Toshiba M40 - Suitability?

[rhysxanthis]

hi,

my mums cafe is looking at getting a laptop, and i found one that i thought was worth looking at.

Toshiba M40 $1399

Celeron M 1.5ghz
15.4" tft CSV widescreen
40gb hdd
DVD DL Burner
512mb ram (free upgrade)

its primary uses would be word processing (excel etc.) and for wages app.
Reason i pick this is because they said they wanted room to grow on pc, so what do u think?

ps. if their is a better value notebook dont hesitate to tell me! if their is a cheaper place for this laptop let me now!

[Pazu]

It's pretty nice. I'm typing on the exact model right now.
The screen leaks a bit of light though, and battery life is virtually nonexistant. Apart from that, it's a pretty solid machine. However, for some unknown reasons, the drivers aren't included, so you might have a bit of trouble if you want to format the hdd and install your own OS.

EDIT: I can add that the 40gb hdd is 5400rpm with 16mb cache.

[rhysxanthis]

by non-exsistent do u mean bad battery life?

and what do u mean light leaks a bit?

[Pazu]

Manufacturer claims a battery life of 2.5hrs. With some basic net surfing with the wireless card (this uses Atheros, and not an intel one), I could only get around 2hr of life from one charge.

Well, with the light leaking, what I mean is that, you can see some bright light coming from the edge of the screen. This distorts the colour, and is usually a sign of a not-so-well-made screen. Still, you can't really complain, given the laptop's specs and the price. It's also important to note that all screens are different, so you might get a good one, or a bad one, depending on your luck. However, reading some America forums, quite a few M40s have this problem. Well, for me, it's not obvious unless I have my screen at pitch black. Also, other laptops might have this problem too.

Apart from those 2 points, and being virtually impossible to format and install your own OS (due to the lack of drivers), it's pretty good. I think it will meet your needs quite well. I don't know what Perth is like, but in Sydney, I can go to a big Harvey Norman store and look at the many display models they have on show. It's well worth a visit, IMO, assuming there is something similar in Perth.

[rhysxanthis]

yeah i might have to go into harvey norman and do that. installing my own os isnt a problem, but the battery life might be. But this wont ever be used for wireless internet i dont think, just for a wages application (wages windows) and word processing.

[Pazu]

If battery life is a problem. I suggest you look for a laptop with PentiumM (or the Centrino package) and avoid the CeleronM. A C-M doesn't have speed step, so it runs at full speed at full voltage at all times, which certainly doesn't do the battery any favours.