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The Toshiba Satellite A105 S361
http://laptops-reviews.com/articles/7/1/The-Toshiba-Satellite-A105-S361
By 
Published on 06/13/2006
 
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.
The Toshiba Satellite A105

The Toshiba Satellite A105-S361

Toshiba Satellite A105

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

 

Key Features of Toshiba Satellite A105 S361

The notebook comes packed with several multimedia-friendly features. We especially liked the Express Media Player, which allows you to watch DVDs and listen to CDs without having to boot up Windows XP first. 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.

The Toshiba Satellite A105-S361 is loaded with features at a very workable price. While this notebook is a bit skimpy on the preinstalled memory, it has enough to make it a solid performer for work and play. A 3DMark03 score of 1,106 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.

Key Features of Toshiba Satellite A105-S361

  • Intel Pentium M 760  2GHz
  • 5.4 in. TruBrite WXGA
  • 1GB DDR2 533MHz RAM in dual channel mode
  • Express Media Player button
  • Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900
  • 120GB 5400RPM ATA Hard Drive
  • 5-in-one memory card reader
  • 8X DVD+R/8X DVD-R write speed dual layer recorder
  • 53 watt-hour 6-cell battery


Notebook Specifications
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Average Battery Life 4 hours (6-cell battery ) 7 (9-cell battery)

Processor

Processor Name Intel Pentium M 760
Processor Type Pentium M 760
Processor Speed 2 GHz
Bus Speed 533 Mhz
Storage Drives
Hard Drive Capacity 120GB 5400RPM ATA Hard Drive
Ram
Installed Memory 1GB
RAM Type DDR2 SDRAM
Motherboard
Motherboard Chipset -
Display
Diagonal Screen Size 15.4"
Screen Type Transflective TFT (widescreen)
Maximum Resolution 1,280 x 800
Video Card
Video Card Type Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900
Video Memory 128
Networking
Networking Connection Type Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG
Dimensions
Weight 2.7 kg/6 lbs

Toshiba Satellite A105 S361 Reviews

Toshiba Satellite A105-S361


The Toshiba Satellite A105-S361

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. To the left of the keyboard are the Power button and CD/DVD player controls, including the Express Media Player button, which controls audio CDs and DVDs without having to start Windows. Weighing in at six pounds with a 14.2 x 10.5 x 1.2-inch frame, the A105 is a bit too bulky for long hauls. 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.

Features

The Toshiba Satellite A105-S361 comes with a DVD SuperMulti drive that supports 11 optical-disc formats, offering superior playback and burning capabilities when on the go. The double-layer DVD capability means you can haul all of your favorite photos, MP3s, and media files on a single DVD. In essence, this fast drive can double as an extra hard drive with a capacity of 8 GB.

As for the actual hard drive, you get a 5,400-RPM drive with a generous 120 GB of storage space. A 5-in-1 bridge media adapter supports Secure Digital, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, MultiMedia Card, and xD Picture Card formats in shared slots.

We especially liked the ability to view DVDs and play music using the Express Media Player feature. The widescreen LCD looks great, and there is an ample number of accessory ports -- including S-Video output and four USB ports -- to help make this a great all-purpose portable computer.

Performance

Toshiba strikes a workable balance in how it configured the installed memory and the graphics system. The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 dynamically allocates memory from the 512 MB of installed system RAM, and the combination works reasonably well. This is where this system really shines. The Pentium M 760 processor with a 5400RPM HDD and 1GB of DDR2 533MHz RAM provides for a really snappy system and all the programs I use load really fast.

I must mention that I tweak all my systems to get the most out of them, I only leave a few programs at the startup and disable all the XP visual garbage. The system takes around 25-30 seconds to boot into XP Pro (timed from the second I push the power On button to the second I can open the Windows Start bar with the mouse with auto user login).It takes around 5 to 7 seconds to open Photoshop CS2 for the first time (with others applications running), but it can take less than 2 seconds if I have opened it before.

As I said before, I'm not a gamer, but I did install the demo version of BF2 to see how the graphic card performance is and I was able to run at 1280x1024 (external monitor native resolution) all mid-low settings very well with no OC.

We use the program Super Pi to calculate the number Pi to 2-million digits of accuracy, this is a good way of simply forcing the processor to do work to calculate a number and deriving performance from the time it takes to achieve the end goal. Below is a table showing how the A105 with the 2GHz processor stacks up against other notebooks.

    . Super Pi Run Alone: 1m 34s
    . Super Pi Run While watching DVD: 1m 35s

Laptop Time
Toshiba Satellite A105-S361 (2.0 GHz Pentium M)  1m 34s
 IBM ThinkPad Z60m (2.0 GHz Pentium M)  1m 36s
 HP Pavilion dv4000 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)  1m 39s
 Sony VAIO S380 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)  1m 45s
 Fujitsu LifeBook N3510 (1.73 GHz Pentium M)  1m 48s
 Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)  1m 53s
 Dell Inspiron 6000D (1.6 GHz Pentium M)  1m 52s
 HP DV4170us (Pentium M 1.73 GHz)  1m 53s
 Dell Inspiron 600M (1.6 GHz Pentium M)  2m 10s

Keyboard and Touchpad Area

The keyboard on the A105-S361 is good. It is not like the ThinkPad standard, but still pretty good. The first thing that makes you aware that it is not a ThinkPad keyboard is the lack of a red eraser and UltraNav buttons. It feels a little cozy considering it is a 15.4" wide screen notebook. There is a bit of movement on the next key if you are really clacking away on it.

Key travel and feel are good. One thing I did not like about the keyboard on the A105-S361, it does not have dedicated keys for home and end which I frequently use. You have to hit the function key in conjunction with one of the arrow keys to get the desired result. There are a few keys like the Windows key or the Alt key which are undersized, but it personally did not bother me very much. Ports are conviently marked along the edge of the keyboard.

The touchpad sits on center beneath the space bar. It works fine like most other touchpads I have used. The buttons sit farther away from the edge than I am used to. I was often pushing the plastic beneath them. I think if this were your regular notebook, you'd adapt quickly.

Battery:

I got the 6-cell and 9-cell batteries. They are the same size, but the 9-cell version is heavier.The battery life on t is impressive. Even with a 5400RPM HDD, the 9-cell battery gives me around 5 hours with the screen at brightness level 4 (on a scale of 1 to 8) with Wi-Fi and using the notebook for browsing the web etc. One very cool feature I should mention about this battery is that it has a button you can push to light up an indicator that shows how much charge remains, this works even if the battery is not connected to the notebook.

Wireless:

I do not have a wireless network at home, but I took my laptop to a friends place and it was able to detect 3 connections within the house. It seems to have quite a good range as we were testing it outside in his garden and it worked perfectly well. Being a budget notebook, Bluetooth again was not an option. The handy wireless button at the top of the laptop turns a cool blue when activated and looks very nice in the dark.

Conclusion:

Toshiba’s Satellite A105-S361 is a good choice if you want to create, edit, and store multimedia projects. The widescreen display and speaker system combine to provide a pleasurable DVD movie and music experience, but the poor battery life means you can’t wander too far from a power outlet.
The weight and build quality makes for a great portable travel companion. We would have liked to see Toshiba offer dedicated graphics as an option for those users who actually want to play games beyond Solitaire, but Toshiba left us hi and dry in that regard. Overall, we would recommend the A105-S361 as yet another fantastic contender in the "thin and light" Notebook category.

Video:    70 Out of 100
Gaming: 55 Out of 100
Music:   90 Out of 100
Photo:   80 Out of 100
Value:   85 Out of 100
Design: 80 Out of 100
Mobility: 70 Out of 100
Security: 65 Out of 100

Total Score: 74.37 Out of 100