Roam where you want to with the Toshiba Satellite M35X-S161, built for today's demanding mobile professional. It features a fast 1.30 GHz Intel Centrino processor, known for its smart, power-saving battery for long life on the road and built-in 54g Wi-Fi connectivity. It also offers a large 15.4-inch screen, 60 GB hard drive, DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive, and 512 MB of installed RAM (with expansion up to 2 GB).
The Basics
- Hard Drive: The 60 GB hard drive is larger than the average notebook's, enabling road warriors more than enough capacity for storing documents, digital media files, and productivity software.
- Processor: The 1.30 GHz Pentium M (Centrino) processor approaches the higher end of speed for this processor class. It is well equipped for office productivity software tasks, from complex spreadsheets to databases. The Pentium M processor is designed specifically for low-power mobile usage, and it features the latest in power-saving technologies--ensuring you push your battery and productivity to the max. It also has a 2 MB L2 cache and 400 MHz front-side bus (FSB).
- Memory: The 512 MB of built-in memory is becoming the standard for notebooks, and the M35X-S161 can be expanded to 2 GB of memory--necessary for running complex spreadsheets and multimedia applications.
- CD/DVD Drive: The combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive has 40x read, 16x write, and rewrite at 10x speeds. It can read DVDs at 8x.
- Keyboard & Mouse: This notebook has a standard 85-key keyboard and electro-static two-button touchpad.
Sound and Graphics The M35X-S161 has a 15.4-inch TFT display with a native resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. It features the integrated Intel Extreme Graphics video/graphics card (with 64 MB of shared video memory), 16-bit Realtek ALC250 sound, and internal stereo speakers.
Connectivity and Expansion Slots
This M35X-S161 has an Integrated Atheros 802.11g wireless LAN supporting Atheros SuperG technology (which is compatible with the more widespread 802.11b and offers faster data transmission rates). You get a basic offering of connectivity options, which does include super-fast USB 2.0:
- 3 USB 2.0 ports for connecting a wide range of peripherals--from digital cameras to MP3 players
- 1 Firewire (IEEE 1394) for connecting digital camcorders and external hard drives
- 1 VGA monitor port
- 1 PCMCIA (or PC Card) slot
- 1 TV out (S-Video)
- 1 headphone jack and 1 microphone jack
It also has an integrated 56K modem (V.90) and an RJ-45 LAN network port (for a 10/100 Ethernet connection to networks and DSL/cable modems). It also has a hot-swappable bay for adding an optional optical drive or second battery.
Preloaded System and Software
This system comes with the Windows XP Home Edition operating system, and it also features Microsoft Works (for working with word processing and spreadsheet documents). Other preloaded software includes Quicken New User Edition, Norton Antivirus 2004 (with 90-day LiveUpdate subscription), Adobe Acrobat Reader, ArcSoft ShowBiz DVD, and Sonic Solutions RecordNow.
Dimensions and Weight
This notebook measures 14.4 x 10.8 x 1.48 inches and weight 6.81 pounds--slightly heavier than other Centrino laptops.
Power
It is powered by an 8-cell lithium-ion battery that has an average battery life of 3.5 hours (depending on usage).
What's in the Box
This package contains the Toshiba Satellite M35X-S161 notebook PC, rechargeable lithium-ion battery, AC adapter, and operating instructions. It is backed by a one-year limiited warranty for parts and labor.
Toshiba Satellite M35X-S161 Notebook PC Mobile Multimedia Now get maximum mobile performance and an intense multimedia experience from a notebook that's lighter, thinner and more powerful! The Satellite M35X is the ideal notebook for savvy professionals and students who want outstanding performance and advanced capabilities at an affordable price.
1 piece of junk
Purchased M35x at Christmastime for my daughter to use for school - and we LOVED it for 6 weeks... just received back after being in the repair shop waiting for parts(motherboard) for 2 months (along with 60 other laptops) - Telephone customer support is outside of US and completely unhelpful and unwilling to move calls forward. VERY UNHAPPY with Toshiba - if you buy this buy the extended coverage so you can get a replacement immediately!
2 A Good Notebook for Everyday use
I bought this notebook primarily for web surfing, music management and for school. It has been sufficient in facilitating those needs. I have enjoyed its large wide screen. I don't play computer games, so I don't know how it does with that. I use it a lot for burning cd's and for the most part it does great. Occasionally it can be slow and can get hung up during the copying of music, but I think that is more due to Windows Media Player.
My one complaint about this notebook is its battery life. It seems to drain rather quickly. If I am to use it at school, I have to plug it into the wall to assure it won't cut off. It seems to drain dead in a couple of hours with regular internet use, and a lot less if you are using many programs, such as music copying, etc.
I find that is notebook is affordable and sufficient for the user who plans on using it primarily for office and internet use. Just make sure you keep it plugged in when you are using it at home to keep the battery from cutting off. Overall, its fast and worth the money. You can find them at BestBuy and Circuit City. I reccomend buying the extended warranty plan to ensure some sort of coverage should something happen to it.
3 Toshiba M35X-S161 is a great buy!
I was looking for a quality laptop for wireless surfing, office applications, and music management. This Toshiba fits the bill perfectly. The ONLY complaint I have is battery life. It is terrible! However, when you register the laptop with Toshiba they provide you with a coupon code. You can order the better 8-cell battery direct from them for a reasonable price. Heck, with the hundreds of dollars you saved by buying the M35X-S161 buying a better battery will still keep you well ahead!
4 Not bad if you don't need battery life
This is not a very "mobile" notebook computer because of the under whelming 4 cell battery (read the complaints below). If you are *sure* this is mostly going to be plugged in and only occasionally be used on battery power then you may consider this model (the price is great and other major components are first rate). If you need reasonable battery life and similar features at this price point I would suggest the HP4900 series or the Compaq 2100 series which have 6 cell batteries (FYI - HP/Compaq is the same company and these are same notebook platforms with mostly cosmetic differences). If you really like this model but don't mind spending a little more look at the Toshiba M35X-S3__ series (such as the M35X-S309 sold by Amazon) which have 8 cell batteries (the M45-S3__ series is just up the ladder from the M35 and comes in 6 and 8 cell variants).
One other small point that I don't like: no scroll bar on this (and many other) Toshiba's. If you aren't sure if this is important check it out in a store first. If you use the touch pad to do a lot of web surfing or document reading you will miss that scroll bar. On the other hand if you usually use a mouse with it this won't be an issue. (A small optical mouse will do the trick - you can set it on just about anything and mouse away.)
5 inadequate battery
I agree completely with the 2 previous reviewers. The included battery only lasts a little over an hour. I feel duped by Toshiba. One would naturally believe that a Pentium M or Celeron M laptop would give good battery life. I never imagined that Toshiba would include a dinky 4 cell battery. This laptop is not the bargain that it appears to be, because you need to spend another $90 to get the 12 cell battery, pa3332u, if you want your notebook to last over 1.5 hours on a charge.
Other than this glaring deficiency, the laptop is fine. It has a farely nice LCD (but mine had a dead pixel). The fan is farely quiet if you set it to the quiet option, but not as quiet as an HP notebook with Celeron M.
6 Decent specs, but miserable battery life
You can find this Toshiba at Best Buy and Circuit City, so if possible, I recommend you take a look in person to see if you like it. The screen is probably the best part of this value-oriented laptop. ("Satellite" is the name of the value-oriented series of laptops from Toshiba.) It's widescreen and displays vivid colors.
Otherwise, the machine is quite mediocre in performance. It has a Celeron M processor, which is good for surfing the web, running Office applications, doing everyday digital image editing (but not camera raw files), and other tasks that don't demand lots of CPU power. Don't expect to do video editing or play the latest 3D games on this machine; neither the CPU nor the video chip can handle high-powered computation needs, even though the laptop does have plenty of RAM and hard disk space.
Unfortunately, Toshiba bundles a miserably short-life battery with this laptop. If you watch a DVD movie on this, with brightness and sound volume set to medium, you'll barely finish a 1.5-hr. movie before the machine shuts down. Surfing on wi-fi is better, but I consider this kind of battery life pretty much unacceptable. The only thing keeping me from givign the M35X-S161 a 2-star rating is its affordability -- shop around and you can find it for cheap.
In short, this Toshiba is good as a low-cost laptop, esp. as it sports a nice widescreen LCD screen. But if you plan to watch a lot of movies on this, be sure to get the larger-capacity battery.
7 Almost perfect!
I looked at many different laptops before choosing the Toshiba M35X-161. For me, the Toshiba was a perfect combination of name brand reliability, features and price. The 60 Gb disk size, 512 Mb memory, WXGA wide screen and full size keyboard are a rare combination in this price class. Weight is still manageable at 6.5 pounds. The wireless connection worked right out of the box with no fuss at all. The Celeron and integrated graphics card are suitable for most non-gamers.
The big drawback of the M35X-161 is the battery. It is only a 4 cell battery providing a mere 1.5 hours of use. Consider an additional 8 cell battery a requirement. The 8 cell battery should provide 3.5 hours of use leaving the original battery in a more suitable role of backup.
