Laptops Arena

The Toshiba Satellite is Toshiba's flagship in the notebook line. There are many models in the Satellite family, from the entry level models to high end models. Although these notebooks are called Satellite there is no relationship between the common use of the word (satellite phone, satphone) and these notebooks. From a common perspective, they are just notebook style computers.

The Toshiba Satellite U505 - S2930 is a relatively new model under the price line of $800. This notebook provides a good balance between a large display and overall weight. The Toshiba Satellite U505 - S2930 comes with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium operating system preinstalled. The notebook is made entirely out of plastic. Therefore the price is high for a plastic design and medium hardware. This notebook is highly portable while offering features like backlit keyboard and slot loading optical drive. The dimensions are significant, 12.4 x 9 x 1.3 inches, making the U505 - S2930 a thick notebook compared with other notebook from its class. Although the case is made out of plastic the Toshiba notebook has textures for a similar look to leather luggage. By doing so, Toshiba increases the notebook's case durability. Scratches, smudges and finger prints are not to be found on U505 - S2930 case.

The U505 is solid but does not provide enough multimedia power. The 13" screen has a 1280 x 800 pixels resolution. The text, videos, icons are easy to spot and read but the screen has washed out colors. The screens aspect ratio is a 16:10 format. The screen is bright and easy to work with. Because this is a 13" notebook model you get to have a full size keyboard. Unfortunately the keys are not that good placed and when you press the edge of a key you might find that the notebook recognized it as another key.



The U505 - S2930 is so thick because of the internal optical drive. The dual layer DVD burner found on the Toshiba notebook is however a nice feature. This model is equipped with a 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 CPU, 4 GB of RAM and a 320 GB hard drive (you can choose for the 400 GB model). Connectivity is ensured by the WLAN 802.11 a/g/n Wi-Fi. The system is also equipped with HMDI port and eSATA / USB combo port to charge mobile devices even when the machine is off. It even has a modem jack for dial up users.

The notebook sports a 1.2 MP webcam. Its quality is bad and it's inferior that to those on other laptops. However, Toshiba has included a nice feature like Web Camera Application (docks off screen and has 12 presets for a range of lighting conditions). Unfortunately the camera delivers poor low light performance. Other feature that is missing is the Bluetooth. If you want this feature on your Satellite U505 - S2930 you will have to make a special online configuration. The 4 GB RAM will be eaten up by the Intel GMA 4500 HD graphic chip.

U505 is not a gaming laptop; it can handle light 3D chores and not much more; even worse, than the lack of a dedicated graphic chip is the short battery life. If you are lucky than you can score up to 3 hours and 31 minutes but most of the time the U505 - S2930 will not pass 2 hours and 1 minute. The Toshiba Satellite U505 - S2930 has at second review a good design quality by covering the plastics with fashionable features. Its standby battery time is awful, while the cheap looking / working keyboard is also a considerable drawback. You can now upgrade your Satellite U505 - S2930 software from Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 free of charge.



A nice feature is the Toshiba Face Recognition utility (you can use your biometric data as password). Other software worth mentioning, Power Cinema utility, Corel DVD, Movie Factory, Microsoft Works 9.0 and Toshiba's PC Health Monitor. Overall, this is a notebook with advantages and disadvantages. However if you are looking for an affordable notebook with some up to date features then you should pay some attention to the Toshiba Satellite U505 - S2930.