Toshiba Satellite 1905-S277 Notebook

Conclusion

Desktop replacement notebooks are certainly not for everyone. Those who travel a lot, don't need a speedy system, and those who simply want to move from one location to another without much back strain should shy away from desktop replacement systems. Those who crave power, want to game on their laptop, and those who truly are looking for a replacement for their aging desktop are best suited for desktop replacement notebooks.

Toshiba has made a name for themselves in the notebook market. As one of the top five notebook brands in the country, they have quite an installed user base. One thing that helped Toshiba grow to the extent they did was by making laptops in almost every shape and size. Like the rest of the Satellite category notebooks, the Satellite 1905-S277 that we looked at here is a desktop replacement system for the power user.

We must say that despite the systems enormous size, we were fairly happy with it; happy, that is, as long as we didn't have to move it. The system is large, at two inches thick (that is twice as thick as many thin and lights) and 8.3 pounds, making it quite a pain to lug around, especially since no case is included standard. The large size, however, does offer many benefits.

First off, the ease at which the Satellite 1905-S277 can be upgraded is very convenient. To get more speed out of you system, all one needs to do is replace the current 1.6GHz desktop Pentium 4 CPU with a more powerful Willamette based one such as the 2.0GHz. When things start getting slow, it is nice to know that changing out the CPUs will not be a laborious task that requires finding a special notebook CPU.

When praising the desktop CPU that the Satellite 1905-S277 uses, one must also consider the recently announced Intel Pentium 4-M chip. Based on Northward technology, the Pentium 4-M is smaller, cooler, supports SpeedSteping, and faster than the Willamette Pentium 4 the Toshiba Satellite 1905-S277 uses. Unless you are looking for an easy way to upgrade your system in the future with a desktop component, it makes more sense to choose a Pentium 4-M based desktop replacement notebook.

Thanks to its weight the system was also able to have phenomenal battery life. Lasting only a minute shy of 4 hours, the Toshiba Satellite 1905-S277 should keep many happy even on long trips (as long as your back doesn't mind). It was also nice to know that the system's DVD/CDRW player and floppy disk drive will accompany you everywhere you take it, from LAN parties to long trips. And as far as extras go, the system's CD-player functionality was nice, as were the unit's impressive speakers.

The Satellite 1905-S277 is not without flaws other than the size, however. We had two major complaints when it came to the system: the hard drive and the video system. As a desktop replacement system, we would have expected to see a fast notebook hard drive at the heart of the Satellite 1905-S277. Instead, we found a relatively low end Toshiba drive. Although the system is priced in the entry desktop replacement range, it still would have been nice to have something a bit faster especially considering the bottleneck that the I/O system is in notebook computers.

On the video side, we were disappointed with the small 16MB frame buffer that the Satellite 1905-S277 came outfitted with. This really proved to be a thorn in the notebook's side when it came to game play. Considering the size of the system and the fact that it touted as a desktop replacement, upping the frame buffer to 32MB would have helped a lot. Although the Mobility Radeon is not the latest generation mobile product from ATI, it would have performed better with the additional 16MB of memory.

If you are looking for a desktop replacement notebook to perform office tasks with, the Toshiba Satellite 1905-S277 will likely not disappoint. With it's desktop based Pentium 4, upgrading should prove to be no problem as long as you avoid the Northwood core. The system was plenty speedy in our tests and should not disappoint those out there looking for fast 2D application ability. On the other hand, if you foresee spending a good amount of time on your desktop replacement notebook playing 3D games, we have to caution you against deciding on the Toshiba Satellite 1905-S277 as the system of choice. The system's video system is simply not up to par considering what else is out there.

The Toshiba Satellite 1905-S277 retails at $1,999.00 and is available now.