Toshiba Satellite R15-S822 user reviews

Pros A fast processor that can satisfy almost anyone excluding a high performance gamer. A hard drive that is fast enough to surpass certain desktops. A very long-lasting battery. An upgradable R10 version

Cons For someone who prefers mobility, this PC may not appeal. But the weight is an easy trade-off for the performance.

Summary I must truly lament upon CNET's editors failure to recognize a truly high performance and capable tablet PC.What massive amounts of hypocrisy must have been circulating through your sightless minds when you rated this computer. Giving it a "mediocre", how dare you!! In order to justify my argument and expose the fraud that CNET's editors have commited, I will compare the Satellite R15 to the Portege 3505 also from Toshiba that received the highest editor rating for a tablet PC. Lets start with the obvious crime. In the service and support category CNET gave a very cordial 8 out of 10 to the Portege, but only a 6 out of 10 to the Satellite!! How can you possibly give a different score for the exact same service from the exact same company?! In the Satellite's review, CNET called its Pentium M processor with 1.6 GHz (that's Centrino technology by the way) "previous generation". In the Portege's review however, CNET glorified its lame Pentium 3 processor(Pentium 3!!!! How many years back did that come out? Talk about "previous generation")that had only 1.3 GHz of pathetic speed. CNET says it "puts its competitors to shame". 1.3 GHz puts to shame? And then they had the audacity to call 1.6 GHz of speed "prevoius gneration"? Next on my hitlist is the RAM capability. CNET didn't stutter to mention how the Portege's 512 MB of RAM is "twice that of the rest". Yet, when reviewing the Satellite, CNET called its 512 MB of RAM "somewhat pedestrian". If that's not a biased and utterly hypocritical remark, then I don't know what it is. Isn't CNET supposed to specialize in "unbiased reviews"? Furthermore, a 60 GB hard drive in the Satellite was "average" while 40 GB in the Portege was "double the capacity of its competitors". Disgusting and pitiful hypocrisy anyone? With these kinds of differences and similarities that all result in positives for the Satellite, how could the Portege score a 9 out of 10 for performance while the Satellite only a 5? Then there's the battery life. 2 hrs. and 46 min. for the Portege and a whopping 4 hrs. and 22 min. for the Satellite. And yet, a score of only 5 for battery life on the Satellite, but 7 for the Portege. In conclusion, I would like to alert consumers to the companion Toshiba Satellite R10 which is exactly the same in every way to the R15 except that the RAM is upgradble to 1024 MB and the processor is upgradable to 2.0 Ghz!!! Anyone buying the Satellite R15 should also look at the R10 priced under $1,900 if you select a 1.8 GHz processor, 1024 MB RAM, and a 60 GB Hard Drive. This is the system I purchased and satisfaction, simply put, comes standard. Finally, I would like to formally request CNET rethink its rating on the R15 for the reasons above and others that I have not included but am sure CNET has previously observed. Not only are you giving an amazing computer a bad name, but you are additionally embarassing your own name.

Pros BIG screen/ easy to use/ internal wi-Fi and optical drive

Cons a bit pricey

Summary This is a great machine to own if you are in the art/illustration industries.

Pros the big screen

Cons My CD drive keeps going out. do you know what a pain it is to take it 70 miles to the nearest dealer to get it fixed? This time I am shipping it out . God only knows how long I will be without it

Summary I will never buy a Toshiba again nor will I recommend one.

Updated on Oct 4, 2008

you aren't even going to post my review, so i don't know why I did

Pros large screen, battery life, external volume control and wireless on/off switch. A very good desktop replacement.

Cons bloatware, weight.

Summary I've had 5 laptops over the years, but this is my first tablet, and I've had it for over 2yrs now. I wanted a desktop replacement and a large screen, since I use it to write down notes in mtgs and for word processing (dictating reports for work). I don't have to walk around with it in the field, but it would be too heavy and bulky if that was my purpose.

Things that I love:

1) The microphone in front. You don't HAVE to use an external microphone (although it also has a microphone jack for one) to use the Dragon Naturally Speaking, but using an external noise-cancelling microphone certainly helps. The quality of the recording with the microphone is very good when recording mtgs in OneNote.

2) This laptop has an invaluable feature for dicating reports – the SOUNDMax Control Panel voice filter quite substantially reduces errors when I use Dragon. (I have to turn it on manually every time, but it's very easy to do.) I've not seen such a feature in the other laptops used by co-workers who use also voice recognistion software.

3) I also love that I can change the direction of the tablet very easily. I've read that other tablets don't automatically change rotation when you switch it back and forth from tablet use.

4) The large screen size means I can see more of my notes in OneNote on one page.

5) The external wireless on/off switch and volume control are Toshiba assets. No waiting for the computer programs to be running to mute it or turn of the wireless internet anymore, like with the Dells I've had.

6) I got the additional memory for a total of 2 GB, and it's very fast. I often have several different programs opened at once and have crashed my hard drives with all my previous laptops from the abuse. This tablet isa able to handle whatever I've demanded of it, although I'm not a gamer.

Cons are minimal:
I agree that there is a lot of bloatwear, and most of it was easy to get rid of.
I store a lot of pictures and music on my PC so I wish the storage was greater.
I wish that I could replace my optic drive with an additional battery for extra life for flights like in my previous Dell laptops.