Toshiba Satellite A215

Notebook Specifications

Reviews for the Toshiba Satellite A215

67% Toshiba Satellite A215 (Turion 64 X2 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, Vista Home Premium)
Source: CNet
Toshiba's latest mainstream laptop occupies the sweet spot between price and features, packing in a generous 250GB hard drive and 2GB of RAM for $999. The 15.4-inch Toshiba Satellite A215 also includes a Labelflash DVD burner that can burn text and images on your optical media, but it skips the brand-name Harman Kardon speakers found on the more expensive A205 model. Still, a more attractive sub-$1,000 laptop would be hard to find, making the Satellite A215 a worthy alternative to Dell's similar line of mainstream laptops. On the whole, mainstream laptops have traded the boxier looks of older models (such as the Dell Inspiron E1505) for slimmer, more attractive designs with tapered edges and rounded corners. As with the A205, we like the single long hinge that runs almost the entire length of the display, which feels sturdier than the typical two-hinge setup on most laptops.
(von 10): 6.7, Leistung 6, Mobilität 5, Ausstattung 7
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 08/16/2007
Rating: Total score: 67% performance: 60% features: 70% mobility: 50%

Toshiba Satellite A215 Review
Source: Notebookreview.com
The Satellite A215 series is a new line of consumer notebooks being offered by Toshiba.  They sport variations of the AMD Turion64 X2 CPUs.  The A215 is a being positioned as a multimedia notebook with its large 15.4” glossy screen, large hard drives, card reader and webcam.  The A215 definitely has some hits and misses. All of which we will take a more in-depth look at in the following review of the A215-S4757.
According to Toshiba, the A215 is Onyx Blue in color, but it looks black to me.  Perhaps when you're outside in the sun there's a blue hue to it.  The A215 weighs in a bit over six pounds and is about an inch and a half thick.  That puts it squarely on average for the class.  Given its weight and size, it's not a notebook that should travel daily.  The back and forth to the office or the occasional night out seem reasonable.  I personally like designs that are simple and understated.  I think the A215 fits into that category.
Display gut, Emissionen sehr gut
User Review, online available, Long, Date: 08/13/2007
Rating: display: 80% emissions: 90%

Comment

ATI Radeon Xpress X1200: This is an onboard video chip and according AMD optimized for a good price/value. It is based on a X700 design but with less pixel- and vertex-pipelines. ATI Radeon Xpress X1200 is hardly apt for gamers. The graphic chip supports Windows Vista Aero surface and all 3D effects run fluently. Sometimes also called Radeon X1200.

Only older games can be played fluently with these graphics chips (if they were not too demanding). Shared memory graphic cores in this category got the advantage of less heat production and longer battery runtimes. For office, internet, image processing, and video editing tasks these graphics chips are still useable without any restrictions.

AMD Turion 64 X2: AMD Turion 64 X2 is intended to be positioned against the Intel Core Duo was presented in 17. May 2006. The current consumption is not higher than with Centrino-Duo-notebooks (TL-45 with ATI Xpress and Mobility Radeon X300). This means, that approximative the same battery runtime and fan functions can be expected (with this chipset). However, the performance was 20% below the T2300 (1.66 GHz) due to the lower L2 Cache (Core Duo has 2048 Kbyte shared L2 Cache). Nevertheless, the performance is sufficient.

TL-56:
>> Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.

15.4": 15 inch display-variants are the standard and are used for more than the half of all notebooks.  15.4 inch display with 16:10 are the standard for notebook displays.
The reason why so many people like displays with medium size is, that this size is not exhausting for the eyes, does not need too much current and the laptops can be kept quite compact.
>> To find out how fine a display is, see our DPI List.

3 kg: This weight is average for notebooks. Therefore the numerous mass of laptops with 15 inch display fits in this class of weight.

Toshiba: Toshiba is one of the biggest international notebook-manufacturer. There exist many reviews for Toshiba models. The ratings of German magazines are very positive, but the relation of price and value is evaluated rather average. The ratings according the features and display are also quite well for Toshiba notebooks.

67%: This rating is bad. Most notebooks are better rated. This is not a recommendation for purchase.

>> Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.