One of common ways to attract customers is to redesign product from time to time. This time Toshiba Satellite’s turn came up and we tested exact model Satellite A300D-125. Letter “D” point to AMD processor but the whole story about external looks can be applied also on Intel variant.

In two words – dazzle everywhere. Not only has that cover partially looked like mirror but the complete keyboard is done in shine black so-called piano finish. Notebook looks powerfully despite the fact that is actually real magnet for dust and fingerprints. Sounds nuts but we get the feeling that fingerprints are less visible if you touch cover all over.  And we just cannot escape the feeling that the same trend is used as for Acer Aspire Gemstone Blue series . Anyway, regarding on trends tough days are coming for neatest notebook users. Cover and case around keyboard are dark colored with silver-gray stripes. Case has rounded edges with modern stripes and everything looks really nice. As we said before, the only problem is surface finish. But, in time we get used to “smeary” case and by the end of the test it didn’t bother us anymore (than again we are blokes). Let’s get back on design.

Touch pad is almost in level with palm rest and it differs from surroundings by slightly rough surface. It’s worth to underline it is very precise. On top side of touch pad is placed white translucent LED strap as visual edge of touch pad. This strap makes easy navigation in poor lighting conditions. Touch pad is located right beside two slightly bulgy metallic silver buttons.

To test bending of keyboard we applied significant pressure and keyboard reacted with big resistance. Bending was hardly noticeable, a very pleasant surprise for us. Deep keystrokes and everything else mentioned, contributed to a very high grade for keyboard and touch pad. Pictograms along the edge of the case denote position of VGA, USB and network ports but also position of cards reader. S-video and FireWire are not marked, probably because of their rare usage. Volume control and Wireless switch can be found on front side of notebook. Beside regular multimedia keys, Toshiba Satellite A300D has bar of touch sensitive sensors. They all have same backlight as top edge of touch pad. If you don’t like this option, you can turn off the light while sensors will continue functioning normally. If that is the case, sensors will be a bit harder to notice.
Screen offers picture of average quality and it has high brightness and contrast levels. Because of these attributes comfortable work is possible even under bright lighting conditions (bright sunny day), despite the reflection. For multimedia enjoyment are responsible Harman/Kardon speakers (needless to say anything further on this subject). We were unpleasantly surprised with absence of DVI and HDMI connectors, because this is notebook mainly oriented on home multimedia.

For the first time we had opportunity to test notebook with ATi Radeon HD 3470 graphics card. This model is successor of popular HD 2400 series and it is better for about 10% in performances from HD 2400XT. It has 128 MB of video memory and it can use, if there is a need for it, system RAM. Toshiba Satellite A300D-125 is equipped with one 2GB memory module. Hard disk has a decent capacity but it is not speed demon. Web camera gives an average picture quality with a little bit pale colors. Part of the case, left from touch pad, warms up after prolonged intensive work, but still didn’t cause discomfort.
Warranty for this model is two years, which is enough to cover time period of high market value for this notebook.