Toshiba Satellite 5205-S705

Tags:notebook computers,Toshiba Satellite 5205-S705 notebook computers,notebook computers

Pros: Spiffy design, beautiful case, nice display

Cons: Where do I begin?

Summary: I purchased this computer 2 years ago, in October of 2003. In December, the hard drive failed. Three months after getting that replaced, the power adapter failed and the CD/DVD writer/player stopped working. Four months later, another hard drive replacement. Rather than take you through the timeline, I have had to replace my hard drive three times, my CD/DVD burner four times, the power adapter once, the motherboard once, the speakers twice, memory boards once, CPU twice, all in less than two years. During all those repairs, I found that my CPU at times would not run at stated specifications and I had to specifically make note to the repair depot to not reclock my CPU. And now my power adapter is failing me again AND my display has developed these two horizontal lines of dead pixels along the bottom of my screen for no reason whatsoever. Take my advice and purchase another computer... this one is not worth your time.


When it works, it's beautiful. It's fast, sound quality is great, picture quality is much better than my old Dell and I like all the added features. However, I did a LOT of research before buying this computer... took weeks to decide which computer I wanted and thought I looked at everything. I didn't. After I started having problems, I came across countless user reviews about this and other Toshiba notebook models having the same problems and many others. My Toshiba gets so hot on the bottom (even sitting on a notebook cooler) that it could literally blister skin. Toshiba already settled a class-action lawsuit due to overheating issues in the 5005 series and the attorney that handled that case said that he's been getting numerous complaints about the 5205 series. I have a feeling that the heat problem is what's causing most of the other problems as well.

In all fairness, whenever I had problems, I just called up my local Toshiba repair depot (mine was located in Tokyo -- 12 hours away from me) and they sent a courier to pick up my computer. They were very friendly and helpful during all of my issues and were apologetic to the point of embarrassment when it kept breaking down. I have a feeling though, that this was mostly due to Japanese culture (the customer service is incredible over there, especially in comparison to the American counterpart) rather than anything Toshiba itself is responsible for.

I am currently in the process of requesting a replacement computer, at Toshiba's expense. I'll post that review once I get my new notebook. Hopefully, Toshiba will replace my notebook with one that is comparable to what mine should have been. I'm looking at the G25-AV513. It is very close, specification-wise, to what my 5205-s705 claimed to be. If anyone has any reviews of that monster, I'd love to hear them.



Pros: When it works, solid computer across the board

Cons: All it takes is one problem, and the flood gates open, and customer service won't be able to solve anything
Summary: I had a simple problem - hard drive crashed (13 months after purchase). Lucky I had extended warrantee. Wifi card never worked either. I sent the unit in 4 times and they never fixed the problem, meanwhile additional problems emerged. Warrantee ran out. They went back on their claims to replace the unit, and told me I had to pay for future servicing. Despite replacing 3 different components more than once, they couldn't admit they had a faulty unit.

Stay away, if any problems ever emerge, run away fast.