Review summary
Toshiba's Satellite A15 series excels in performance, besting other entry-level, mainstream notebooks, including the Dell Inspiron 1100 and the Compaq Presario 2100. Unfortunately, little else about this series justifies its comparatively high pricing. The notebook weighs a hefty seven pounds, offers limited configuration choices, and it lasted slightly less than three hours in CNET Labs' battery-life tests. The Satellite A15 series may be adequate for students and home users, but even though its higher-end configurations include 802.11b wireless, we wouldn't recommend the A15 series to the small-business users that Toshiba also targets for this machine.
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The full-size keyboard feels firm and responsive. |
| The big touchpad, mouse buttons, and palm rest offer ample room for even the chubbiest of hands. | The notebook makes room for one DVD/CD-RW combo drive. |
The 15-inch display, with a native resolution of 1,024x768 pixels, isn't as bright or crisp as that in higher-end notebooks, though it's certainly adequate for most users. The firm, responsive, full-size keyboard is also user-friendly. We navigated just fine with the big touchpad and the mouse buttons. You can access many of the Satellite A15-series controls via a combination of keystrokes--typically Function plus another key. An indicator light goes on when you hit the Function key--a nice touch. The big palm rest should offer ample room even for big hands.
The speakers, mounted at the back of the keyboard, were surprisingly loud for a notebook. Unfortunately, they sound only marginally better than average. The external volume dial is good to have, though it might have been better placed above the keyboard instead of buried on the front edge of the notebook.
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Toshiba includes a wireless On/Off switch whether or not the system actually offers wireless. |
Expansion is limited to a single PC Card slot and two USB 2.0 ports. In addition, you'll find both a V.92/56Kbps modem and an Ethernet port. Integrated 802.11b wireless networking comes standard on the Satellite A15-S157. Wireless is an extracost option on the Satellite A15-S127, but Toshiba still includes a wireless On/Off switch on the notebook, which could confuse entry-level users.
Both the Satellite A15-S127 and the Satellite A15-S157 ship with a decent bundle of software, including Windows XP Home Edition; Microsoft Works, Norton AntiVirus 2003, and Intuit Quicken Basic 2003.You also get Toshiba's Notebook Maximizer software, which provides a snapshot of your system's resources and performance, along with some irritating shopping links on the right-hand side of the screen. Mobile application performance
The Toshiba Satellite A15-S127 is the fastest Celeron-based notebook we've tested, easily beating out its two competitors. The Satellite A15-S127 houses a 2GHz mobile Celeron processor, while the Compaq Presario 2100 and the Dell Inspiron 1100 use 2GHz desktop Celeron processors. All three systems throttle down the CPU speed when running on battery power, but the Satellite A15-S127 does it to a much lesser extent, which helped its mobile performance.
Mobile application performance (Longer bars indicate faster performance)
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To measure mobile application performance and battery life, CNET Labs uses BAPCo's MobileMark2002. MobileMark measures both application performance and battery life concurrently using a number of popular applications (Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft Excel 2002, Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, Microsoft Outlook 2002, Netscape Communicator 6.0, WinZip Computing WinZip 8.0, McAfee VirusScan 5.13, Adobe Photoshop 6.0.1, and Macromedia Flash 5.0).
Find out more about how we test notebooks.
System configurations:
Compaq Presario 2100
Windows XP Home; 2GHz Intel Celeron; 224MB SDRAM 133MHz; ATI Radeon IGP 340M 32MB (shared); Fujitsu MHS2030AT 30GB 4,200rpm
Dell Inspiron 1100
Windows XP Home; 2GHz Intel Celeron; 256MB SDRAM 133MHz; Intel 82845G Graphics Controller 64MB; IBM Travelstar 30GN 30GB 4,200rpm
Toshiba Satellite A15-S127
Windows XP Home; 2GHz Intel Mobile Celeron; 256MB SDRAM 133MHz; Intel 82852/82855/GME Extreme Graphics (up to 64MB shared); Hitachi DK23EA-30 30GB 4,200rpm The Toshiba Satellite A15-S127's battery life was the polar opposite of its performance, placing last in our small roundup of systems. Its 14.8V, 4,400mAh (65WHr) battery failed to carry the system past the three-hour mark, which means that you'll want to recharge the battery between classes or meetings. With its 14.8V, 4,400mAh (63WHr) battery, the Compaq Presario 2100 fared a bit better, lasting just more than three hours. The Dell Inspiron 1100, with its huge and heavy 14.8V, 6,450mAh (95WHr) battery, lasted four hours.
Battery life (Longer bars indicate longer battery life)
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To measure mobile application performance and battery life, CNET Labs uses BAPCo's MobileMark2002. MobileMark measures both application performance and battery life concurrently using a number of popular applications (Microsoft Word 2002, Microsoft Excel 2002, Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, Microsoft Outlook 2002, Netscape Communicator 6.0, WinZip Computing WinZip 8.0, McAfee VirusScan 5.13, Adobe Photoshop 6.0.1, and Macromedia Flash 5.0).
Find out more about how we test notebooks.
System configurations:
Compaq Presario 2100
Windows XP Home; 2GHz Intel Celeron; 224MB SDRAM 133MHz; ATI Radeon IGP 340M 32MB (shared); Fujitsu MHS2030AT 30GB 4,200rpm
Dell Inspiron 1100
Windows XP Home; 2GHz Intel Celeron; 256MB SDRAM 133MHz; Intel 82845G Graphics Controller 64MB; IBM Travelstar 30GN 30GB 4,200rpm
Toshiba Satellite A15-S127
Windows XP Home; 2GHz Intel Mobile Celeron; 256MB SDRAM 133MHz; Intel 82852/82855/GME Extreme Graphics (up to 64MB shared); Hitachi DK23EA-30 30GB 4,200rpm The entry-level Satellite A15 series offers a pedestrian one-year warranty for parts and labor and the battery. You also receive one year of 24/7, toll-free tech support. Three-year extensions, onsite repair, and next-business-day repair are available as upgrades.
The 260-page online manual is decent, and the online help documentation and supplementary printed materials fill in any holes. The Toshiba Web site offers all of the driver updates and the downloads you'd expect from a top-tier vendor. The Ask IRIS (Instant Response Information System) knowledge base is pretty hit-or-miss--returning as many irrelevant results as it did relevant ones.
To find out more about how this product's warranty really stacks up and what you should look for in terms of service and support, take a look at CNET's hardware warranty explainer.
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