I was given the opportunity to review Toshiba’s SE (Special Edition) Satellite E200 laptop. Briefly, this laptop is armed with a Core-i5 processor, 4GB memory, discrete graphics and loaded with 64-bit Windows 7 and Toshiba’s built in utility system that makes life easier for you, i.e. there’s a prompt that lets you turn your optical drive on and off to conserve your battery.
Look and Feel
Allow me to share with you what’s inside this full 14″ laptop. First up, it weighs 2.24kg with battery included; it comes with a standard webcam, a full keyboard with dedicated touch buttons on the right side. The touch buttons on the right consist of the Power button and six others below it – a configurable one, the keyboard backlight switch, multimedia and the volume controls.
This laptop is curvy and shiny all over, you can almost use it as mirror. The touchpad is finished with a matte overlay while the left and right-click buttons below it are quite huge than what I normally want.
This machine only has 2 USB ports, one located on the right side and the other on the left. The right side is loaded with other ports: eSata, HDMI port, the 5-in-1 multimedia card, a slot-in DVD SuperMulti (+/-R double layer) drive with Labelflash; which looks neat. There is a dedicated Wi-fi button on the right side below the touchpad.
The laptop has a shiny, glossy finish and OC people will definitely want a micro-fibre cloth to clean your fingerprints once in a while. The keyboard is equipped with a LED backlight which automatically turns off when the system becomes idle.
The VGA , LAN port and the A/C ports are located at the back portion of the laptop. I am not sure if this a standard for Toshiba but placing it there is pretty convenient, less wires and cables on the side.
Do note that the A/C adopter that comes with it is not the standard that we have in the Philippines. Be ready to get an adapter after you buy this laptop.
Performance and Battery Life
The Toshiba Satellite E200 SE performs as expected for a Core i5 system. I have tested multiple applications running at the same time – multi-tabbed internet browsing while streaming via HDMI a downloaded movie on my LCD TV, with a couple of Microsoft Office application running at the background. You will not even notice that the movie being played in the LCD TV is coming from the laptop; no hiccups and plays very smoothly.
Speakers is average, and I would suggest you to connect it to an external speaker especially when viewing HD videos. Not unless you’re using its HDMI port to connect to your home entertainment system for your movies.
Here’s the Windows Experience Index.
One thing I noticed is that the keyboard area becomes hotter than your typical laptop once it performs more complex task, I noted this when I played a movie while browsing.
Battery life indicates more than 3 hours at full charge; a factor that you will not love if you don’t like bringing your charger in a coffee shop for long meetings or presentation.
Conclusion
If you will just base everything on performance, I’ll give this laptop a very satisfactory grade. This can be your regular desktop replacement, but you will not be happy bringing this everyday because its heavy at 2.24kg. Now for an estimated SRP of P75,000.00, which you can buy two 11.6″ netbooks, I think you will think twice first, otherwise if you love and used to a 14″ laptop this one is for you.
Satelleite E200 Special Edition Specs
- Intel Core i5 520M @ 2.4GHz (2 cores, 4 threads)
- 4GB Dual-Channel DDR3 RAM
- NVidia GeForce 310M 512MB RAM
- 500GB SATA HDD
- WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
- Bluetooth 2.1
- HDMI port
- eSATA port
- 2 x USB 2.0 ports
- DVD+RW
- 5-in-1 card reader
- 6-cell Li-Ion battery
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
- Estimated SRP: 75,000
