For those of you who follow me in Plurk, many of you already know by now that my laptop, a Compaq Presario C714NR died on me last week. Now you know why I haven’t updated or published new posts during the past week. Anyways, I took my laptop to BestBuy and had the Geek Squad check it. After doing a series of tests, they determined that it was the motherboard. I wasn’t that convinced because the guy I talked to didn’t sound too confident with his answers. I thought about asking a second opinion from another computer repair shop but since the laptop is still under warranty, I’m sending it back to HP/Compaq so they can check and/or repair it. I’ve already contacted them and they’ll be sending a box for shipping. I’m hoping that the initial diagnosis is wrong and that it’s not the motherboard that’s broken but something minor that can be easily repaired and is covered by the warranty because it only has a 1 year limited warranty.
Since I initially thought that the laptop was no longer under warranty and that I couldn’t have it fixed/repaired, I went ahead and looked for a new one to replace it. I searched online for the best deal I could find and found one over at BestBuy. It was for a Toshiba Satellite A305-S6872 which was on sale for $599 (regular retail price $749). Because I used a BestBuy credit card to purchase it, I was able to avail of an 18-month no interest financing offer.
Specifications:
- Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T5800 with 800MHz frontside bus, 2MB L2 cache and 2.0 GHz processor speed
- 3 GB PC6400 DDR2 800 MHz SDRAM
- 250 GB SATA HDD (5400 rpm)
- DVD-SuperMulti± with Labelflash™ drive
- harman/kardon® stereo speakers
- 15.4″ WXGA high definition LCD widescreen display with TruBrite® Technology
- Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD with up to 128MB-1294MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory
- Built-in wireless LAN Intel® Wi-Fi Link 5100AGN (802.11a/g/n)
Additional Screenshots:
This product was only available online so it wasn’t available for store-pickup and I had no choice but to pay for shipping. I bought it Wednesday afternoon and got Monday afternoon. I’m glad that I was able to get it while it was on sale because a couple days after I bought it, it was back to its original retail price. I’ve only had this Toshiba Satellite A305-S6872 for a couple days now and I haven’t tried all of its features like the webcam, media card reader and other stuff so I can’t write a review right now, but for sure I’ll be able to write a review in about a couple weeks time so watch out for that.
On a side note, now that I have this to work with, I’ll be doing a lot of catching up in the next few days - publishing new posts, blog hopping, replying to comments and emails. I’m also working on a new blog design/layout which I hope I would be able to finish and implement soon.
Thank you for your time and have a good day!
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:28 pm
hi! my father have bought me this laptop in Europe. I haven’t seen it yet, maybe on february…i hope it’s really okay and on high performance!
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:50 am
nice to meet you，Jaypee!
Mayby as to you i am a special one appear in your webside ~I come from China and I bought the same laptop(toshiba A305 S6872)as you just now.BUT I AM NOT SURE WHETHER I CAN HANDLE IT~well,you have used it for several months,yes?can you tell something I should do or shouldn’t do with my laptop?and if you can tell me more about your experience when you use it,I will be appreciate your help!THANK YOU!
陈海涛 GUANGZHOU, CANTON, CHINA
December 25th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
@Alex - I don’t think it has to do with the laptop but with your web browser and the flash plugin it uses. What browser are you using?
I’ve had this issue before with Firefox when viewing YouTube videos. What I did was to uninstall and install the Flash player. Try to do that and see if that fixes the problem. Let me know if it works or not. Hope that helps.
December 25th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I was wondering on TOSHIBA SATELLITE A305-S6872 why i cannot view FULL SCREEN when it comes to video/music trailers (e.g http://www.movietickets.com, under “view trailer”) More importantely when i click on FULL SCREEN the screen goes blank/dark while audio is running?????
November 30th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
@vin - You’re welcome! Glad I could help.
November 30th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Thanks a lot jaypee. I was able to turn of the icons..
Thank you,
Vin
November 29th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
@vin - Sent you an email on how to do that.
November 29th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
can someone tell me how to turn off bright icons (between speakers) on this labtop
November 10th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
@Dexter - Really? Sorry to hear about that. Well, maybe if you have family members or friends here in the US you can ask them to buy it here and have it shipped to you in Saudi.
November 10th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Nice specs.. It is great that you are in US and buying online is agreat choice. We cannot do it in Saudi.. and we have no choice but to get it from store
November 10th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
@jhay - I’ve been working with Toshiba laptops for very long time. I just don’t know why I never thought about buying one before. Anyways, I’ve seen and proven that Toshiba laptops are the most durable. I have a friend who bought a Toshiba laptop back in 2001, he still has it with him and everything still works.
Congratulations on your new toy dude! You deserve it. Have fun!
November 10th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I’m not that familiar with Toshiba laptops but obviously it’s kick-ass rig. You definitely got a great deal on this one.
Btw, you’re not the only one with a new toy dude
November 6th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
@archondigital - Haha..that’s right it does match and rhymes very nicely. I think they provided the cleaning cloth not only to wipe off the smudges and fingerprints but also to wipe off drool.
November 6th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
…doesn’t “oozing” match with “drooling”? This laptop is to drool for…
Good features and definitely a good buy with the sale price.
November 6th, 2008 at 3:30 am
@jayvee - I don’t have to coz I’m here in the US. But I do plan to get an extended warranty for maybe another year just to be sure. Anyways, thanks for the info!
November 6th, 2008 at 3:29 am
you can apply for local warranty at the toshiba store in MegaMall, unless it already has international warranty.
November 5th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
@Joni - Thanks but it doesn’t look as great as your Macbook!
November 5th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Looks great! Congrats on your new baby!
November 5th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
@Aja - Yep, it does. I was a bit concerned at first on how it might look coz it didn’t look that nice from BestBuy’s product page. But when I opened the box and saw it, love at first sight.
Regarding the weight and size, well I don’t travel a lot and I rarely use it as a “laptop” so the weight is not much of an issue. For screen size, I like this better than a 14″ display. It’s not too small and not too big, just the right size for me.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Looks good. Just one question though: Isn’t it too big and heavy at 15.4″?
November 5th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
@Maki - Hehe..that’s a unique term “oozing” Thanks! I’m just fortunate to be able to get this laptop at such a low price.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Wow that’s a really nice laptop that’s oozing with specs!
November 5th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
@Joie - Thanks man! I’m very happy with this new toy and I’m glad I made the right choice this time.
November 5th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
that’s a great buy.. Congrats on the new laptop..
November 5th, 2008 at 11:45 am
@K - Haha is that so? Don’t you love the smell of a new laptop/gadget?
Yes, the moment I opened the box I got busy uninstalling the bloatware, installing programs and uploading files. I always have fun doing this may it be for a new machine or even after a reinstall/reformat.
November 5th, 2008 at 11:44 am
I could still smell it right back here.
Now you have all the reason to get really busy - updating all those nice applications to your new toy is fun to do at the moment, don’t you think?
November 5th, 2008 at 8:55 am
@suzanne - Thanks! I did a lot of research, reading reviews and browsing through different sites to get the best deal. I was fortunate to get this laptop at sale price.
November 5th, 2008 at 8:53 am
good choice!
November 5th, 2008 at 5:10 am
@dante - Yes, it is definitely much better than the previous laptop in all aspects. Not only for hardware specifications but also in performance. The other laptop is still under warranty so I’m sending it to Compaq so they can check and if possible repair it as long as the service/parts are covered by the warranty.
Thanks for sharing.
November 5th, 2008 at 5:07 am
Wow, your new laptop is much better that your old one. The microprocessor of Compaq Presario C714NR is only dual core while your new lapotop is core 2 dou which is must better. Don’t mind to restore the old. For me, laptop is not serviceable and has a rare spare parts you have to return to the manufacturer if you got a problem. So go for your new laptop.
November 5th, 2008 at 3:25 am
@Lloyd - Thanks man! Yup, it had the best specs with it’s original retail price and getting it $150 lesser was more than a bargain. Haven’t tried playing video on HD yet but will check it out. Thanks for the info.
Battery life? The one I got has a 9 cell battery so it lasts about 4 hours which is more than double the battery life of my previous laptop. I’ll talk more about it when I write the review for this laptop.
November 5th, 2008 at 3:23 am
Congrats of your new laptop! Nice specs as well for the price. You should get a nice HD playback as well because of the hardware acceleration it gets from Intel’s new 4500M.
How the battery life? I was using a Toshiba Laptop when I was in the US, sadly battery life is not their best forte.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:10 am
@Ade - Tastes even better! Hehe just kidding. It doesn’t only look good but also performs very well!
November 5th, 2008 at 2:08 am
Looks good!