
Toshiba Satellite M55-S325 Notebook (1.73GHz Pentium M Centrino 740, 512MB DDR, 100GB, DVD?RW DL, Windows XP, 14" TFT)
- Spec Navigator
- Processor
- Memory
- Display
- Storage
- Battery
- Dimensions
- Other Features
- Networking
- Multimedia
- Software
- Interface Connections
- Included Devices
Storage
| Total HD Size | 100 GB |
| Optical Drive Type | DVD±R DL/DVD±RW |
| Optical Drive Speed | 2.4 x |
| Removable Optical Drive | No |
| Slots |
|
| Number of Media Slots | 3 |
| PC Card Slots | Yes |
Battery
| Number of Included Batteries | 1 |
| Standard Number of Batteries | 1 |
| Type of Batteries | Lithium ion |
| Vendor Rated Battery life | 308 hours |
Networking
| Bluetooth | No |
| Included network card | Ethernet (10/100 Mbps) |
| Modem Type | V.92 |
| Wireless LAN Type | 802.11g |
Software
| Included Software | Microsoft Works 8 |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition |
- Lab Tested
- How We Test Laptops »
Pros
Attractively designed
Cons
Difficult-to-use mouse buttons
Bottom Line
Handsome 14-inch wide-screen notebook boasts a peacock-blue lid but has cramped mouse buttons.
Toshiba Satellite M55-S325
Satellite M55-S325 Notebook (1.73GHz Pentium M Centrino 740, 512MB DDR, 100GB, DVD?RW DL, Windows XP, 14" TFT) Review, by Carla Thornton October 29, 2005
I loved this retail notebook's light weight and its pretty peacock-blue lid, but for $1349 I would demand a better keyboard and touchpad.
Let's start with what's right about the Satellite M-55. It weighs just 5.1 pounds (sans power adapter) and has a bright 14-inch wide screen that I could open on a cramped airline tray. The laptop's TruBrite technology supposedly makes the screen easier to read at an angle, though I couldn't detect much difference between the M55-S325 and the non-TruBrite Toshiba Tecra A5--its almost identical business counterpart. Both looked great head-on and were a little harder to read from the sides.
The M55-S325 has almost all of the features I care about as a consumer, including a DVD burner and plenty of USB 2.0 ports--four in all, including two on the right side of the case where I prefer them. The notebook also supplies a FireWire port for downloading digital video from a camcorder, a TV-out port for linking to a big external screen, and a five-in-one memory card reader. The main disappointment here is the machine's lack of built-in support for CompactFlash cards, which my camera uses.
The removable 100GB hard drive is a stunningly roomy, and you get an empty memory slot for future upgrading. A 512MB chip is sealed beneath the keyboard--not ideal but something I could live with. Bluetooth is not an option, but the notebook is Wi-Fi ready and has an on/off switch on the front.
The touchpad buttons were too small and too close to the edge of the case for me to use comfortably. Each time I tried to depress a button, my thumb struck the case, too. Using an external mouse is an option, but that's not a tradeoff I'd willingly make, especially since I'd expect to use this notebook outside the office a lot. So, while tempted, I would probably pass on this otherwise terrific little wide screen.
The M55-S325's CD/DVD button saves battery life (it held out for 3 hours, 8 minutes in our tests) by powering up just the optical drive when playing CDs and DVDs. A full set of media buttons appear in a panel running down the right side of the keyboard; these let me easily stop, pause, and move forward and backward through CD tracks and movie chapters. My full-screen version of Master and Commander looked and sounded pretty good. The M55-S325 lacks a subwoofer for boosting bass tones, but its audio was above average thanks to the Harman/Kardon speakers located in a prominent panel that runs the length of the bottom screen frame. The headphone port and a volume wheel lie within easy reach on the front of the case.
The M55-S325 earned a WorldBench 5 score of 78, so it should be able to handle any mainstream application fine. The only one other notebook with the 1.73-GHz Pentium M 740 processor we've tested was Toshiba's Satellite M45-S351, which ambled to a score of 69.
This notebook has so much going for it--topped off by a good Acrobat manual and the Microsoft Works application bundle--that dismissing it for one poorly implemented feature seems almost unfair, but there you have it.
Upshot: Generous storage, great weight, and screen and eye-catching lid can't overcome this notebook's cramped mouse buttons.
Carla Thornton
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- Rating Breakdown
-
78
-
80
-
77
- See Complete Lab Results »
Performance Comparison with Similar Laptops
78
94
62
86
Performance
| ACD Systems ACDSee | 725 |
| Adobe Photoshop | 383 |
| Adobe Premiere | 553 |
| Ahead Nero | 805 |
| Battery Life (Office Applications) | 3:08 |
| Discreet 3ds Max DirectX | 458 |
| Discreet 3ds Max OpenGL | 536 |
| Microsoft Office XP | 586 |
| Mozilla | 454 |
| Musicmatch Jukebox | 609 |
| Number of Included Batteries | 1 |
| Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 1024 by 768, 16-Bit | 40.83 |
| Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit | 39.1 |
| Roxio VideoWave | 465 |
| Unreal Tournament, 1024 by 768, 16-Bit | 61.28 |
| Unreal Tournament, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit | 43.33 |
| Windows Media Encoder | 488 |
| WinZip | 471 |
| World Bench 5 Score | 78 |
| World Bench 5 Word Score | Good |
WorldBench Tests
| World Bench 6 Multitasking | 816 |
Review Now! Already own it? Tell us What You Think
-
Reviewed by: mattswet
Strengths: Nice looking laptop
Weaknesses: Shoddy hardware, complete lack of customer support
Overall: I own an earlier version of the Satellite series Toshiba laptop (A35). For all I know, Toshiba may have improved this line with the M55 series. But for those thinking of buying the M55, be careful. I have had nothing but problems with my Satillite A35 in the two years I have owned it. In that time, I have replaced the monitor, the mouse pad, the dvd/cd drive, the hard drive, the power cord, and the power supply and motherboard (twice).Now if that sounds like the type of laptop you want to own, by all means, buy a Toshiba Satellite. But if you get a lemon like I did, don't count on any help from Toshiba. And when I say "any" I mean none, zero, zip. I was so frustrated trying to get anyone at Toshiba (six people in four different countries, none of whom cared at all that I bought one of their products and it was a complete piece of junk) that I swore I would never buy their products again. And I won'tBeware if you want to buy this or any other Toshiba product.
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Reviewed by: eachtw123
Strengths: HDD, SCREEN, SPEAKER
Weaknesses: RAM
Overall: The speaker is very good. Much better than my old Sony. This laptop is good. The only thing I don't like is that it only has 512MB ram. 100GB, DVD writer are the strengths of this machine. You will like it.
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Reviewed by: sonchai
Strengths: - Vivid screen- Harman-Kardon speakers- DVD burner with dual-layer support
Weaknesses: - A bit thick IMHO
Overall: What I liked about this laptop were the speedy processor and the reputable name brand in the laptop market. According to a known online PC review, this machine earned an editor's choice for its class. The benchmard scores were impressive, even higher than some other name brand with higher clock frequency (i.e., 1.86 Ghz HP DV4000's - w/o dedicatd graphics card). If you want a performance notebook PC (not for intensive graphic application though), yet portable enough for lugging around, I'd suggest considering this lappy. You may see it or similar models for yourself at any electronic store nearby before making a purchase.
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Reviewed by: each
Strengths: HDD, SCREEN, SOUNDS
Weaknesses: NONE
Overall: I have the notebook for about a month. I enjoy it very much. You got 100G, 512MB and very good quality of sound.If you can upgrade to 1G ram, it will be perfect.
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Reviewed by: ichichan
Strengths: speaker, screen, hd
Weaknesses: memory: 1GB would be nuch better
Overall: Jsut got this notebook for about a week. If you buy it from Best Buy now, you can get 200 mail-in-rebate. The price after all saving and rebates would be 1049.99. This is a great price for this notebook.
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