The Satellite A200 is the cheese and tomato pizza of Toshiba's laptop range -- it's designed to please everyone. It's a desktop replacement laptop, but ironically, it's quite portable. It has a faster-than-usual graphics card, and yet its mid-range CPU gives it the potential for decent battery life. It's a jack of all trades, for sure, but will its ambivalence backfire, or will its flexibility save it from obscurity?
The A200 is available in a whopping 12 different configurations. We tested the A200-A1i, which is available for around £750. For more details, visit the Toshiba Web site.
Design
Toshiba's design team has played it safe. The lid's blue-grey colour should appeal to consumers and 'suits' alike, but the oversize Toshiba logo screams function more than fun. The inside of the laptop is even less adventurous -- the screen bezel is black and the keyboard section is, surprise surprise, silver.
In contrast, there's an almost boy-racer-esque Satellite logo on the left front edge. Its blue backlight reminds us of those cheesy neon lights beneath modified cars and its very inclusion makes us think Toshiba was just ticking the boxes of what it thinks will appeal to as broad a market as possible: inoffensively coloured lid? Check. Silver interior? Check. Blue LED lights? Check. It's a laptop, alright.
We're not fans of how the input/output ports are arranged. Our main gripe is that the LAN and Modem ports are on opposite sides of the laptop. Both are used for networking purposes, so wouldn't it be more sensible to have them side by side? We also take exception to only having three USB ports. If you're going to use this laptop as a replacement for your main PC, you'll probably need a USB hub.
Other design quirks include the ubiquitous Wi-Fi switch -- which is positioned under the laptop where you can't see it. Then there's the keyboard, which is truly lovely, apart from the enter key, which is inexplicably too small. Finally, the front-facing volume adjustment is perfect for adjusting volume quickly, but it never stops spinning -- there's no lock when you reach the absolute minimum or absolute maximum volume. Not that you'd want to use the internal speakers much anyway -- they're dire, even by laptop standards.
The most interesting aspect of the A200's design is its mouse trackpad. Look closely and you'll see a host of shortcut icons printed on the surface. Pressing the icon to the top right causes all the others to glow blue. You can then touch individual icons to launch an email client or Web browser, adjust the volume or assign up to three of your own shortcuts to the user-definable keys.
Features
The A200 has a 15.4-inch screen. This is small enough so you have an excuse to cuddle in front of a movie with your sweetheart, yet big enough so you don't have to get too close when they've been on the garlic. The screen has a glossy coating that improves the appearance of colours and heightens contrast, though you'll need to be wary of using it outdoors -- the high reflectivity renders it near-useless in direct sunlight. The 1,280x800-pixel resolution is too low for our liking -- we'd have preferred 1,280x1,024 pixels, as this makes it easier to use multiple application windows.
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hayleynoodle 29 December 2007
Good: nothing
Bad: it just looks cheap
Comment: Iv'e never slated a product like this before but i seriously cannot say a good word about this. I got the one thats £399 in the pc world at the moment. I was initially attracted to 2gb ram and thought it would be a uitable purchase. It is awful it feels like a lump of nasty cheap plastic, has no style and lacks on firewire ports, memory card slots etc. It is advertised as suitable for advanced users, yeah if you only want a laptop that last 5 -10 mins. i had to take mine back because the battery lasted ten minustes and was told thats all id get if i was surfing the internet. you are kidding me right. I went and got a HP pavillion instead and its fantastic. Im never touching a cheap toshiba again. I might at a push go for a more expensive
Saminatorger 28 November 2007
Good: The Webcam, 2GB RAM, 200GB Hard Drive, space for a second Hard Drive, The Design, The Price
Bad: The Glossy Screen picks up finger marks very easily, The Sound quality, The amount of Space Vista takes up
Comment: The A200 1AI is a great machine.
Toshiba have given it a very casual, modern look, without going too over the top.
The Screen is a good size and the keyboard is also very good, because the keys are quite big, so you don't slip onto the wrong keys so easily when typing. Toshiba have also included 4 USB ports and a firewire port.
Unfortunately, for Toshiba, they did make a few stupid mistakes. As Rory Reid said in the review, the modem and the LAN ports are on opposite sides, which is pointless. Also, the glossy screen may look great, but something that annoys me personally is the fact that it picks up smears and marks really easily.
Also, the speakers aren't great, but they are not terrible, they do give you reasonable volume.
The performance of the A200 is excellent, the 2GB of RAM and the Centino Core 2 Duo Chip offer sensational speed, despite the fact it is only running at 1.66GHZ.
The 200GB Hard Drive gives you huge space for music, photos and High Quality Movies without filling up to easily.
Overall, the A200 1AI is a very good model giving you speed, space and performance.
Kenneth Jackson 5 September 2007
Good: The touch pad.
Bad: The over-sized, garish, upside-down, gold logo on the lid.
Comment: I have had difficulty setting the screen at the best viewing angle and reds seem subdued.
And I have had bother with reflections from the shiny screen. Response is acceptable but not speedy.
There are no sockets on the back.
Most functions are average.
The volume control is useful but it needs an end stop.
The blue logo on the front is too bright and dazzles me.
The battery lasts only 2 hours on the normal usage setting, much less on the high-usage setting.
But the worst feature is the large, garish, upside-down, gold logo on the lid which completely spoils the look of what would otherwise be a stylish, nay beautiful machine - which is why I have decided to send it back to the supplier and change it for an HP. THe supplier says that all Toshiba laptops have this graffiti on their lids - its an advertising gimmick. Be warned!
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