The Toshiba Satellite A105-S361
The Toshiba Satellite A105-S361 is for media lovers who are passionate about editing video, watching movies, and uploading photos. This mainstream unit combines portability with a 15.4-inch widescreen, and though this machine is not meant for gaming, the rest of the components should satisfy your need for speed, and the slim form factor doesn't hog your desk space.
Powered by Intel’s 2-GHz Pentium M processor 760 and 1GB of DDR2 SDRAM, the A105 scored an impressive 234 on our MobileMark 2005 performance tests, but its battery life of 2 hours and 12 minutes fell short of our expectations. You’re not going to take the A105 on the road very often, but we wish the system lasted a little longer unplugged for in-home use.
A 3DMark03 score of 1,100 is about what you’d expect from a system that relies on an integrated graphics solution to drive video, so if gaming is high on your priority list, consider a machine with dedicated graphics.
The A105 comes with Toshiba’s DVD SuperMulti drive, a dual-layer DVD burner that supports 11 media formats and boasts an 8X DVD+R/8X DVD-R write speed. The huge 5,400-rpm 120GB hard drive offers more than enough storage for multimedia files. DVDs look sharp on the A105’s 15.4-inch TruBrite WXGA (1280 x 800) widescreen display. The glossy screen coating makes for vivid colors, but it tends to reflect ambient light and can be distracting when viewed in a brightly lit environment.
If you like to use your laptop as a music player, the A105 will satisfy. The Harman Kardon speakers embedded above the keyboard produce a surprisingly rich blend of high and medium tones with a better-than-average bass response.
The Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG adapter showed admirable range, giving us throughput of 15.8 Mbps at 5 feet and 11.9 Mbps at 50 feet. Toshiba’s ConfigFree software makes establishing and changing Wi-Fi connections easy.
Specs for Toshiba Satellite A105-S361
|
| Screen Size | 15.4 in. TruBrite WXGA |
| Processor Type | Intel Pentium M 760 |
| Processor Speed | 2-GHz |
| Bus Speed | 533 Mhz |
| Hard Drive Capacity | 120GB 5400RPM ATA Hard Drive |
| Installed Memory | 1 GB (max 2048 MB) |
| RAM Type | DDR2 SDRAM |
| Resolution | 1280 x 800 |
| Video Card Type | Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 128MB |
| Primary Optical Drive | 8X DVD+R/8X DVD-R write speed |
| Bundled Os | Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition |
| Weight | 2.7 kg/6 lbs |
| Motherboard Chipset | - |
| Networking Connection | 802.11b/g |
| Average Battery Life | 3 hours (6-cell battery ) 6 (9-cell battery) |
| Price | About $800-$1000 |
|
