Is this Toshiba a good deal

[bcblair]

What are the negatives about this computer? Is it upgradable, how are thwe graphics?

Toshiba Laptop

 

[cheesehead]

First, I'd like to welcome you to the SFF/laptop forum.

The laptop, shown above, is a DTR laptop. It's quite powerful; the 3.2 ghz Pentium 4 is a very decent processor. The hard drive is also reasonably fast; it's a step up from the 4200rpm drives in most notebooks.
On the other hand, it's not likely to be terribly portable; with a weight of 8 lbs., you'll have a hard time transporting it. (I got fallen arches from carrying around my old laptop, so yes, things like that happen.) Although it advertises a battery life of two hours, I would be surprised if you managed to get more than one and a half, and it looks to be a "lap cooker" as well in that the bottom of the laptop will likely be quite warm. Also, it only has one slot for RAM, so you'll need to use slightly more expensive DIMMs. (I.E, a 2GB module instead of 2x 1GB module).
Although the display looks quite nice, the video is a bit lacking. The included Radeon 9000 GPU, which is not too zippy in its own right, appears to be running off of video memory-not a good thing. Expect less-than-wonderful gaming performance.

EDIT:
You cannot upgrade the video on this laptop, and upgrading the processor is very, very tricky.
On the other hand, upgrading the RAM is easy, and it's quite possible to upgrade the hard drive. The optical drive can also be upgraded, although it might be a bit tricky.

 

[bcblair]

I don't do any gaming, but I do quite a bit of photo editing with Photoshop. It should be good for that shouldn't it.

Did you see this note:
"The maximum memory is 1.25GB. One slot has a 256MB RAM module (that is not user-accessible) and the other user-accessible slot (shipped with no RAM module) can support a 1024MB RAM module. "


I will probably go ahead and get the extra ram, I will add a 1GB of ram, any recommendations on type and place to order.

 

[cheesehead]

It should do photoshop very well.
NewEgg.com is a good place to go. Corsair Value Select is hard to beat in terms of performance for the buck; Corsair XMS is good too.
I should warn you, though, that transporting this laptop wll be a pain in the kiester.

 

[bcblair]

Originally posted by: Cheesehead
It should do photoshop very well.
NewEgg.com is a good place to go. Corsair Value Select is hard to beat in terms of performance for the buck; Corsair XMS is good too.
I should warn you, though, that transporting this laptop wll be a pain in the kiester.

I won't be using this very much. I will very rarely use it on my lap. It's main use will be to take on photoshoots so that I can download pictures off my CF card and then reuse it. I will also be checking the quality of the results, so I can make adjustments.

Also I added a note to my last post, I wanted to make sure you saw it.

 

[cheesehead]

Originally posted by: bcblair

Originally posted by: Cheesehead
It should do photoshop very well.
NewEgg.com is a good place to go. Corsair Value Select is hard to beat in terms of performance for the buck; Corsair XMS is good too.
I should warn you, though, that transporting this laptop wll be a pain in the kiester.

I won't be using this very much. I will very rarely use it on my lap. It's main use will be to take on photoshoots so that I can download pictures off my CF card and then reuse it. I will also be checking the quality of the results, so I can make adjustments.

Also I added a note to my last post, I wanted to make sure you saw it.

Yes, I had.
I was merely giving an example.

The laptop looks to be great for your purposes. However, the battery life might be a problem if you're working away from power outlets.

 

[bcblair]

I will probably be there when they open the door at 9:00 am.

The only other thing I just found. What is the deal with these Alienware 7700's on ebay for $800. Link below, is there some ripoff going on or what?

Alienware

 

[cheesehead]

Seeing as how Ebay cancelled the auction, I'd say that's a safe bet.