Toshiba Satellite 1905-S277 Notebook

Features - Software

We were fairly impressed with the Toshiba Satellite 1905-S277's software package. Most importantly, Toshiba did not skimp on the operating system. The Satellite 1905-S277 comes preloaded with Windows XP Home edition. The operating system proved to be a much better solution than the Windows 98, ME or 2000 solutions we have seen other laptops ship with. Don't worry, however, if you want to use another Microsoft operating system on your notebook drivers are available for download on Toshiba's website.

The system also came with Lotus SmartSuite Millennium Edition which provided office applications. Although Lotus SmartSuite is not nearly as accepted as the Microsoft Office suite, it does provide word processing, mail, and spread sheet functionality. Why include the latest edition of Lotus SmartSuite instead of the latest Microsoft Office suite with the Satellite 1905-S277? Although the retail prices of the two suites are relatively similar, the Lotus package clearly costs less for Toshiba to license. It was nice to have word processing functionality out of the box without having to drop a few more hundred dollars and although the package may not be as accepted as Office, it will get the job done for the most part.

Also on the office side of things, Toshiba includes Intuit Quicken Basic 2001 and Norton AntiVirus 2002. Quicken Basic 2001 is a stripped down version of Quicken that asks the user to upgrade every few clicks but should prove useful for those just learning the popular business program. Norton AntiVirus 2002 kept our system safe from viruses.

The software side of the DVD/CDRW combo drive is provided by two programs: Intervideo WinDVD 3 and Roxio Easy CD Creator 5. Both programs are among the best in the field at what they do, so it seems that Toshiba chose wisely.

Like other notebook manufacturers, Toshiba includes some custom utilities that control power management as well as set computer settings. The Toshiba Power Management Utility does exactly what its name suggests: controls the power management settings for the system. The utility not only allows the user to set monitor brightness, set when the monitor turns off, set hard drive spin down time, system standby time, and system hibernate time but it allows individual settings to be changed depending on remaining battery charge. For example, you can set the Satellite 1905-S277 to run at full monitor brightness while the battery is fully charged but at only half brightness when the battery drops below 50 percent. The program worked as advertised with the exception of the "Processor Speed" slider. Since our system used the desktop Pentium 4, processor speed could not be changed. Moving the slider from full to high to medium to low resulted in no performance change or processor clock change. It would have been nice if Toshiba grayed out the "Processor Speed" setting as to prevent confusion.

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The Toshiba Console provided quick access to various window settings, such as mouse settings and power settings. Other than that, the utility did not offer much.

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Finally, Toshiba includes a utility called "Software Upgrade." This utility checks Toshiba's web site for software updates including new drivers and new utilities.

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