Design
The Toshiba P200 is a desktop replacement which is designed to appeal to home users and occasional gamers. It's a large box at 394mm by 275mm by 41.9mm but it's still relatively portable at only 3.3kg.
The Satellite features a large, dark blue cover with a thick hinge that extends across most of the rear of the notebook. As the weakest point in any notebook, such reinforcement makes this model appear all the more sturdy and rugged. The lid itself is curved and it sits out from the back of the monitor - which means there's no room for rear mounted ports.
At a recent event, Toshiba executives told us that the company is busy establishing itself as a premium brand for notebooks, and this includes a focus on prominent branding. This includes a large "Toshiba" on the lid, but one jarring aspect of this approach is the day-glo Satellite logo on the front lip.
Features
The Satellite P200 has its fair share of grunt, and features a top-notch T7400 Intel Core 2 Duo CPU running at 2.16 GHz, a whole 2GB of RAM for better Vista operation, and a roomy 320GB of storage space (two 160GB drives).
The Toshiba packs a decent amount of multimedia features onboard, which includes a set of decent quality (for a notebook) Harman/Kardon speakers -- though the clear, plastic covers feel a bit flimsy -- and playback controls. On the front edge of the notebook resides a wireless on/off switch, a 6-in-1 card reader, headphone and microphone ports and a volume dial.
The 17-inch screen is wide and bright, but like most notebook monitors there isn't much contrast there -- especially in low light. DVD movies look OK when played back via the DVD SuperMulti drive, and colours are clear and well-saturated.
Unlike its stablemate the Qosmio, the Satellite doesn't have any digital outputs -- no HDMI, digital audio or even DVI. This excludes using the notebook as part of a media centre solution, as there's also no remote control. The Qosmio's the better bet, there.
Otherwise, the Toshiba includes four side-mounted USB ports, an S-Video out, VGA-out, 10/100 Ethernet, 802.11-n (draft) and a mini-Firewire port.
We've seen some full-size notebooks which include both an ExpressCard slot and the older PCMCIA -- which is great for users who have lots of existing expansion cards -- but unfortunately not the Satellite P200. It's ExpressCard only.
The trackpad features a metallic finish, as does the keyboard, and features Dual Mode operation with touchpad shortcuts for those that use them (anyone?)
The keyboard is comfortable to type on, although you may find the metallic coating grates a little on the side of your thumb when you hit the spacebar. Lastly, there is also a biometric fingerprint reader for extra peace of mind.
Performance
This notebook is an unashamed desktop replacement and the pattern for a device of this type is for performance to take preference over portability and battery life. Nevertheless, for a device of its size the amount of juice was decent, with a score of two hours in our Battery Eater Pro reader test.
Performance is key here, though, and we found it performed well in both of our performance benchmarks. In fact, it pulled off one of the highest scores we've seen in a laptop for our PCMark05 test. It even managed to outstrip Dell's gaming monster, the M1710, with a score of 5118 marks. This machine sure can crunch some crazy numbers.
Where the machine falls down a little though, is in the graphics department. Its NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600, while an excellent card for mobile gaming, can't compete with the Dell's superior offering of the GeForce Go 7950. As a result it managed a score of 2201 in 3DMark which means it will play most modern games fine, though you may want ratchet down some of the eye-candy in games like Oblivion.
With Santa Rosa notebooks only weeks away from shipping, now is not the best time to invest in a new notebook. New chipsets usually push down the prices of existing stock and this notebook, with its smattering of Santa Rosa-like features, will be more compelling with a price drop.
(Longer bars indicate better performance.)
(Longer bars indicate better performance.)
Chriso
11/05/2008, 07:46 PM
rating
10/10
Great Laptop. Awesome!
Pros: Performance, screen.
Cons: Battery life.
Report offensive comment
Brian Levy
21/04/2008, 10:20 AM
rating
8/10
Got the P200-RT1. I was going to a store to purchase a replacement hd for my carry around when I happened on it for so cheap I could not justify buying the hd for a year old computer, especially when I factor in I needed a new battery for it to go portable. I did not need a 2nd 17", especially as a carring unit as I already have a M60 Toshiba 17". The keyboard is a big improvement over the M60 that was critizied for being difficult to type on. The M60 has a PMCIA slot as well as the exchange slot. It lacks the 4th usb port and the other features of the P200 except no camera.
Pros: Family resembance and features to my desktop replacement, the M60. Separate numeric keayboard that is importmant to me. Palmrest is comfotable. Keyboard good enough that no acessory keyboard is needed or even thought about. Really like the volume control on the front though it is not mechanical as is the M60s. Good screen colors and contrast and though the unit in stock form only came with a gig Vista and the Toshiba utilites integrated and worked well right out of the box. Toshiba has always taken pains to deliver it right. This is the 3rd Toshiba, the first and my favorite portable of any type was the Libretto 110CT and then the M60. I like the card reader as I use cards in lieu of a usb flash drive to transport data files.
With Vista and a little work in the MSCONFIG program, the unit on most programs I use is running as well and fast as with the M60 with XP.
Highly recommend looking at a Toshiba if looking for a portable/laptop/etc.
Cons: Toshiba's confusing coding systems. This particular variant though sporting a 645 chipset represented in the literature as supporting up to 4 gigs of ram only when you dig down into the Toshiba website do you find on this particular variant the MB only supports a max of 2 gigs. Also, where the series has variants with 2 hard drives, the single hd version RT1 while having the slot for a 2nd drive when opened has no ability to add the 2nd drive. Just too confusing to assess what you are buying and the specs and options.
Would have preferred Toshiba offering both XP and Vista. With the Libretto you could install either 95 or 98 from their install discs. I have work required programs and my critical research application does not run under Vista and the software company can not figure out why but they are working on correcting it. I've had to download Virtual PC and load XP to work around it.
Other negs for me:
Agree, would rather than the mic and headphone on the side. Also would like a cover for the card reader as the M60 has. As an alternative I keep a slug in it. I like the overall looks and colors of the unit but the glossy dark color shows oils and smudges all the time.
Pricing is so good, I bought a unit that does not meet my needs as it is big, heavier than I wanted and is not as portable as I am used to. Remember my fav is a Libretto. Too hard to pass up on. Battery would be an issue as when I need portalbe mode it can be 4-6 hours but to only need it on battery mode a few times a year. If I needed a deasktop replacement I'd give it a 9+ as it does this function well so far. The OS issue is a problem with MS and not Toshiba.
Report offensive comment
DigiDan
29/03/2008, 02:27 PM
rating
9/10
As a Desktop Replacement, This thing is Awesome. I use mine mainly at home, plugged in, and occasionaly take it to school or a friends house. It is a bit heavy, but considering whats inside, that doesn't faze me
Pros: Graphics, Speed, POWER!!!
Cons: I agree that the audio/mic plugs would be better on the side..
Report offensive comment
mejia!
21/03/2008, 09:49 PM
rating
8/10
battery life sucks
not happy with audio outputs in the front on laptop, very inconvenient when cable is petruding.
would prefer them on side/back
overall still a good performing laptop.
Pros: perfomance
features
Cons: battery
audio output position
Report offensive comment
roye.reyonda
13/01/2008, 08:32 AM
rating
9/10
I hate the fact that it has bad battery life, big dissapointment. Though, everxthing else is excellent.
Pros: Fast, good features.
Cons: low battery life, heavy and LOW BATTERY LIFE
Report offensive comment
Dream
16/12/2007, 01:48 AM
rating
10/10
Great Laptop
Pros: Great performence.
Cons: battery goes for 2hrs only
Report offensive comment
dpcanniz
11/08/2007, 12:22 AM
rating
9/10
extremely comfortable laptop to use. it basically has everything i need
Pros: i find the dual mode touch pad very very useful, if left on all the time with the use of an external mouse. there is a changeable power plan, allowing higher performance or longer battery life. very handy
Cons: too heavy to carry more than 1km.
Report offensive comment
Adam
10/08/2007, 01:17 PM
rating
9/10
Keep in mind what this laptop is designed for, and it will work wonders for you. Portable when it needs to be but primarily useful as a desktop replacement
Pros: comfortable keyboard, heavy duty construction, awesome graphics, runs just about everything
Cons: short battery life (i found about 1hr 20 mins), windows vista, harman/kardon speakers that everyone raves about are not all that fancy, black part of case tends to look dirty,
Report offensive comment