Wal-Mart's $348 Toshiba 17'' Laptop is a Steal

[krazyderek]

Try carrying a 17" notebook to school, and taking notes for 3-5 hours on battery power. Makes a netbook look mighty attractive.

 

[Shadow703793]

Hmmm.... laptop(this) or a GPU upgrade to 2nd 4870.....me think me will get 4870. 😛

And the classic question.....will it play Crysis??? 😛

 

[Shadow703793]

[citation][nom]dfgdfgdfdfgdgfdgf[/nom]Some people ITT don't seem to realize that Intel recycles the Celeron name again and again. E.g., the first Celeron 900 was released in 2001 as a desktop processor, to be followed by mobile Celeron 900's etc.The Celeron 900 in this machine is a 45nm Penryn, it scores around 2000 on PCMark Vantage. The Atom N270 scores around 1200 on PCMark Vantage. Differences in other benches are more extreme, for example the Celeron 900 takes ~30s for SuperPi vs. around ~90s for the N270...[/citation]
Correct!
For doubters check: http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=41498

 

[kawaidon]

I checked on line - the real price is $48. I think this must have been a typo.

 

[Guest]

this is a pure desktop replacement. if your kid even has the slightest desire to ever carry the laptop anywhere then don't bother buying this. however, as a bargain desktop replacement this seems like a good deal. the celeron 900 will easily outperform any of the current atoms, faster clock speed, faster fsb, and larger cache. the only reasons i would hesitate to buy the toshiba is the lack of a free windows 7 upgrade and the fact that a dual core version of this celeron processor will be released soon and will probably target the same bargain market, so expect prices to be affordable.

 

[anamaniac]

Well, my current lappy is a 1.6GHz celeron with 512MB of RAM and a 40GB HDD (4-5 years old)...

This would be a damned cheap improvement.
Only gets used for online browsing and anime streaming by my bro anyways. Would be perfect for his use. (Though I won't tell him since I need an extra $500 before my i7 system is complete, and this would remove those funds... I'm a asshole... I'll just get him something with a 9800M GT later though).

 

[eddieroolz]

At least this one isn't a typo...

 

[zelannii]

OK, 1) it's a celeron, 2) 17" but the screen is low res by even most 15" today, 3) no hardware video, at all, 4) low speed HDD, 5) port and feature limited design, 5) Vista Basic adds a nasty upgrade fee to do anything significant with the machine (like even BACK IT UP!), 6) it;s Toshiba, so the components are going to be highly proprietary and use custom drivers and applications that have to be used in place of default control panels to configure thiungs like wireless access, 7) no bluetooth, lacks wireless N, 8) no webcam.

This is NOT a 17" notebook, it's a 17" NETbook, which basically means you're lugging around 5 extra pounds and getting half the battery life with no additional feature or benefit other than potentially an easier to read screen (but in this price range, I'd not count on screen quality).

 

[shabaa]

[citation][nom]zelannii[/nom]OK, 1) it's a celeron, 2) 17" but the screen is low res by even most 15" today, 3) no hardware video, at all, 4) low speed HDD, 5) port and feature limited design, 5) Vista Basic adds a nasty upgrade fee to do anything significant with the machine (like even BACK IT UP!), 6) it;s Toshiba, so the components are going to be highly proprietary and use custom drivers and applications that have to be used in place of default control panels to configure thiungs like wireless access, 7) no bluetooth, lacks wireless N, 8) no webcam. This is NOT a 17" notebook, it's a 17" NETbook, which basically means you're lugging around 5 extra pounds and getting half the battery life with no additional feature or benefit other than potentially an easier to read screen (but in this price range, I'd not count on screen quality).[/citation]

OK, 1) It's a Celeron that outperforms ANY netbook processor.

2)17" screen @1440 X 900 NOT the 1024x600 like netbooks and yet MOST people (70.74%. Steam hardware survey of June 2009)that use laptops and desktops use a resolution at or below 1440x900

3) Most lower end notebooks and ALL netbooks do not have a "dedicated" chip and memory for the video.

4) The 5400 rpm drive is what MOST notebooks com with unless You want to upgrade and the one in this particular notebook is larger than any stock netbook

5) Port features: Notebook: 3 USB 2.0 Netbook: maybe 1 or none, Notebook: 1 RJ45 Netbook :none, Notebook: 1 RJ11 Netbook: none. Hmmm more port features than ANY netbook....

6) Vista Basic: yeah, a crappy OS but it can be fixed with removal and the installation of XP. (I have yet to find a laptop that I could not force xp into and to get ALL of the components to work)

7) It is a Toshiba! That uses the chips from other vendors that drivers CAN be acquired and wireless access CAN be accessed via Windows Zero Configuration...... unless of course you don't know how to make it work.

8) No Bluetooth.... how many people use that on a netbook or notebook anyway? If you need it get a Bluetooth dongle....no wireless N? Wireless N standards have yet to be Finalized and only within the last week the news of the standards not changing came out. No webcam .....The best I can find is a 9% usage rate from a 2006 Mintel report.....

This is a 17" notebook that will outperform any netbook and far more "features" than any netbook. With netbook prices of $299 to $399 and better this comes in and beats them, besides many people don't like tiny keyboards and small screens. As far as a notebook ... it does lack a lot but what do you want for $348? This is worth the money and I can't see shelling out $300 or $400 bucks for something that is less and unlike netbooks it has a DVD burner IN IT and can you say upgradeability? Not with a netbook. The key here is bang for the buck. "You can lead a horse to water......"

 

[kawininjazx]

I have to admit that the newest line of Celeron CPU's are actually pretty good. If you can find a Celeron Dual-Core you are in luck. I have sold a bunch of laptops with Vista Basic and a 2.0 Celeron and they run pretty good once cleanup up.

 

[Guest]

Walmart is selling them at $448 not $348.

 

[Stardude82]

[citation][nom]shabaa[/nom]OK, 1) It's a Celeron that outperforms ANY netbook processor...[/citation]
I just have a couple things to add. Even at $450 you could do a lot worse for a laptop.

1) I wouldn't say it preform any desktop, but the recent Celeron offerings are competent procs. It's socket P so you can use it for a hand-me down CPU or find a slightly older yet cheap T5xxx off e-bay which would probably work, assuming they don't gut the thermals on this thing. (Somebody needs to benchmark the SU2700, I have the feeling it isn't an improvement over the Atom.)
....
4) Modern 5400 rpm hard drives are not horrible like they were back in the day.
5) Oh and it has a card slot (I can't find if it has PCMCIA or PCIe)and DVD burner.
6)Vista is now really not that bad (with a little tweaking).
7)Sony is probably the only vendor which still has weird hardware, everybody else (including apple now) can't afford to put in proprietary hardware.
8) An expansion slot helps there too.

 

[dextermat]

LOL
Buying a laptop at wallmart is a bad idea:

Making the story short.
My GF sister bought a laptop there,
She got a defective dvd burner (didn't even close / didn't read dvd/cd)
She exchanged it for another one: Same problem with dvd + usb port blown up (Remember those are supposed to be bran new laptops and i guess their refurbished or something)
The 3rd one work fine for 1 week and then it wouldn't even power on....so she took it back for refund...

I would never buy anything at WallCrap

 

[Trauma]

Netbooks become even more appealing than notebooks when you concider the underclocking of a netbook that can acheive more battery life than one would ever need in a day.

 

[Regulas]

I agree, Millennium II, I mean Vista will hog this baby down. Easy fix, slap Linux on it.

 

[redpino]

you guys think it would run xp???...because I'm planning to buy one... but i know that vista sucks and i personally dont like it thanks

 

[grr1016]

I am typing on this laptop as we speak, I bought 4 this morning, reselling 3 and giving one to my wife.
I have a computer repair business, I've seen and repaired quite a few laptops in my day. I was prepared this morning to install XP right away but thought I'd give Vista a shot, I hate it like most. All the people are speculating it's slow, it's a celeron bla bla bla. This is a quick computer. Are you gonna be able play high graphic games? No. Is it super easy to carry around? No. The screen is great, netbooks 9"? no thx. It is not heavy at all for a 17inch. Comparable laptops are like 550-600, so yea.
Uninstall crap Norton, turn off all the background crap, go to run, type msconfig, turn off all start up programs under that tab, install free AVG and free Malwarebytes from www.download.com and you are good to go. BTW I see no drivers on Toshiba's site yet for Vista or XP, but I'd use driveragent anyway. All the sub numbers of this model series support XP so my guess is this one will too.

 

[Guest]

Price not a typo $348 in the store. $448 WalMart online price.

 

[Guest]

I bought one of these last week and it is great for internet surfing, 720p movies and basic business usage. If your a gamer you should know better than to buy a celeron and should know better to NOT complain about it. This is an entry level laptop for a very reasonable price, it runs vista more than adaquately with 3 gb of ram and 2.2 ghz celeron with 1mb cache, the 250 gb hardrive is a welcome suprise over the 160gb hardrives that most entry level laptops have. Also even though it is a 17 inch laptop it is not overly heavy. 3 of my friends have purchased them after seeing mine. Great bang for very little buck.

 

[wig2160]

This is NOT your daddys Celeron! It is a Penryn 45nm based Celeron, basically it is a 2.2 Ghz Dual-Core with a core disabled and a 1mb L2 cache. It is new technology, just produced a month ago not some old pentium 3 based tech from ages ago. Intel reuses the Celeron name like, FORD uses the Taurus. I have this laptop and it is plenty fast for most users. If you want to play crysis on it your a dork for even asking, its not made or intended for that market. It will play alot of games though, I play mostly counterstrike source so there is no problem for me here.