Toshiba Satellite A305-S6872

[ Music ] ^M00:00:02 >> Hi, I'm Michelle Thatcher, Senior Associate Editor for CNET.com and today we're looking at the Toshiba Satellite A305. Now this is one of the low cost configurations of this laptop that you're gonna see in retail stores. And as you can tell, it's extremely shiny. It features Toshiba's new fusion finish, which is a high gloss finish and a really cool pinstriped design. It's not only on the outside of the lid, but continuous inside of the case and even across the touchpad. You'll notice that even the keys are made of this high gloss material, so they get printed out really, really quickly when you're typing. So if you're fuzzy at all, this is totally not the laptop for you. Above the keyboard you'll see the light touch media control buttons glowing, which we always like to see. And there's also a white LED right above the touchpad, a line that -- I don't really understand why it's there. It doesn't change colors or anything. Fortunately, you can turn all of the stuff off with the software control within the settings of the computer. The display on this system is 15.4-inches diagonal. It's bright enough that looks a little bit washed out frankly and it is like the rest of the machine high gloss, so you're gonna get quite a bit of reflection, unless you're in a dark room. Like nearly all of Toshiba Satellites these days, the Satellite A305 includes Toshiba's new Sleep-and-Charge USB technology, which essentially means that you can plug all of your peripherals, your iPod, your cell phone, your camera into the USB and it would charge these devices even if the computer is shut down just as long as its plugged into the wall. You will notice that the rear view that I have here lifts up off the table a little bit and that's because of the extended battery. It's a 9-cell battery, it adds about an inch of height to the back. A little bit of extra weight, but the advantage of that is that you're gonna get close to a half day of battery life. I'm Michelle Thatcher, and this is the Toshiba Satellite A305. ^M00:01:51 [ Music ]