Toshiba's Satellite Pro S300-EZ2521 is as bland as they come
By Darren Murph 
posted April 8th 2009 8:27AM
posted April 8th 2009 8:27AM
posted April 8th 2009 8:27AM
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Holy crap, that is a new low in just pointless slander.... are you serious Darren? there are entire lines of notebooks out there designed for work and nothing more, it is what makes them VERY CHEAP FOR THE CORPORATE and there for a great deal.
Ok maybe I over reacted there... but there is no need to be cynical and sarcastic all the time.
But come on. How could you glorify this? I mean, really, it has a volume dial. A VOLUME DIAL. Get real!!!
A volume dial!!!?!?! I want one now.
Volume dials are incredibly useful. You can mute the sound without turning the computer on, something you can't do with clicky keys.
seems alot like my a300 specs but without the glossy case.
and yes the volume dial is usefull.
Bloatware? My Toshiba didn't come with any bloatware except all those regular netbook utilities.
I'd take this over a Macbook any day, if only to piss Darren off.
And guess what Darren.
You know what would happen if you wrote your Engadget articles from this laptop instead of your Mac?
THE EXACT SAME THING.
ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
OH NO! The idea that some people want a computer as less of a fashion statement than an actual COMPUTER!
Alert the press! People use computers for computing!
It's almost so bland that it's beautiful.
Almost.
Much more beautiful than 99% of laptops on market at the moment. IBM (Lenovo now) and Toshiba are the only companies who can still manage to make a real business machine, unlike Sony, Acer, Asus, Apple (lol), LG, etc. which cannot rollout anything but ricedup pattops. HP (Compaq 6910p) and Dell (Latitudes) still has a few machines who are suitable for businesses but I still like Thinkpads and Satellites better.
The author of this entry must be attaching straps on sides of his laptop so he can use it as a purse and make a statement.
I guess this doesn't appeal to the Engadget editors who want Macs simply for "dicking around".
Well, they probably get their Macs for free, compliments of Apple Inc. so it is only normal to assume that they'll be negatively-biased towards anything that doesn't get all the girls in college hot in their panties. As I read the comments so far, it appears that majority of Engadget readers are not stupid, rich, or fortunate enough (to be employed by an Apple endorsed employer) to buy a Mac when a PC which costs 2-3x less will perform just as well :)
I think this laptop doesn't appeal by virtue of the fact that it doesn't look like anyone gave it any thought - it's a generic laptop.
Further, the idea that a Mac is simply for "dicking around" any more than any other computer makes no sense.
Personally I'm a Lenovo fanboy when it comes to laptops, and I know they're pretty low key too, but this lappy has mediocre written all over it.
It looks like what a 3D modeler would build in Lightwave 3D if asked to build a 3D model of a laptop over his lunch break, for inclusion as an 'intel item' for Call Of Duty 4. When I first saw the picture, the first word that came to mind was 'bland'.
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2007/310/reviews/939212_20071107_embed001.jpg
i happen to like my toshiba the way it looks.
OK, which half-wit designed this thing and decided that putting what appears to be a fingerprint sensor between the mouse buttons would be a good idea? Doing so has shrunk the size of the buttons, which you will use a lot, so that something you will use very little has a place to go by the mousepad. Just put the reader some place else (to the left or right of the keyboard would be my suggestion) and give priority to the important features of the laptop.
And, yes, this computer is very dull.
Its a better location then to the right of the touchpad in the middle of the palm rest so you run your hand over it all the time and the software pops up to bitch that it couldn't read your print, please try again. Thanks a lot HP!
Hmm, well, I guess the placement could indeed be worse. Designers really ought to "dog food" their ideas before letting them loose on the public, particularly if the product cannot be easily changed through software. You'd have thought that HP ought to have picked up that particular problem before the laptop got to market.
The finger print scanner can generally double as a scroll wheel, it makes perfect sense there.
No, that's a crap idea. There's plenty of laptops available today (plus, I believe, software you can download that will enable it) that allow you to scroll by dragging your fingers on the trackpad, which is an efficient use of the trackpad space. I still hold that the finger print sensor between the mouse buttons is a bad use of space.
Since your skills clearly don't lie in writing Darren, perhaps you could try fixing Engadget's comments system. You certainly couldn't do a worse job of it...I think.
Eew. Look at the size of that trackpad.
Strangely this looks exactly like the Tecra A10 demo unit I have sitting on my desk right now. They are using the exact same chassis for the S300 as they do the Tecra. Usually they try to change up some minor cosmetically to differentiate between the product lines. Granted the Tecra has a lot better guts than the S300.
One thing I noticed after my previous comment is that this Toshiba is missing the nipple/eraser head mouse pointer :(
Touchpads suck...
Looks good. A larger bezel around the LCD and double its thickness, and it would be a thing of sheer beauty.
I have one of the oldest of these designs(u205-s5002) and I love it. There's something to be said for beauty in simplicity. Plus this thing is bulletproof. I like this way better than that fugly qosmio garbage.
Funny, I thought business laptops did not come with 40 tons of bloatware but was instead consumer notebooks, yet another ignorant Apple fanboy Mr. Darren Murph. : )
If this isn't worth writing about, then find something that is.
Lazy fucking bloggers. No wonder you never became a proper journalist
I have a rule when buying notebooks for my IT department; If it looks nice, it's fragile. If it looks like a slab of concrete, it's tough. Think of the Thinkpads and a number of Toshiba Sat. Pros and Tecras. They have a number of features that means that you can sling 'em around without damage or faults developing internally. I buy some of these and Tecra M10s. They have been drop tested before release and I have heard they generally try and destroy them at the deisgn stage to iron art all possible faults that my happen.
I want to deploy notebooks that can put up with the demands of being thrown into car boots (trunks for you guys in the US), chucked into aircraft cabins. And also, used by field engineers who dont neccesarily respect the kit. It has to work because it's a business tool, not a fashion statement. I guess Darren's next prize winning bit of writing will be an informative piece about the Panasonic Toughbook being 'a bit industrial looking'.
Looks like a solidly-built machine. And that volume dial would be a deal closer for me. I don't know about other lappies, but on my Sony Vaio, I have to hit Control, F4, then wait for the volume window to appear, then hit the back arrow several times just in order to lower the volume whenever some stupid popup ad starts blasting me off the chair. Oh, yeah, and if you don't hit the back arrow within a couple of seconds, the window disappears and you have to start all over again. Lack of a volume dial, in my opinion, is an incredibly stupid design.
You could argue that they've gone for a very retro look, the fashion is to revert back to the past, and this design is definitely reminiscent of my first laptop.
That said, I bought a Toshiba notebook for my dad for Christmas and once it came out of the box I was impressed. It's solid and practical - and at the end of the day, you're not paying for the looks and design which I guess you are with a Sony. You could always try feeding back comments to Toshiba via their new customer website http://www.toshibalife.com - they would probably make use of the comments.
This looks almost the same as a laptop that I bought in 2000. In fact it is the laptop that I am using at this moment in time. It is getting so old that its not that useful but I love the keyboard on it the thing is solid that is why I have used it for nine years. I have bought a few other laptops but none of them feel as nice to use as this old monster.
I am looking for a new laptop this one would be really great. I am going to look into the Tecra A10 some one talked about here.