I don t know too much about laptop speakers but for the size (about that of a dime), the Harmon/Kardon speakers are great. They lack bass, but they still sound good and can be turned up loud. You might want external speakers if you want a lot of volume and bass, but for normal use the internal ones are more than adequate for me.

This notebook comes with a MATSHITA DVD-RAM UJ-820S Super-Multi drive. I believe this is the same Super-Multi drive that is in the Acer 2012WLMi. It can be removed from the computer by removing two screws from the underside of the notebook. It reads and burns pretty much everything at varying speeds, which I have listed below:

I ve only burned a few things on this drive: a full CD-RW and a full DVD-R, when the computer was plugged in. They both burned in the same time as a desktop (for a full DVD-R it is about 30 minutes at 4x, and for a full CD-RW it is a bit over 10mins at 8x).

The drive is noisy when speeding up, and when running at full speed. Toshiba provides a program to slow down the speed, thus making it nearly silent. It is only useful if you want minimum performance from the drive. I tried turning it on when loading a program, and it reduced the loading time considerably. I also noticed that some applications lag a bit when the drive speeds up.

Overall, I find the keyboard and touchpad to be well placed. There is noticeable flexing in the keyboard when it is used normally, but is not too bad. There is a numeric mode to overlay a number pad on the keyboard. The touchpad works well too. Tapping on the keypad acts as the left mouse button, which I find useful. The buttons below the touchpad are also well-placed and not stiff. However, a scroll button would have been a good feature. Toshiba provides some interesting software for the touchpad. With one program, you can set it up so a motion of your finger from each of the 4 corners can open up different files, folders etc.

There is no parallel port, but it doesn t really make a difference to me. There is only an SD card reader on this notebook. I know some other notebooks have a multiple card reader, but again this wasn t an important feature for me. My digital camera uses xD picture cards anyway, and I haven t seen a notebook that supports this format yet.

A feature I found particularly cool on this notebook is the monitor-in port. The notebook comes with an adaptor cable to connect a composite video and audio left/right input at one end, and connect it into an input port on the laptop which looks like a headphone jack.Sony Laptop Battery & Adapter Online Shopping Mall - new-laptopbattery.com
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Wifi is supported via the integrated Intel 2200bg card, which is easily accessible as I mentioned above. There is a wireless indicator by the keyboard, and an ON/OFF switch. Unfortunately, I haven t been able test the wifi yet, but I will once I start school again. I am not sure if this laptop has Bluetooth.

The stock battery is a 6-cell Lithium Ion (Li-ion) 10.8V x 4400mAh capacity. The battery life on this notebook depends greatly on what you re doing, the display brightness etc. I managed about 4 hours with the long-life mode at 600 MHz, without the wifi on, doing word processing and listening to music some of the time. If you play games, run the processor at full speed etc. it lowers the life.

I don t have any programs to benchmark the battery life. However, it was suggested that a good test is to run a looping MP3 playlist with the screen brightness on its highest level. Since I find the brightest screen setting overly bright, I ran a looping MP3 playlist on Winamp 5.04 at half brightness and the battery lasted about 3 hours. Again, this test was done at 600 MHz without wifi on. These readings are decent, but could be a bit better. I recommend a second normal battery, or Toshiba s high-capacity batter (double that of the normal one) if you don t have any access to a plug for the day.

The amount of heat and noise produced by this laptop varies greatly. If you are just doing word-processing or surfing the net on low processor power, the computer will run pretty cool. However, if you are playing games at full computer power, it can heat up quite a bit. The touchpad is one place where it will heat up, but it is normally not too bad. However, the bottom left side of the computer (where the CPU is located) can get quite hot (I measured 43 degrees C after playing SimCity 4 for a few hours) when you place a large demand on the computer. So I wouldn t want to place it on bare skin.

Reviled though it may be, Toshiba is pushing the European style keyboard layout in Canada. Weep for your poor wretched Canadian cousins. The X305’s keyboard is finish is glossy – a motif that is being extended throughout the Toshiba line up. It looks good but the keys are a little slippery. Also, the base flexes a lot and the short key travel makes this defect very noticeable. Key clicks are loud getting progressively worse as you move to the right. Next to the Acer 6920g keyboard I would rate this as the worst I have used this year. It is possible that the US keyboard is better. Here is a quick video that captures the flex.

On the right side of the keyboard where flex is most pronounced you will find a full numeric keypad. The positioning of the Del, Home, Pg Up, Pg Dn and End keys is unorthodox. Above the keyboard and centered between sharp looking Harmon/Kardon speakers are media control buttons (exactly where they belong – Acer I am talking to you). Additional speakers are situated near the palm rests as well.

Toshiba’s touchpads often need a bit of twiddling to get them setup the way I like them (fast with a light touch). The X305 was perfect right out of the box. Unlike in past years, Toshiba has elected to keep the touchpad simple and uncluttered with chotchkas – a smart choice. Buttons are firm and rattle free. There is no Apple-like two finger tapping or multi-touch. The top of the pad glows red while the notebook is on.

First Boot

The installation is relatively clear of junk. Toshiba’s utilities are present, but in some cases they are redundant with Windows offering the same functionality. There is no point having two programs that do the same thing running in memory – a good example being the Wi-Fi configuration. Uninstalling these will free up some memory and remove a few unwanted background services.

A Bluetooth setup utility pops up on first boot to help you configure any keyboard mice or other peripherals you may have. I like this feature but it is a bit odd; Toshiba reminds you to setup a wireless mouse but not to create backup discs? On a related note, lack of an included Vista restore disc is a disappointment. This notebook is not a $399 door crasher – Gateway provides recovery discs with its notebooks.

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