Review of Toshiba Satellite L505-ES5018

Toshiba Satellite L505

I bought a Toshiba Satellite L505 laptop on sale at Best Buy in early 2010 for about $475. I decided to buy this brand because I had bought the Toshiba Satellite A5 in 2004 at Best Buy for $1,100 and I loved it. There were no problems with the Satellite A5, but unfortunately I ended up breaking it. I figured that since the Toshiba Satellite L505 was on sale and, that I had a prior positive experience with the brand, that this would be a bargain.

Here are some of the features that come with the Toshiba Satellite L505:

 
• Windows 7 Home Premium Operating System
• Preinstalled trial software such as Norton Internet Security software suite, MS Office Suite 2007
• Windows Live Movie Maker, Windows Media player
• Roxio for ripping and burning Cds and DVDs
• Intel Pentium R Dual Core processor 2.20 GHz
• 3.0 GB RAM ( 2.87 GB usable)
• 320 GB Hard Drive  
• DVD-RW/CD-RW Optical Disk Drive
• Web Cam with built in microphone
• Keyboard and silver 10-keypad
• Touchpad pointing device
• 15.6” TruBrite® TFT LCD Display
• Wi-Fi® Wireless networking (802.11b/g/n)
• Integrated memory card reader
• 3 USB v2.0 ports

My Toshiba Satellite L505 is a dark grey color with a smooth, metallic like finish, although the cover is made of a plastic material. It weighs about 6 pounds and it has a 15.6” inch screen with 1366 X 768 resolution.  The laptop is Energy Star qualified, which will save on battery life and power. The keyboard keys and touchpad function seamlessly. I do like the overall physical design of the Toshiba Satellite L505. It is not a particularly stylish design, but it works for me.

The main functions that I use my Toshiba Satellite for are creating documents in Microsoft Word and Excell spreadsheets, surfing the internet, editing photos, listening to CDs, and ocaisionally watching DVDs.   

Initially, I was happy with this laptop, but as time went on, it became very apparent that this laptop was flawed. One of my chief complaints with the Toshiba Satellite L505 is that the sound quality is horrible. It is the worst that I have ever heard on any electronic or computerized device. I am not sure if this is due to a defect with the sound card or a problem with the speakers. There are times that I can’t enjoy music with iTunes, because the songs sometimes drag.


One of the weirdest things happened to me one day, after I logged into, my AOL e-mail account. Most people that have AOL e-mail are very familiar with the male voice that announces, “You’ve got mail!” On one strange day, the male voice repeated “You’ve got.., You’ve got.., You’ve got..,”  like a broken record about 30 times, before voice finally said, “You’ve got mail!”. That never happened before with this laptop and I was a little freaked out by it. I think this is related to the sound quality problems that I described before.

My other complaint with Toshiba Satellite L505 is that I can’t watch videos on iTunes. For some reason the laptop freezes up when I try to play any videos through iTunes. I get an error message and the display freezes. Also, when I use the QuickTime player I can hear the audio, but I don’t see any visuals in the QuickTime player. The screen remains black. It makes me very angry, because I downloaded the entire season 2 of the Real Housewives of New Jersey from iTunes and now I can’t watch it on my laptop. Also, when I try to edit videos in Windows Movie Maker Live, this laptop freezes up. With all that said, I rarely have any problems watching videos on DVD, in WMV or FLV formats.

I went to Toshiba’s product website to see if there was any information available to help me resolve this issue, but I couldn’t find any helpful information. I have visited many tech-related internet message boards and forums seeking help. There are some interesting suggestions, but I don’t want to go through all those hassles. I don’t feel like uninstalling and reinstalling software. That’s just opening up another can of worms for a person like me, who isn’t a computer geek.

I am not going to run out a pay extra money to get the problem fixed, either. If a consumer is paying this amount of money for a laptop from a brand like Toshiba, these problems should be nonexistent. I am not getting my money’s worth with this product. My experience with Toshiba Satellite L505 puts a bad taste in my mouth, when it comes to this brand. Toshiba no longer manufactures the L505, but it continues to make upgraded versions of the Toshiba Satellite laptop. I will never buy another computer made by Toshiba again, EVER. Please don’t waste your money on Toshiba Satellites. My next laptop will be a Sony Vaio, HP Pavillion, or a Mac Book.


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