Toshiba U405 Series Review

Just unpacked it. I am going to gradually update this review as i go through the set up and configuration steps..

Unpacking

Comes in a standard cardboard box, like pretty much all Toshiba laptops.Well packed. Good.
There is a restore DVD, sealed booklet, power adapter and cable. Battery is packed separate from the machine. Smart. No extra cables, microphones, earphones, nothing like that.

Machine looks absolutely gorgeous and slick. Shiny surface matches the new Vista glassy look. White LED controls and lighted logo look cool and catchy. Very nice.
Interesting that there is no screen latch. Just open the screen. I guess there is no need for it. And i agree, the latch holes always collected dust and breadcrumbs.
The keyboard while looking very nice, has a somewhat flimsy feel of a cheaper computer. Not for strong or big hands i believe.

Power up

Let's power it up. Power button is above the keyboard on the same surface. This is now normal for all laptops as i noticed. I however prefer those older sliders on a back or the front of the machine, like when you set it up with external monitor, you don't have to open the screen to turn it on or off.

After turning it on, it starts setting up Windows Vista. The machine comes with the Vista Business Service Pack 1. That's better than most of those machines that nowadays come with Home version.

Within about 4-5 minutes, the machine is done setting up and beeps to let you choose the initial user settings. The Administrator user is disabled by default and you can't use it to log in. You must select another user to be able to log in. The "good" thing is that the newly created user has Administrative rights on the machine so you can easily enable the Administrator user and change its password. The only other user on the machine is Guest and it is a good idea to keep that guy disabled forever.

Now we are finally through and can examine what kind of junk we have preinstalled on the machine. It appears that there is quite a few things that need to be taken care of before the machine becomes usable.

The machine comes with the MS Office 2007 preinstalled. Nice. Can I use it? NO. The version is something that does not support standard MS Office Value Pack Registration ID. I have a real version of MS Office so i tried entering the registration number. No luck. Looks like this is either an academic or some other type of a demo version of MS Office. Stupid.

Well, that means that we are up for a big cleaning... stay tuned.