Opinions?

**~~insanegammer109~~** · 09-24-10, 03:46 PM

Looking for a small laptop for school.
Satellite L630-ST2G01 : Toshiba Laptops | Toshiba Direct
Is what I am looking at right now, Free shipping and $120 off when you buy it prebuilt (Can't customize anything or you lose the $120)

**~~insanegammer109~~** · 09-24-10, 10:50 PM

Anyone?

**moving-target** · 09-24-10, 11:00 PM

i know nothing bout laptops or desktops but you may want to edit your title to mention laptop ?

**HeavyG** · 09-25-10, 08:53 AM

Personally, I wouldn't go with Toshiba. I had a bad experience with them in the past as they used a desktop Pentium 4 CPU in a notebook to save costs. Well that CPU ran so hot that it would hit thermal throttling (start to run slower than spec to cool down), and then eventually shut off my entire PC. The CPU eventually died. I was able to salvage the laptop by putting in a lower power, cooler running Celeron CPU. Anyways... bad experienc = not gonna buy a Toshiba computer ever again.

I am very happy with my HP Dv5t. I also have a 14" Dell Inspiron that has been a great system for over 2 years. Neither are suited well for serious gaming. That Toshiba you listed has a Core i5, which is nice, but it has an ATI 5145, which is worse than my 9600M GT from 2 years ago. Basically, it won't play games very well, but the low res monitor might allow some decent frame rates.

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5145 - Notebookcheck.net Tech

This might be a decent deal, I just have a bad opinion of Toshiba. All in all, if it will give higher performance than any other notebook at that size/price, then I say get it.

**~~insanegammer109~~** · 09-25-10, 02:35 PM

I've had good experience with Toshiba in the past, Its not for serious gaming at all only some light games here and there.
Main thing I'll need it to run at somepoint is AutoCAD for my engineering courses.

Is there anyway to benefit from running the integrated graphics in the i5 with the 5145 if needed.