Dude, I'm not getting a Dell... I bought a Toshiba M55-S325 notebook PC

My current four-year old Toshiba Satellite notebook PC was really starting to get finicky and lacking horsepower and just seemed like it was on the verge of something not-good, so I decided last week to start looking for a new machine.  No hurry, but there are so many machines available.  Today I threw up my hands and decided that this was enough screwing around.  After reading all these notebook PC specs and looking at a herd of machines at CompUSA out here in Boulder, Colorado, I bit the bullet and "pulled the trigger":  I bought the Toshiba Satellite M55-S325 for a grand total of $1,676.46.  That's $1,399 plus Boulder tax plus discounted 2-yr screen and battery replacement "plan".  Here are the specs:

• 1.73 GHz Pentium M
• 512 MB
• 533 MHz FSB
• 100 GB (5400 RPM)
• 14" WXGA (1280x768) TruBrite
• 8x DVD SuperMulti Double Layer writer
• 802.11b/g Wi-Fi
• V.92 modem
• 10/100 Ethernet
• XP Home
• 5.3 pounds

It's a nice small package and reasonably light.

I think it has a full trial version of MS Office on it, so I'll have to figure out how to upgrade my old Office 2002 most cheaply (including FrontPage).

It's a popular machine.  I got the last one in stock (besides the demo unit).  BUY.COM says "Temporarily Sold Out".

Here's a site with the announcement for the machine, Dated June 14, 2005.  I think that's the announcement for Toshiba's web availability for this model which was strangely blank on Tuesday when I checked after seeing the machine in the store on Tuesday. http://www.beststuff.com/article.php3?story_id=8450

It's Made in China.

I was surprised when the sales guy came out of the stock room with what seemed like a small box to be.  I though maybe that was the accessories box, but it was the entire system.  Quite light and small.

The M55-S3251 is identical but with XP Pro.

Mine is "Peacock Blue".  Copper and Gray are coming out later in the month.

It's not as powerful as I wanted, but the 17" screen was way too bulky and this model didn't have a 15" screen and the 2 GHz chip too expensive.  This should be good enough for me.  The disk seems like a really good deal.

I probably won't even take it out of the box until the weekend since a fair amount of configuration (e.g., Office) and data transfer will be required, but at least this one headache is now out of the way.

-- Jack Krupansky