Toshiba Satellite U500-12c 13.3-Inch Laptop (Core2 Duo Processor T6600 2.2ghz, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD, Dvdsmdl, Webcam, Bt, Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64 Bit)

 

 

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After a lot of research and thought, I purchased the Toshiba U500-12c laptop recently at a very competitive price. I definitely like it because it provides a good balance between power, compactness, weight, features etc. Purchased it as a replacement for another old toshiba laptop to use at home and on business trips.

The pro's are:
- Stylish mat design which looks great and the laptop as a whole is compact (approx - 33cm x 25cm x 2.7cm). Weighs close to 1.8kgs without adapter.
- For an ultra mobile laptop and the price I paid, the installed hardware features are excellent (500gbHDD, 4gb RAM, and a powerful intel core2duo 6600 processor with a processing speed close to 2.2ghz, 800mhz, 4mb cache). So it is quite impressive when compared to other similar models. The program downloads from the internet was very quick.
- The toshiba features are helpful to get started and understand the laptop functions initially.
- The laptop has an optional face recognition system to use instead of passwords; an eco utility that helps to conserve power and monitor power usage on screen (resembling a heart beat).
- Impressive software that detects vibrations/ shocks to enable automatic protection of the hard disk drive.
- Screen is glossy and has a crisp display. Ideally, would need to tone down the brightness.
- The touch pad has an ON/OFF button. V.helpful on the day you leave the hand held mouse behind at home.
- Webcam seems to have improved the skype video quality being relayed dramatically. Also the webcam has a night vision function which is very handy to overcome shadows, dark room backgrounds etc - very impressed!!
- This is my second toshiba laptop and the U500-12C has not disappointed so far.


The negatives I felt(although quite minor in my opinion)are:
- Power adapter is plugged in on the right hand side of the laptop, thus tending to clash with the hand-held mouse that i use with the right hand.
- The keyboard has a glossy finish and leaves fingerprint marks. Also when typing, the keyboard tends to flex, thus giving an impression of a brittle make.
- The battery life is disappointing - about 3.5hrs on power save and about 2-hours on full power. So compared to other similar models, this was a compromise i had to make.
- Have to create a hard disk & windows back up of the pre-installed software onto DVD's by yourself
- The speakers are satisfactory. Compared to the Acer laptop I have, it lacks the same sound quality.
- Having to uninstall some of the pre-installed software was a little irritating, as I am not an advanced computing user. It was making the task bar cluttered and seemingly slowing down the computer startup.
- Confused whether it is a 64-bit or 32-bit windows-7 program installed due to conflicting information available.
- I also find it annoying that the laptop lid does not have a latch/clip, when closing (similar to the sony vaio's). So I am having to get used to this.

Overall - for the features, compactness and the powerful hardware components installed, I seem to believe that this is a good purchase, which is far superior product at a very competitive price, than a lot of the other ultra-mobile laptops available currently elsewhere.

Gave this product four stars because there is still a few small things (as mentioned above), which could have made it perfect!!

Toshiba Satellite U500-12c 13.3-Inch Notebook (Core2 Duo Processor T6600 2.2ghz, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD, Dvdsmdl, Webcam, Bt, Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64 Bit)

I was looking for a light laptop that I could carry into college without dislocating my shoulder and was having a lot of trouble finding what I wanted. I still wanted a DVD drive and plenty of memory while keeping the price down but found that most companies cut out the DVD in order to reduce the weight. This is one of the few I found that kept a DVD drive and had high memory capacity. It's much cheaper than others I'd been looking at that had worse specs.

I've had the laptop about 1 month now and am finding it better than my old Dell Inspiron. It's very quiet and doesn't get warm at all, even when watching videos or listening to music. The vent is at the side as well which I find much better as it's easier to keep clear than if it's at the back. The Toshiba board, where you can see how well your system is working, is very useful. Windows 7 is also living up to its reputation and the system is very fast, although I haven't added a lot of stuff yet so there's still loads of memory. The screen is bright and clear and there are various little additions, such as being able to turn off the mousepad, that make the laptop much more user friendly. It's also easy to keep clean as the cover is smooth and doesn't hold onto dust or fingerprints.

I haven't had any problems, except possibly that the sound seems to jam a bit occasionally. I'm not sure if that's the computer or the application I'm using but it doesn't happen often and only lasts a second or so. It could be Windows Media Centre as I've had trouble with that before and I don't think it'd be an issue unless you're specifically looking for a great sound system. Apart from this, I've found that any of the things that irritated me about my last laptop seem to have disappeared.

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