 GHz pentium 4 with 128 MB of RAM for someone who doesn't realize he has 200MB of programs running in his system tray alone. When I build PCs from scratch these days, I do whatever I can to put a bare minimum of a half gig of RAM, preferrably a full gig. Why? Because modern software is bloated, and because average users don't do anything to help the situation. You can try to teach them.

But trust me on the RAM. it's honestly all the average non-technical person who wants to have a computer for internet and word processing needs to upgrade if their current system is 300mhz or higher

Re:RAM, RAM, RAM

1: selling cheaper PCs means people get fired. That's why I build them for my friends who cannot afford them otherwise and usually give them a better computer than they could have gotten for twice as much out of an OEM like Dell or Gateway (and yes, I use good parts...Soyo motheboards, athlon chips, micron ram, and so on). People need to go back to the friendly neighborhood PC shop method of buying computers.

2:Companies should be spending more money on their computers systems than they are doing...if they need new computers. Most companies do not...penitum II in the office is plenty for MS Office.

3:There are large fixed costs involved in computers...for the OEMs and hardware manufacturers. But designing a gaudy case and bloated multimedia keyboard is not the kind of cost that the consumer should be forced to swallow.

4:Technology is controled by relatively few, and that's how Taiwan keeps the american companies' pricing in check (Viva VIA motherboard chipsets!)

5:Cost isn't an issue as much as people think it is...people don't upgrade because most people don't need to.

Re:Erm...why?

Easy. Laptops are the future. I used to think they'd be horribly annoying, but then I got one. It's an old Thinkpad pentium II I bought when it came off corporate lease. I started using it with wireless ethernet for day to day use, and now I turned my desktop into a file server and never touch it.

I can bring it into the living room when i'm playing video games, or into the kitchen when i want to try out a recipe i found on google. I can even save the page of yahoo! travel and bring it to the airport when my parents are coming to town when i pick them up.

"Sure," I hear you shouting, "but what about paper?" I rarely touch the stuff. And when I do, I usually lose it. Printer ink is expensive. Sure, call me lazy. Sure, call my thinkpad a crutch. I could say the same about your paper and pen. It's just a different paradigm.

my 13.3 inch screen may not be huge, but it's an LCD flat panel with a compact pentium 2 system attatched to it that does most of what I need it to. Desktops are for gaming and for family workstations, now more than ever. The need for a fast desktop system is once again relegated to the CAD and 3D imaging industries as computer speed has outpaced the public need. A computer is an appliance, as many of us are apt to forget. It's important to remember that it's more useful when you can move it from room to room without difficulty. Now that the main obstacle of wired networks has been overcome for most people's purposes, laptops are at a severe advantage everywhere but price.

And as you mentioned above, laptops are faster and run cooler than desktop PCs.

all you need

Is four retractable legs on the underneath, and you could have yourself a carry-round table, where your meals would never get cold (as long as the laptop was switched on).

Slashdot DDOS attack on Toshiba servers

Sheesh! I read the story and see only *3* comments and when I try to hit the lonk to Toshiba to see the bad boy, I find the server is so busy it times out. When will we ahve a link to the RIAA so we can DDOS them again?

Re:Slashdot DDOS attack on Toshiba servers

I was able to get to it from their main page...
Portables->Satellite->P25

Try this link

Without the damned session in the URL:

Here [toshiba.com]

21" laptop

The next step: The 21" laptop.

People keep innovating until technology is completely useless. Then they go back, and settle for the things that are usable.

This look like: I have a bigger xxx than you have!! Biggest car, biggest house, biggest whatever. But who needs a 200 room house if he lives alone? Some thing for laptops. Who needs 17" to carry around? You only need a screen that big in the office/home, and there, you could connect the laptop to a decent LCD monitor.

there are other 17" notebooks available too

Sager has a 17" notebook that has been on powernotebooks.com for a little while now:

http://www.powernotebooks.com/products.php3?displa y_size=17 [powernotebooks.com]

Desktop Replacement

Well, as a desktop replacement, this unit will probably be pretty capable. It would be ideal for a primary office machine that you could take home from time to time and on occasional business trips. However, if it were to be carried on frequent trips or taken home every day, an ultraportable with a docking station would be a better bet.

Re:Mac Powerbook

I still don't get why go up in size and then barely go up in resolution.

while you claim that 1440x900 is "nice" - I can get 1400x1050 on my 15" screen of my laptop right now. And I currently don't like it - I want one of the new laptops that can do more than that -there are plenty of laptops out there that go higher. I want to be able to fit more on my screen - not just have everything look bigger.

Why do you go up in screen size but not increase the resolution? I don't see what the point is.

What happened to WYSIWYG?

Seems that all laptops that come out these days have weird resolutions that have no bearing on how your text will be outputted to a printer. This one will have text that is too large onscreen, while others (Dell is particularly guilty of this) have super-hi res screens where everything is too small. Back when I was a Mac guy (13 years ago) having WYSIWYG was important to most users, but no one appears to care any more.

10 lbs.

And if your battery dies, you can tone up your biceps with it.

It's a floor wax. It's a dessert topping. It's both!

Re:Market

Exactly what is the market for a Laptop like this?

Good point. In the business world (biggest purchasers of laptops I think), laptops are usually used from hotel rooms and airport lobbies. Having been in this situation for over 10 years now, where email, web applications, power point presentations, etc -- make up the bulk of the reasons why I carry the thing around the country -- I have a hard time seeing why anyone would want something any bigger than the smallest possible option. I could use a variety of these "new fangled" laptops to work on my presentation's in airport lounges, but I still choose to use an "old/slow (400 Mhz Cely)" IBM TP 240 at 2.9 lbs. I may give up the bells and whistles, but it sure beats lugging around a 6-10 lb. monster around the country.

Ten pounds sounds heavy...

Don't say 10 ~pounds~, say JUST A HINT OVER 4.5 kg.

Alternative

If you don't need a DVD burner, it might be better to get this one for $1555:

powernotebooks [powernotebooks.com]

(I don't work for them, and I would never buy one. I'm just suggesting an alternative).

And suddenly i am a laptop owner..

Does this mean i can finally call my full tower - 19'' CRT monitor - plus Laserjet 2100 , computer a Laptop without people laughing? Hurray!

Impressive

OK, so you could lug around a TEN pound Toshiba or a 6.8 pound Apple. When I am travelling on business and need a portable workstation, I know which one I want. Three lbs is a huge difference when it comes to cross country flights.

Laptop screen resolution

okay, what gives with laptop manufacturers and screen resolutions? I've got a 12.1" XGA screen on my laptop, and it has a physical dot pitch of about 105DPI. This monster screen has a dot pitch around 95DPI, if that. I've seen 10" XGA screens which have beautiful crisp pixels (you're talking about 128DPI on those things - Toshiba used to make a laptop with one, in fact). If you built a 17" widescreen TFT with the same dot pitch as one of those, you'd be looking at a laptop with some 1800x1100 pixels. That would be worth doing. But it seems as TFTs get larger, the resolution gets lower, and we end up with beautiful screens like the Apple cinema displays being let down by the fact that their pixels are huge.

Why would I want a laptop with a bigger screen than my 12.1" one if I don't actually get that many more pixels?

Re:Laptop screen resolution

My guess is that it would appeal to the same type that buys a 21" CRT and then sets the resolution to 640x480 (I have heard of old people doing this). I also think that they are trying to lure in clueless people that don't really realize that LCD have a wide variation in quality. Toshiba puts in a big screen, but uses a lower quality so that it is cheaper. Meanwhile, the clueless people drool over a big screen without noticing dimished quality.

Still not comparable to an Apple

Sure it's as big as an Apple, but it's not comparable in some aspects. First, it's heavier by almost twice (10 lbs vs 5.4 lbs) and it has less than half the battery life (2.0 hrs vs 4.5 hrs) It's a nice first try.

The first laptop for overcompensating men.

Now with 50% greater weenie roasting surface area.

Hyundai...

Makes one too, Hyundai 2.4 Ghz Desktop replacement.

Features: 2.4 GHz P4 (supports up to 3.06 Ghz),
512 MB 333Mhz DDR SODIMM (Rare, the rest are usually 266Mhz), 40 GB HDD, 1.44 floppy, ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 w/ 64MB non-shared DDR RAM,
17" Wide screen TFT display, Combo drive, integrated WEBCAM & Microphone, Integrated 5.1 channell output sound with builtin FOUR point speakers, Keyboard with NUMPAD.

USB2.0, Firewire (Passive, sadly), PCMCIA, 56k, LAN, LTP, Serial, VGA, RGB, IrDA and Wifi. Selling for the Equiv of US$1841.

The thing here is that while all these Desktop replacements pack a punch, they are poor laptops, at 4.5Kg and with a battery life of 2 hours, you're not going to get any work done on the go.

SUV mentality

I'm sorry but for most people a 17in laptop is way overkill and is too big to be carried around. Personally, I've been sticking with 12in or less ultraportables such as the Fujitsu P-2000 and now the IBM X31. The 17 make sense for two very small groups of people: mobile video editors and mobile music editing, which even though I'm not a big Apple fan, both of those groups should probably stick to Apple. Too bad those groups alone couldn't cover startup costs for such a machine.

This introduction of 17 laptops is just an adoption of SUV culture where bigger is supposedly better. My boss who is a mac fanatic, picked up a 17in powerbook not long after it came out. I haven't seen him bring it out once yet, he still uses his older 800mhz 15 with a big crack in the ti case. The 17 is simply a monster to carry and I know Mac fanboys will blab on about how companies are copying Apple's "innovations" but sticking a 17in LCD in a laptop is not innovation, its a step back.

CPU Disclaimer

Note that this machine uses a desktop CPU, instead of a mobile CPU. In the past, Toshiba have had problems with the machine shutting down due to heat when "stressed" (video games, SETI, long compiles, etc.). They "fixed" it by adding this disclaimer to their products that use desktop CPUs (see the detailed specs on the machine at the article link):

CPU performance in your computer product may vary from specifications under the following conditions:

use of certain external peripheral products
use of battery power instead of AC power
use of certain multimedia games or videos with special effects
use of standard telephone lines or low speed network connections
use of complex modeling software, such as high end computer aided design applications
use of computer in areas with low air pressure (high altitude >1,000 meters or >3,280 feet above sea level)
use of computer at temperatures outside the range of 5C to 35C (41F to 95 F) or >25C (77F) at high altitude (all temperature references are approximate).

CPU performance may also vary from specifications due to design configuration.

Under some conditions, your computer product may automatically shut- down. This is a normal protective feature designed to reduce the risk of lost data or damage to the product when used outside recommended conditions. To avoid risk of lost data, always make back-up copies of data by periodically storing it on an external storage medium. For optimum performance, use your computer product only under recommended conditions. Read additional restrictions under "Environmental Conditions" in your product Resource Guide. Contact Toshiba Technical Service and Support for more information.

"Notebook" not "laptop"

Isn't the preferred term "notebook computer"? Mind you, this is more of a "domesdaybook computer" ;-)

Bigger is not always better...

Last month I was flying cross-country (SouthWest Airlines) and a couple sitting across the aisle from me both pulled out brand new Titanium Powerbooks w/17" screens.

They were awful proud of their laptops and made disparaging comments about my "cute little toy" -- a Fujitsu Lifebook P2120. I was then subjected to a prosetylization sermon that would have done the Jehovas Witnesses proud.

It was my turn when BOTH of them tried to use those behemoths at the same time -- on the fold down trays in economy class, right next to each other.

Those beasts, while pretty, can't be used in economy class airline seats without seriously annoying the person sitting next to you. They're too big.

All they were doing was answering e-mails (offline), checking their calendar -- mostly showing off the new toys and attempting to spread the gospel of St. Steve.

Once I got the point across that I didn't WANT a big screen on a laptop, but preferred a lighter weight (3.5 lbs) and longer battery life (10+ hours with my secondary battery), they left me alone. It also helped that I wasn't running any version of Windows.

Re:4500 rpm??

Lower speed drives are nessesary in laptop computers because the drives have a tendancy to be jarred much more often than a desktop drive.

maybe slightly OT, but...

I recently got a 17" powerbook.

I'm actually very happy with it. It is not the most portable machine but it does fit on the plane (although not super comfortable). Not such a big deal for me since I spend a lot of time online and have yet to get internet on a plane. it is good for watching DVDs though.

For actual work work (I'm a unix admin) it simply rocks. I can do everything I need to do, plus the stuff that others want me to do (like Office). My only real gripe is that there is no Outlook calendaring for it, but we have webmail on Exhcnage 2k, and Terminal services (which is up to date on the mac, supports RDP5).

It's really become my primary machine. My desktop at home is used mostly for playing a single game, and occasioanlly setting up downloads. I have a dual g4, w/ a 22" cinema display, but it's in the wrong office :)

It's speed is good (although I occasionally notice a stutter when i'm running sans AC power, I have the cpu clock down turned on). I normally carry around a backpack, and it fits right into it. It has adequate, if not stellar, battery life. Fairly rare when I spend an extended time away from power, so it's 4.5-hour-only-when-you-don't-hit-disk-at-all battery is fine (it managed to go 4 hours playing mp3s with no complex Fluid screensaver and monitor-off turned on after 1 minute)

I think at 6.8 pounds (that's the weight _with_ the battery) it's a good deal. at 10 pounds, I would have gotten a 12" instead.

not to mention that a 17" silver laptop does get a lot of oos and ahhs, even from the ladies :)

Design goal?

After reading the specs, I think I guessed why this Toshiba is the way it is. It wasn't designed to be a laptop. Rather it was designed to be a portable desktop. It's like somebody just shoe-horned a 17" screen into a chassis and threw everything they could into it without an overall design reviw. I can imagine what a PHB told his engineers:

PHB: "Have you seen the new Apple laptops? They've got 17" screens! What are we doing to counteract this?"
Engineers: "Well, we have been working on it for a while sir. It only seemed to be the next step."
PHB: "When will it be ready?"
Engineers: "Given the current status, we have to redesign some things to accomodate for the power and size. Maybe two years."
PHB: "Two years! We need this out by next summer! And make it as powerful as possible. We need to beat out anybody else on power."
Engineers: "But what about battery life? If we use mobile Pentiums and use Intel's Centrino specs, we could save on power--"
PHB: "I want MORE power."
Engineers: "But, it'll weigh a ton. Laptops are supposed to be light."
PHB: "La la la. Not listening. Just make it have a 17" screen and make it more powerful."
Engineers: "Okay, we'll do it."

Toshiba: Both excellent and ignorant

I own two Toshiba laptops, and I think they are the best PC laptops currently available. However, my impression of Toshiba is that it is ignorant at times.

For example, there are buttons on the front of the laptops that operate with very, very little pressure. They start Windows Media Player whenever you accidentally press them.

I called Toshiba support to ask them about an error I found in the manual of each of the laptops. Toshiba technical support a) did not have a computer to test, and b) could not fix the error in the manual by calling someone in the company. Toshiba technical support seems to be VERY separate from the rest of the company, and seems to have no power to serve customers. Before I bought the laptops, I asked about the maximum resolution of the video card when used with an external monitor; Toshiba technical support could not help me, even after several calls and an acknowledgement that the manual was faulty.

On the good side, Toshiba uses nVidia video chips, and the chips use the standard nVidia drivers. They work great with an external monitor at 1600 x 1200 and 75 Hertz resolution. Very, very nice. They work with IOView KVM switches.

A step backwards, really.

I have a Toshiba Satellite 5105-S607, and it's got a 15" screen that can do 1600x1200. This 17" does 1400x900? Strikes me as very odd that it's got a LOWER resolution, unless they're using a lowered-bitprint LCD to keep costs down. It would be interesting to see if they go to a higher resolution screen in a few months with a higher price.

I also miss the cPad that my S607 has - the touchpad has a small LCD under it that can be used for things like changing the logo under it, as well as used as a keypad, a calculator, a signature capture device and (with a download) a theramin simulator. It's sufficiently odd as to be very amusing, and can be very useful in some situations.

Re:yup, Apple made one first...

yeah well, do you really think you get your money's worth having to carry around the EXTRA 5 lb of the Toshiba (Apple weight: 5.4 pounds, Toshiba weight: 10 pounds)

Apple ain't so light...

Apple weight: 5.4 pounds

Uh no, the 17" Apple weighs in at 6.8 lbs.