13, Jan, 2025
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Toshiba Satellite 1800

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Toshiba’s new 1800 series Pentium 111 notebook is a bit of a puzzle. Toshiba currently offers two default configurations for the 1800 series: a Celeron 800MHz (the 9S9)
and the one APC tested, a Pentium HI 850MHz (the WFX). Both notebooks come with only 64M of RAM. This is acceptable for a Celeron, but it seriously reduces the capabilities of a regular Pentium HI.
The WFX is a pleasant notebook to use. The keyboard and TrackPoint are responsive, and the display is bright enough, although it’s a little small. It’s slightly bulkier than other notebooks, but
this is the price you pay for DVD, floppy and a full range of ports and connectivity options. When playing DVDs, it drains slightly less battery power than the Satellite 2800/15 — on average, it used about 10% for 10 minutes of playback.
The WFX’s benchmark scores are rather disappointing, because the machines with where it scored close to (and occasionally slightly lower than) IBM’s 700MHz Celeron Thinkpad. It also performed poorly in Ziff-Davis’ Business Winstone 2001 test, which gauges the system’s performance in everyday use. Here it only scored 2% higher than the Celeron Thinkpad. The lesson here is dear: without a decent amount of RAM, high-end processors cannot realise their full potential. It’s like asking a riot cop to do their job without pants. Sure, the baton, shield and helmet are all menacing — but without the basics, their effectiveness is seriously hindered.
The WFX’s default configuration situates it uncomfortably between budget and midrange notebooks. It has some of the features of a high-end system, such as DVD, onboard
lower specifications that we tested this month often outclassed it. This was especially apparent in Ziff-Davis’ Business and High-End Graphics WinMark 99 tests,
infra-red, and just about every input and output port you could need. Toshiba seems to be trying to get the best of both worlds, mixing components from different price ranges to create a competitively priced portable that packs a punch. Unfortunately, the WFX’s overall system performance is let down by the fact that its processor needs at least 128M of RAM to do its job. Full test results can be found on this month’s cover CDs.
If you’re after a decent mid-range notebook, the WFX is a reasonable choice — but do yourself a favour and fork out the extra $80 for a memory upgrade.

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Notebooks

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