Toshiba Satelllite P105-S921 17" Laptop (Intel Core Duo Processor T2400 (Centrino), 1024 MB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, DVD SuperMulti Drive) | 
 enlarge | Brand: Toshiba
Category: Personal Computer
This item is no longer available
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 1390
Media: Personal Computers
Operating System: Windows XP Professional Edition
CPU Manufacturer: Intel
CPU Speed: 2
CPU Type: Intel Centrino
Processors: 1
System Bus Speed: 667
System Memory: 1000
Memory Type: DDR2 SDRAM
Hard Drive Size: 160
Floppy Disk Drive: None
Graphics RAM: 256
Modem: Fax / modem
Display Size: 17
Shipping Weight (lbs): 11
Dimensions (in): 16.2 x 14 x 5
Warranty: 1 year warranty
MPN: pspa6u-01200p
Model: PSPA6U-01200P
UPC: 032017539655
EAN: 0032017539655
ASIN: B000EZIGI4
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| Features:
| • | Powerful multimedia, gaming PC with 17-inch LCD; 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo T2400 with 2 MB L2 cache | | • | Extra-large 160 GB hard drive, 1 GB of RAM, dual-layer, multi-format DVD/CD burner | | • | Four USB 2.0, one FireWire, one S-Video, one DVI-D, one PCMCIA | | • | Nvidia GeForce Go 7900 graphics card with 256 MB of dedicated RAM; tri-mode 802.11a/b/g wireless connectivity | | • | Windows XP Professional Edition, SP2 |
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Product Description
The Toshiba Satellite P105-S921 Notebook PC is ultimate gaming by design. This notebook packs an awesome gaming experience into a thinner & lighter notebook, with a stunning 17" diagonal widescreen display. The 1440 x 900 resolution, TruBrite technology and nVIDIA graphics card deliver uninterrupted, unforgettable play time. You can also connect to plasma TV, turn up the sound on the harman/kardon speakers, and shake the foundations with your gaming. If you're ready to get serious about your gamin experience, the Toshiba Satellite P105-S921 is for you. 17.0 TruBrite TFT active display LCD screen Native resolution - 1440 x 900 (WXGA) 1GB DDR2 SDRAM 160GB 4200 rpm Serial-ATA hard drive DVD SuperMulti (+/-R double layer) drive supporting 11 different formats nVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 with 256MB GDDR3 discrete graphics memory Built-in harman/kardon stereo speakers with SRS TruSurround XT virtual surround and SRS WOW stereo enhancement 5-in-1 Bridge Media Adapter -- supports SD and MMC cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, xD-Picture Card Connectivity - FireWire, DVI-D, S/P DIF output, RGB out, S-Video, microphone input, headphone out, RJ-11 (modem), RJ-45 (LAN) Operating System - Windows XP Professional Software included - Microsoft Works 8.5, MS Office OneNote 2003, Java 2 Runtime environment, Adobe Acrobat Reader, InterVideo WinDVD 5, Sonic Solutions RecordNow! and DLA, Windows Media Player 10, Yahoo! Music Engine, McAfee VirusScan, antiSpyware, Personal Firewall Plus, SpamKiller (30-day trials); MS Office (60-day Student Teacher Ed.), AOL Unit Dimensions(WxDxH) - 15.5 x 10.8 x 1.41 (275 x 35.9 x 41.9 mm) Weight - 7.1 lbs. (3.2 Kg)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 My third 17inch Toshiba model -- a great thing made better! July 24, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Having loved my P25 and P35 Toshibas with seventeen inch screens I tried but couldn't resist this P105-S921.
If you've read my reviews of those models, you'll recall that I recommend the extended warranty with accidental breakage plan. Well, I can now tell you I've used it and it works. My notebook fell and the big bright seventeen inch screen was broken and it was very quickly replaced. SEE my review of their replacement plan / extended warranty.
But enough of that, let's talk about the new model. Your first order of business will be to pop in a writable CD and create a restore disk -- there's an icon right on the desktop for this purpose and you can't miss it. Takes very little time. In fact, if you were worried about figuring out how to write a disc then this will put you at ease.
Those hotkeys-in-the-glidepad really freaked me out at first. What are they? How do they work? How do I make them STOP? You'll be tempted to write these off as glitzy gimmickery, but in fact, they are quite useful. One tap turns them on, and they look really cool all lit up in blue. Well, they do! Same for the speakers. Anyway, once enabled you can do an email, get onto the internet, do a printscreen and three other functions of your own choosing. You can also control the volume. Some features automatically cause the hotkeypad to turn itself off, but you can also just turn it off with one tap. Otherwise, it's just a really good glidepad.
I can tell you this, the lightness of this laptop will cause you to shove other items into your carry case so that you will then think it's not so light at all. For me, it was the Toshiba digital camera, it's AC charger and USB cable, two or three books, a Palm Pilot and cell phone AC charger, among other things. For a while there I was even toting along an extra notebook computer -- for use by others so they could stop asking to use my new P105.
At first I was concerned about the battery life, having long since been spoiled by the ACTUAL five hour battery life of the P25 -- under intensive use. FORTUNATELY, I soon realized that when I tested the P105 I was continuously running the wireless internet connection. That two-way radio transmission using a ton of power.
The P105 is relatively cool on my lap compared to the P25 which was packing a desktop Pentium chip that emitted enough heat to stave off winter. The P105 runs a CPU designed especially for notebook computers for low heat output and a thinner form factor.
The glide pad seems a bit too far left, so that early on I found myself gliding over the case where my finger was used to finding the pad on the earlier model. The added numeric keypad is a very nice use of all that extra real estate surrounding the keyboard, but may take some getting used to. ACTUALLY, the glidepad is in exactly the RIGHT place for the regular keyboard, which is left of the numeric keypad. This is MUCH better than Averatec's 17 inch, where the glidepad's position is wrong.
In addition to the expected XP Pro, it comes with a six-month trial version of MS Office 2003, student & teacher edition, and all its elements. I find "trial" software like this LOATHESOME, as it's no more than an attempt to force you to purchase a product. When I buy a computer, just GIVE me some software, but don't include any trial crud, which I could get off the manufacturer's website IF I wanted it, which I don't, or I'd already have it.
There's a lot more to tell, and I'll be back soon to add all that in. For now, if you're thinking of buying a used P105 S921, I'd say go right on and get one -- but don't expect me to part with mine!
 just what i was looking for June 26, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I looked for a very long time in search of the perfect laptop for my situation. I am going into college this fall and I wanted something that a) had a great screen for watching DVDs b) was portable enough to carry around when I wanted to and c) had considerable graphical muscle. I landed on this model right here and so far it has fulfilled my every expectation. The 17'' screen looks great, the weight isn't oppressive, and the graphical capability is just what I was looking for. By that I mean that this machine can run Oblivion with the graphics options almost completely maxed out (all that I have switched off is self-shadowing which I've heard sucks up more power than it is worth) and not a hint of slowdown.
I have only had it a few weeks and I have yet to try and move it very far so I cannot eliminate the possibility of problems down the road, but as of now I am completely satisfied. Oh, the 2/3 or 3/4 size or whatever on some of the keys (shift and the arrow keys especially) is a bit of a problem - I don't see why they didn't scrunch up the numbers on the number pad instead - but I can still type pretty normally and I'm sure I'll get used to the setup.
A great gaming laptop May 15, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I bought tis laptop because I wanted a laptop with good gaming performance and I didn't want to spend the 4k that a fully loaded Dell MPS 1710 would cost. So far, I am very pleased with it. I have played FEAR and Doom 3 at 1024x768 with no problems, and I can play Rise of Legends at the full resolution of the laptop.
The battery life has been around 2hrs or so, which is great for a laptop with this performance. Also, the laptop is much cooler (temp wise) than any other gaming laptop I have ever used.
The only complaints that I have have been brought up above....the HD is slow, and the maximum volume on the sound is relatively low. Also, there is one little oddity. I couldn't get the laptop to Autorun or Autoplay, even after making sure that the settings were correct in the registry. Then, I discovered why...the optical drive in the laptop supports DVD-RAM, so because of this, it loads up a DVD-RAM service...this service disables Autoplay. To get Autoplay to work, you have to prevent the DVD-RAM service from starting up, which of course removes DVD-RAm support from the drive. A minor annoyance, but one to be aware of.
All in all, a great laptop, with great gaming performance at an unbeatable price.
A review from someone who actually bought a P105 (finally). April 26, 2006
35 out of 38 found this review helpful
Well if you got tired of reading peoples opinions about something THEY DO NOT EVEN OWN (ahem), good news for you is that this review is done after purchasing this laptop from Amazon.
It shipped out pretty quickly, but due to a screw up in the rebate process, the Amazon rebate was a painful event. Eventually, after going through two BAD customer service personel at Amazon (one who didn't feel like helping me, and one who accidentally hung up on me), I finally reached intelligent life over there and got it sorted out. Anyways, what follows is my review from notebookforums.com (great place to get more info...)
Toshiba Satellite P105-S921 Review
Introduction:
OK, as you probably know, the big deal here is the new Toshiba is A) The first true gaming laptop from Toshiba and B) The first laptop to be fitted with Nvidia's new Geforce 7900GS.
System Specifications:
The P105-S921 is driven by an Intel Centrino Duo (Dual Core) 1.8G CPU. , x512MB 667MHz ram, a 160GB 4200RPM Fujitsu (strange in that Toshiba makes drives of its own as well...)
The monitor is a 17" glossy , and the videocard is the 7900GS. Some new Toshiba features, such as a dual mode touchpad which you can use to launch programs as well as drive the mouse, and a fingerprint ID scanner to login to the machine with, also exist. The ID scanner is pretty cool, letting you scan in up to 20 different fingerprints, allowing mulitple fingerprint users. For more info on specs go visit Toshiba's website on the specs, as I don't see the purpose of me regurgitating specs here.
Chassis Design and Build Quality:
The design quality is acceptable, and while there are a few minor complains I have, they are mostly small annoyances. For one, the ridiculous hotkey buttons built into the laptop, and two, the LED lights which illuminate the Harmon Kardon speaker clusters... They are a little distracting, and might get me some looks at wrok... and I think about the 2 minutes of power they rob from my battery life. But that's just me. The good news is that, for 17" game capable laptop, this is a light machine, weighing in at about 7 lbs. It's also relatively thin, too. This is about as portable as 17" gets.
Screen... There is an average amount of flex to the screen, and the point between the screen hinges (where the TOSHIBA logo resides) is particularly cheesy... Pushing on the Toshiba logo will cause the screen and the frame to bend a bit. That area should have been more reinforced than it is.
Keyboard... is OK. It feels a little different to me than other laptops I have used, but works well, just makes clicky-clacky sounds. Another guy I work with said he liked it, so go figure. He owns a mac laptop anyways. YMMV. There is a bit of flex in it, but nothing too bad. It is also not fully sized... the LETTERS are sized right but some keys, like quotes and other specials chars, are 2/3rd sized instead. Personally don't dig this and whish they would have just put in a full sized keyboard - it looks like they had room to do it if they were inclined to. It does have a numpad though, which is full sized.
Sound... is amazing. As Fujitsu have mastered LCD screen and Dell has mastered 1 day coupon deals, Toshiba has taken audio to a new level with these speakers. I'm not afraid to say that I have what you'd call a golden ear, after countless bands and years of playing and composing... and the fidelity of what comes out of this laptop with regards to sound is far and away, the best I have ever heard on stock speakers.
Performance:
In order to gauge system performance, I loaded 3dMark05 and 06. Stock drivers, no tweaks, and this is what you get:
3DMark2005: 6202
3DMark2006: 3766
While that isn't as high as the 7800 GTX's I have a feeling that if one wanted to overclock this card, they could easily... The laptop does not get very hot at all, even under gaming conditions. There is a fan that will turn on ocassionally, with venting to the rear left side of the laptop. And then there is the 90nm construction of the 7900.. which makes it more overclockable than say, a 110nm 7800.
HDD:
RANDACC: 19.9ms
AVG READ: 25.9 MB/S
Battery Life:
Battery life seems very good, around 2.5 hours initially.
Conclusion:
This laptop meets my expectations. My other (cheaper) option was the MSI-1039 but I finally decided the screen and the videocard advantages of this model compelled me to take the plunge. As a technology consultant, and a gamer (sometimes) and someone who was looking to replace their desktop... it achieves what is required. For someone trying to meet all three goals (Work, Play, Home) this is good stuff, and not too badly priced either. For people who want a business laptop, there are cheaper, lighter solutions. For gaming only, a hot running, power sucking 7800GTX in a thick brick of a laptop is the way to go. And for those who want truest of DTR's, you would want a slightly larger keyboard. Thus, a good compromise of all three would result in something called the Toshiba Satellite P105-S921.
Pros:
Very portable (for 17") and thin.
Very strong GPU Performance
Runs very cool
Harman/Kardon speaker system (WOW!)
Light relative to features
Fingerprint ID system
Price-Performance ratio very good (1850.00 OTD via Amazon.com)
Looks sleek.
Cons:
LCD screen resolution (YMMV, personally I like this resolution, but it isn't as high as some others)
Drive speed is only 4200 RPM, and considering the speed benefits of 7200RPM, what were they thinking, exactly?
Good, but not great, color warmth from screen.
Flexy Screen
Laptop finish around keyboard is sprayed on silver, this will wear away showing the grey/black finish beneath eventually.
Average Build Quality (Fujitsu is better, HP is better. This reminds me of Dell.)
NO "clean" XP CD. (Toshiba will NOT send you an XP CD WITHOUT AOL crap, Yahoo Crap, and alllll kinds of other Crap, preloaded for your disenjoyment.) They even train the technicians to believe that no such XP CD's exist at Toshiba without these programs! Maybe that makes sense if you're not a computer engineer. If you are, it sounds plain ignorant. I had to spend several hours cleaning the registry.
But overall, I'm really happy with it, works great for looking at code or spreadsheets or databases, and plays games like FEAR well also. Funny to think it will be obsolete in just a couple years! ;)
Great price, but Toshiba isn't perfect April 19, 2006
23 out of 27 found this review helpful
I have a P25-S607 and I can tell you that Toshiba laptops are generally built well aside from one major component, the hard drive. They tend to last around 1.5-2 years. If you search forums for P series discussions, you will find this happens to most owners of these laptops. However, the hard drive is not difficult to replace. In 1.5-2 years, you will be able to purchase a bigger/faster hard drive and easily install it. A word of advice on HD installation; be careful with the HD pin cover. It is not difficult to install, but you have to make sure it is lined up properly or you can easily damage it. Another problem area with Toshibas is an occasionally crappy optical drive. However, you will probably end up replacing this drive in a few years anyway with a blue ray or HD-DVD drive when the prices go down. They are also not difficult to replace, but require a little more time with a screwdriver in order to replace.
The core duo processor is very fast for its clock speed, so do not let the low frequency (1.83 GHz) fool you. The performance of this processor is roughly equivalent to the Athlon X2 3800+ in most areas, but not in gaming. AMD still owns the gaming segment until the launch of Conroe. However, this processor is a much better processor than anything with netburst architecture. It may fall short of a 3.73 GHz Pentium D EE in performance but it uses a tiny fraction of the power of that Pentium D and produces far less heat. Personally, I think the 2.0 GHz Core Duo would have been more appropriate for this computer, but the 1.83 is still no slouch.
The Geforce 7900 is an excellent graphics card that will allow you to play anything out there, albeit not on the absolute highest settings. A desktop SLI rig is obviously going to be much more powerful than a single GPU laptop. This GPU is also not upgradeable, which gives many people reservations about a gaming laptop. Alienware laptops have upgradeable GPUs, but are insanely expensive. Plus, you simply cannot overclock the processor on any mainstream computer, including this one. However, you can overclock the GPU with Rivatuner or whatever software you prefer, but watch out, overclocked laptop GPUs tend to overheat.
The weight and sheer bulk of a 17" laptop make them mobile only when compared to a desktop. This is not for a road warrior. However, moving this computer from room to room will be much easier than trying to move a desktop around. Personally, I move mine all over the house but rarely take it out of the house.
This computer is windows Vista ready with one caveat; most experts agree that 2 gigs of RAM will be necessary to fully enjoy Vista. Two gigs of RAM also improve game play, so it will probably be the fist upgrade made by most gamers that purchase it. RAM is not difficult to swap in these laptops, it is as simple as removing a plate and unsnapping it, then snapping in the new ram and screwing the plate back on.
Overall, if you know what you are doing, have around $2,000 to spend on a laptop, and actually want a gaming laptop, go ahead and buy this one. You won't find a better gaming laptop for the price.
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