Toshiba Satellite A70 Review pics, specs

From the left to right on the LHS of the A70 there are: Infrared port, Optical drive, PC card slot, 5 in 1 card reader, IEEE 1394 firewire port

Toshiba Australia and New Zealand (NZ) offers two other configurations for the Satellite A70 besides the one that I have, these configurations differ only in the terms of the Processor, which are the P4 3.20GhZ or 3.33Ghz (my configuration is 3.46GHz P4), both of these other offerings have a 40GB Hard Disk and 256MB of RAM. Due to the lower specs, the cost of the lower end A70 is about $500 (NZ) cheaper than mine

Reasons for buying the Satellite A70

When I was researching what notebook to buy, I looked at several models and read extensively in the forums at notebookreview.com. I wanted a system that was capable of meeting my needs as a fulltime working professional and part-time student.  I also simply needed a separate machine for myself without the need to share with the rest of the family.  Now I’m not being selfish, it’s just that the Desktop computer I have has been taken over by the kids needing study time on it. I also wanted a notebook computer that would have enough capacity for my large MP3 music collection (a few thousand files in number), the ability to play DVDs, store photographs etc. The price limit for me was set at about $ 3000 (NZ). Being my first notebook computer and knowing I’d be using this at home quite a bit, portability and battery life was not a priority.

Where and How purchased

I researched both Noel Leeming and the Harvey Norman chain of electronic stores here in New Zealand. Settling on Noel Leeming (www.noelleeming.co.nz) the first notebook I bought was the Hewlett Packard DV1123 — Centrino 1.7GHz, 60GB HDD & 512MB RAM for $ 3000 (NZ) (Link)

The DV1123 is a beautiful machine, really mobile and light and very nice to work on. Until I showed it to some workmates in IT who immediately wrote off the machine saying it was too wimpy with a 1.7GHz processor and instead recommended a Toshiba. One of them made the allusion to HP machines being similar to a Hyundai car and the Toshiba like a European car!

This saw me back in the computer store the next week and forking out an additional 200$ (NZ) for the Toshiba Satellite A70 for $3000 (basic machine + negotiated a free Norton’s Antivirus, a Targus Carry bag and a 16-month Interest free payment plan) I also spent an additional $399 (NZ) for a 3-year extended warranty. The machine comes with a standard 1-year warranty. Not a bad deal I thought when I compared the price to what other stores in New Zealand such as Harvey Norman were offering.

Satellite A70 Design

This seems to be a very well made computer. After several weeks of use, I have had no problems. The casing is made of a combination of plastic and metal.  It has two sturdy hinges holding the display to the main body. Two fans mounted on the bottom of the machine and air vents at the rear provide adequate cooling with no signs of overheating. While wearing shorts, I’ve had the laptop resting on my legs and experienced just a wee bit of discomfort.

The Satellite A70 weighs in at 7.98 pounds without the power adapter. To me this isn’t as heavy as it sounds, although you wouldn’t want to carry this with a single hand and you’d probably get tired carrying it around all day in a case or backpack. You must remember that this is a desktop replacement system and therefore is not designed to be lightweight. Also, the size of the power adapter is quite large — not unlike a small brick! The power adapter can become quite hot whilst charging too.

The Toshiba Satellite A70 J00W power adapter is as big as a brick

Minor Annoyances

A few weird annoyances I have found – The volume control dial is, ironically, hard to control — your fingers seem to slip at the end of its travel both ways and you sometimes do not realise that the dial has reached its maximum travel. The placement of the headphones jack can interfere with anything connected to the right hand side USB port (such as a mouse). Also weird is the slide control used to switch on and off the Wireless LAN connection. It takes a bit of force and  you risk snapping a nail off when using it. When you first turn on the machine for boot up the fan starts blowing very loudly for about 5 seconds, but it stops after this initial period of exhausting air.

Screen, Keyboard, Touchpad and Speakers

The screen is very nice, bright, crisp, and clear.  I was fortunate enough to have no dead pixels on my screen. Via function keys the brightness can be set at one of 8 levels. The widescreen is a nice look. The maximum resolution for the LCD is 1280 x 800, but resolutions up to 2048 x 1356 are supported for external monitors. The LCD’s refresh rate is fixed at 60Hz.

The keyboard is full size and feels smooth and returns a satisfying click when used. The Control key is positioned in the proper place, below the left shift key. There are also dedicated Home, Page up, Page down, End, and Arrow keys. The touchpad features a scrolling ability like a wheel mouse both vertically and horizontally. Sliding your finger along the right or bottom extremity of the pad activates this. If you use an external mouse, the touchpad is easily deactivated by hitting FN + F9. An annoyance with the touchpad is that, unlike the HP machine, the right and bottom extremities are not highlighted with a scroll line that straightaway tells a user about the sliding feature. There are plenty of areas where Toshiba could have made the finish or user friendliness detailing.  In fact, when compared to the HP machine I bought earlier, the user friendliness of buttons and forcing functions (such as arrows on the touchpad to indicate the scroll area) is abysmal. For a machine this expensive I would have liked to have seen the keyboard with backlighting or overhead light such as you get on the IBM ThinkPad.  It’s just hard to see the keys when using the machine in the dark.

There are several buttons located to the left of the keyboard. Topmost is the power button. Immediately below that are two indicator lights, the left being for hard drive access. The right light is associated with the configurable button located directly below it. By default, the configurable button launches Windows Media player, but this can be changed to any program you want. Underneath this there are 4 buttons for play/pause, stop, next and previous tracks. These buttons work with the Intervideo Win DVD movie player and Windows Media Player.

(view larger image)

Toshiba Satellite A70 J00W keyboard views from above (view larger image)

As usual in a laptop, the speakers aren’t the greatest. However, they do produce a reasonable sound and are clear without distortion right up to the highest volume setting, which is reasonably loud.

Media Card Reader