TOSHIBA Satellite L655D-S5164 Notebook AMD Phenom II Quad-Core P960(1.8GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 640GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Radeon HD 4250

Pros: This was an excellent choice. It's really fast and the image quality is great.

Cons: It was a challenge for me to learn the Toshiba short cut keys.

Other Thoughts: Excellent choice for a student.

Pros: Very nice laptop. If it failed today, I would order another one tonight!

Cons: None found as of yet.

Pros: Bright screen, comfortable keyboard for extended periods of typing, the quad-core works great for most everything I've thrown at it.

Cons: I hate how the track pad feels; my fingers simply don't glide across it...Poor customer service.

Other Thoughts: My laptop is defective. It has some weird, inconsistent, high-pitched sound coming from the speakers (or possibly the hard drive). It's really not THAT big of deal since when I'm actually using the speakers, the obnoxious sound is drowned out. But still, I'm not going to wait for a few months until I'm driven crazy over something that really shouldn't happen...I sent my laptop in to Toshiba to be repaired. I got it back about a week or so later with a new hard drive, but the problem wasn't fixed. I called customer service, waited on hold for about a half an hour, and then finally talked to someone who helped me. I'm sending it in again. Hopefully they'll actually fix the problem this time...I like Toshiba products, but I'm not touching another one after this laptop because of this incident.

Pros: Great keyboard; it's very easy to type on. The quad-core makes everything better. Works exactly how it's supposed to. Except...(See cons).

Cons: After the first startup, I could hear this high-pitched ringing coming solely from the left speaker. I now have to send it in to Toshiba for repair. A bit of a hassle, but I don't really mind as long as the repaired one doesn't have a ringing coming from the speaker. Battery life is a bit shorter than I wanted/expected. There's SO much pre-installed Toshiba software. But like everyone else said, that's somewhat unavoidable with stock computers these days.

Pros: Very Nice Design, Very Sleek, Great Quad Core. One reviewer said before that this laptop has a loud fan I would disagree it is not really noticble. I use this for adobe premiere ppr cs5.5 for video editing of canon 1080p footage, so quad core was a must and thus far has worked very well.

Cons: Battery Life is pretty bad, considering getting an extended capacity battery, but Im never that long away from a plug .

Other Thoughts: For the price great purchase for handeling video editing.

Pros: Toshiba makes great laptop. This is my 3rd Toshiba laptop so far, and I have not had 1 complain about it or problems from the computers until I dropped the first one and broke the screen. Machine looks great. It boots fast, runs fast, and runs all my programs that I needed to use in great speed as well. I use my laptop for mostly home use (watching movies, listen to music, play some "not too fancy non-3D" games, and surf internet. They all do run without any lags. All my laptops were 17", so I feel this one a lot lighter than the others. Great machine for good price

Cons: I am not sure yet, but if I do find one, I will also post it.

Other Thoughts: Toshiba eliminated all the fancy buttons like "screen resolution, dvd play, instant internet access, mute button" that were used to be on top of the keyboard, which I found really unnecessary, and incorporated them into the keyboards with "function" button which I use more. Thanks for thoughtful minimization of complication.

Pros: Solid build, fast, quiet and plenty to offer for just about anyone who wants a laptop to do work and play games. The cost can't be beat at $550 for what you get.

Cons: The space bar is very small and ALT gets tapped more than I would like.

Other Thoughts: I noticed someone mentioned only 2 USB ports. The eSATA/USB port works just fine. I have a USB mouse plugged into right now...so there are 3 USB ports. I've only had a few days, but I did a good amount of research and this one is proving to be as good as it looked on the net. If it does start to become problematic...I'll post.

Pros: Is beautiful!! A bright grey!! Is light, the best price for a quad core. I needed this to work, networking and play some games like Sims 3, Age of Empires 3, Warhammer, and games like that (I like adventure and simulation), maybe some video render because I want to learn video editing and a laptop that could last me at least 3 years, because my old one could barely run Age Of Empires 3 and was 4 years old :P. For less than 6 hundred with those specs (at the time i bought it) its an amazing laptop.

Cons: If you like small laptops, don't buy it, I didn't wanted one thaaat wide but it turns out I love it. A lot of junk pre-installed. Doesn't have a clip to proper closing of the laptop, I don't like that. Just two usb ports, so lame. Problems with Internet Explorer... don't know why yet.

Other Thoughts: I had an Acer (amazing laptop btw) but this was the best offer I could find, so I didn't think it twice.

Pros: nice keyboard and touchpad, gorgeous machine. works well once its all booted up. i always pricepoint my laptops to get the most for the money, and this one can't be beat. see performance notes below though.

Cons: after installing an ssd on my dual core desktop, it gets a higher rating in w7 than this one, which is a quad core (5.9 vs. 4.1) if you dont mind losing hd space, an upgrade to an ssd in this machine would make it awesome. in my opinion the hd is what makes an otherwise awesome machine a much slower beast. other huge con is only two usb ports on the same side :(

Other Thoughts: if you're going for high performance, this is not the machine for you. if you're going for an awesome machine for under $600 (price keeps changing, as of time of this posting its $570), this is the deal for you - i spent weeks shopping around and this was easily the best deal

Pros: Everything works out of the box. Installed Ubuntu 11.04 & 10.04 both work flawlessly on the first install. (however you can choose to install optional video drivers which will auto detect). Has a realistic battery life, (aprox 4 hours with fairly heavy non-gfx use).

Has excellent performance on all fronts.

Games tested - (Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, Battlefield, Portal 2, and a slew of other steam games.) - 40-80 fps on "High" settings.


I would suggest this machine for anyone who is looking for a computer that is up to date without tons of over the top flair that will definitely run anything that is on the market right now.

Cons: Standard bloatware in the windows install(this is unavoidable in ANY pre-built machine on the market, so get over it :) ), extremely easy to move with pcdecrappifier or just going through and uninstalling them manually. (took about 30 minutes for me to clean it up entirely).

Other Thoughts: I got this laptop so I could do work, and also play my games, on the same machine, without having to compromise performance. I am a web developer and I like doing most of my development in the Ubuntu/Linux environment, however I like to keep the company of multiple operating systems so I can use programs like photoshop and expression blend(for silverlight).

I could not be more satisfied with this machine. (I bought it when it was on sale for 48 hours for 549.99 with free shipping)