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Friday, March 11, 2011

Toshiba Satellite T235D-S1360 13.3-Inch

Toshiba Satellite T235D-S1360 13.3-Inch Laptop ( Fusion Chrome Finish in Gemini Black) (Personal Computers) 
OMG. A laptop like this, with this much horsepower would have been $1200 or $1400 a year or so ago. Let's look at the important specs:

CPU: AMD Turion(tm) II Neo K625 Dual-Core Processor 1.5GHz in Ubuntu.
L1 cache: 256k
L2 cache: 2M
Memory dual 2Gig DDR3 1033
1366x768 LED backlit display
Integrated Mobile Radeon HD 4225 video
320G Hitachi hard drive

First thing I did when I got it was shrink the windows partition and install Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit. I don't use windows except for games. I have a game box, so I might or might not ever use this for games. Probably not much.

With Ubuntu, everything just works. Seriously, it's a way easy install.
Step 1: Live boot, use gparted to shrink windows partition
Step 2: Install linux from same live boot, "along side current operating systems"
Step 3: Enjoy Ubuntu.

Video, audio, screen bright/dim, audio level up / down, wireless networking, etc. It all just works, and works so well.

This machine screams for something running on a "netbook" CPU. This CPU is an easy match for many mid tier notebooks out there. This machine spanks any of my friend's Atom based netbooks, and it spanks them hard. It also beats my old AMD dual core 1.8GHz laptop it's replacing. The Turion here running at 1.5GHz is noticeably faster than the Atom, and you've got two of them, not one. A part of that is the faster DDR3 1066MHz memory, which is 60% faster than the DDR2 667MHz memory in the Atom based machines. But also the CPU is just faster. And the integrated video...

The video is quick and snappy, and it can play 720p video with ease. The CPU hovers at 65% to 75% while doing so. My old ATI Radeon 1400 based laptop could never do that without tearing the video or dropping frames. And keep in mind, this good performance is in Ubuntu Linux, and Linux isn't known for being snappy on a lot of chipsets. Here it works great.

It doesn't get hot to the touch. Heck it needs to be running at 100% just to feel a little warm.

The battery runs a good 4.5 to 5 hours, even when you're really using it the whole time. Just drop the screen brightness a couple notches to get > 4 hours battery life. If you leave it at max, expect 2.5 to 3 hours tops.

Basically, this is a small, lightweight mini-laptop with full sized laptop performance and display for about the same price. If I hadn't been looking at notebooks for a friend who wanted a 10" unit, I wouldn't have seen this, and that would have been sad, because this thing is the perfect size for me and has the performance I need. I can toss it into my backpack and go.

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