Toshiba Satellite E45-B4200 14in. (750GB, Intel Core i5 4th Gen., 2.7GHz, 6GB) Notebook/Laptop - Gold

Bought this as a cheap shared computer for my home, and now that I've used it for about a day I'll leave some initial impressions. I usually update reviews like this if anything goes wrong or my impression gets worse with time :)General summary: bought for $420 and could not reasonably be happier given the price; when I've bought cheap windows machines in the past they've usually failed abysmally at one of: performance, screen quality, trackpad and keyboard usability, or build quality, and usually on some less important things like speaker quality or tedious setup finding new versions of drivers etc. This machine doesn't appear to fail in any area, is good to surprisingly good in every area I care about1) setup was easy, there's some bloatware but not too much and easy enough to remove; was using within 20 minutes and didn't need to fiddle with drivers (I've bought cheap windows machines in the past that were missing crucial drivers or had horribly outdated ones of the box)2) the screen quality *is* actually quite good the for the price; compared alongside my retina macbook pro and it held up quite well - of course the resolution was significantly less, but it's still pleasant to look at and better than my older 2011 macbook pro; I don't know the color gamut/rgb coverage, etc, but subjectively when comparing photos side by side to my retina macbook they were quite good, felt like maybe 80% as good as the macbook; brightness is also less than the macbook, but still quite good3) typing and trackpad use are smooth, took less than 5 minutes to get acquainted; when I've tried cheap-o windows laptops in the past usually one or both of these have been terrible, but these are perfectly good; prefer my macbook, but have no problem working on these for extended periods4) the hinges: makes me a bit nervous to just have to thin hinges by themselves like this, and they have a tiny amount of play; might be fine, but I'll probably be extra careful to prevent damage over time5) overall build quality: seems quite good, well-sealed, feels sturdy, except for very small amount of play in hinge it seems quite solid6) speed: about what I expected, does well with 15+ browser tabs and a few office applications open; startup feels slow after using nothing but ssd machines for along time but that's expected;7) speakers: loud and good sound for the price; compared to my macbook it sound slightly "underwater" but I didn't notice until doing a careful side by side comparison; listened to some of my favorite music for a few hours and it never sounded weird or bad8) size and weight: pretty good; not a huge amount of screen bezel, so about what you'd expect for a pc w/ 14" screen; fairly light though you won't mistake it for an ultrabook9) webcame is great; usually this is one of the really crummy parts of cheap laptops, but this one is very good quality for skype calls and the like; even in total darkness with me only being illuminated by the laptop screen it gets the color balance right9) misc: power adapter is nice and small; fan seems to run at a low level almost all the time but hard to notice even in a quiet room, when it picks up speed it's a little less pleasant sounding than some other machines but tolerable;

Update 8/18: The Toshiba came back from the repair depot in early August. In-the-shop-time: 1.5 months. Really bad.Update 7/27: My Toshiba is still in the repair depot awaiting a apart. It has been five weeks since it died. Customer Service is useless to help: they are nice people in India or the Philippines but can only stare at a screen and recite back to you on repair status.Update 6/28: The three USB ports on my B4100 failed two weeks ago. Toshiba was OK in diagnosing the issue as hardware related. Their warranty system requires the buyer to pay the shipping cost to the repair depot in Indiana. But Toshiba offered a deal: $29.95 for the shipping box and freight. I took the offer. It took a week for the box to arrive and a few days more to ship to Indiana. It is close to two weeks and my computer is just entering the repair queue. Not good. Window 8 still sucks but I get a free upgrade to Win 10 in late July. Like Win 7 was good after a bad Vista, I expect good things from Win 10.Update 5/4/15: It turns out that I received a B4100, not the B4200 I was expecting. The former sells for $25 less on Amazon. I contacted the seller who refunded $25. Performance of the laptop is nice. The screen is not as sharp as my Mac Air (2013) but not too bad. I am not over how much Win 8.1 sucks. Navigation is third world. The imposition of the "Metro" page onto a non-touchscreen device borders on Big Brother control. Is it any wonder why the world hates Microsoft but loves Apple?Original: This Toshiba laptop delivers on the promise of a compact light very functional computer. Mine replaced a vintage 2008 Toshiba and is half the weight and thickness. It does not have a CD drive which is its only drawback. As I get to know the computer more, I will provide additional updates.But it is obvious to me that Windows 8 sucks. My '08 computer was XP and worked great. I have other Mac on OS X. What was Microsoft thinking in selling this POS bloatware? In trying to configure the printers and shares, I find the navigation impossible.I was lucky enough to avoid Microsoft Vista. But I am caught now in the Microsoft Windows 8 BS. I am quick enough to avoid setting up a Microsoft account although the computer intends to trap you. I am going to try to have Toshiba downgrade me to Windows 7.

The Toshiba is slick, and there are a lot of nice features about it. However, I did have some problems with it. I have had it for about 10 months, and it has crashed multiple times (maybe 5 or 6) since I purchased it, starting a few months after I got it. It also crashed and wouldn't turn back on, and I had to let the battery drain in order to be able to turn it back on again. This took 2 days. I have kept this laptop in good shape, it has antivirus software, and I steer clear of sketchy attachments and websites (since it is my work computer). Luckily it was still under warranty, and I sent it back to Toshiba to have it checked out. The process took a long time. I ordered a special shipping box from Toshiba. The whole process, from when I called them with the complaint until I got it back repaired took about a month. They replaced the hard drive. Customer service was really nice. I will note that the left arrow key no longer works. Warning: do NOT upgrade to windows 10. It crashed and I couldn't enter Windows and had to reformat it again. All in all, I would say you get what you pay for.