Just got the new R835-P50X

Hey all,

Just wanted to stop by and say I'm a new toshiba laptop owner!

So far so good. The screen is pretty nice and even though the buttons on the keyboard seem to be a bit smaller, the keyboard has a nice tactile feel to it.

I've been using a macbook air for 2-3 years now (when it first came out) and it's been crapping out a bit lately and the 60gb (or 80?) HD just doesn't cut it. The battery life is down to like 1.5 hours now.

If ya wanna know anything, let me know.

Got it for $750 at Best Buy.

Ken

 

How's the fan noise on the Toshiba? I was looking at it and it was hard to determine at the store how loud the fan is.

 

I got mine from Best Buy also. Everything is fine, it's decent, but... I am so, so disappointed with the sound quality. And this sucks, because I'm a music freak. Listening anything with headphones especially is killing me. Does anyone know any tips or tricks to get rid of the crackling sound? It is extremely annoying. The onboard speakers suck too, but hey, it's a laptop, I'm not expecting any good kind of sound out of them anyway.

EDIT: Ok, since I haven't really been able to try it out that much so far, it might be that this problem only appears with YouTube. Have to do some more testing in the morning.

 

I would like to hear about fan noise as well. Also there should be a toshiba utility showing at what speed fan is running. Just wondering what it is as well.

 

I found Toshiba PC Health Monitor and it doesn't say the speed of the fan in rpm, but instead in %. For me, this little laptop is silent. It's only my second laptop and after the Acer Aspire I had, this thing is almost noiseless.

Right now, I've had my laptop on for almost an hour on balanced power plan and the fan speed shows 36%. It's pretty silent. Let's see if I have the time later today or the near future to do some more extensive reviewing of this device, but all in all I have to say it's been great. The sound issues I was talking about last night seem to appear only on YouTube, so even if frustrating, it's not that big of a deal afterall.

It feels sturdy except for one of the silver covers of the hinges connecting the screen with the rest of the body in my laptop has become loose. Not a big deal, since it's only a cover to give laptop a nice silver touch on the otherwise stylish black case. A little bit of super glue should fix that.

 

If you turn the machine on and do nothing what speed does the fan show after 5mins, one of the complaints about the previous model is that the fan was always on.

 

I don't see why bluetooth is left out of this model? How is the speaker?

 

From my limited experience with mine and friends' laptops, I'd say one of the worst built in speakers. It sure gets loud, something my old Acer couldn't do, but the quality is pretty bad. Probably someone more experienced can say more about this. As far as I can tell and to my taste, laptop speakers always suck.

Lack of Bluetooth surely sucks and makes you wonder how can they still leave it out. That was probably the only reason why I doubted buying this laptop, but I figured I can still hook my phone into the USB slot, which is probably the only device I would connect to my laptop via Bluetooth. 3 USB slots is ok, but a 4th one wouldn't have had hurt, just to make sure you don't run out of USB slots.

 

I want to buy the portege because I have only own Toshiba before but the specification is killing me. No bluetooth, intel graphic, and bad speakers.

 

I know what you mean, we all would like the notebook we are buying to have everything we could think of. It just isn't realistic, it will either be too expensive, too bulky/heavy, etc. I wish it had a back lit keyboard as well as available mSATA myself.

The main attraction of the R835 for me is the weight. If the R835 wasn't 3.2lbs, would there really be a hard reason to consider it? There are many "lightweight" notebooks in the 4-5lb range, even a few in the 3-4lb range but which in the sub 4lb range has what the R835 have? I haven't come across one yet, if I missed something in this weight range with a dvd drive, someone let me know.