Difference between revisions of "Toshiba Satellite 480CDT"

Toshiba Satellite 480CDT Overview

*Intel Mobile Pentium 233Mhz CPU (soldered to the mainboard, not replaceable)

*12.1-inch TFT color LCD (800x600 resolution, 100:1 contrast ratio)

*Chips&Tech CT65555 video controller (2MB VRAM, 24bit colour capable)

*ESS 1868 with Yamaha OPL3 Audio Card, SoundBlaster 2.0/Adlib capable emulation

*32 MB EDO RAM on-board up to 160 MB Max (2x64MB on Toshiba proprietary format RAM module)

*2.1 GB Toshiba HDD

*3.5 inch FDD placed in a removable bay

*Stereo speakers with analogue volume knob

*Single USB 1, PS/2, Serial, Parallel ports

*15V power supply (separate)

*Windows 3.1 and Windows 95/98 support, MS-DOS Sound Blaster Pro emulation

[[Image:Toshiba_Satellite_410CDT.jpg|Toshiba Satellite 410CDT 12"]]

Early Windows 95 era gaming released before 1997 or as office computer. While the video chipset is reasonably fast, the highlight of this laptop is the ESS 1688 audio chip with a true Yamaha OPL3 implementation, a model with a very good SoundBlaster emulation capability along with good MIDI capability. While finding drivers and configuring audio settings is quite cumbersome, the implementation is solid. The video chipset is well compatible with MS-DOS and Windows 95 games, offering well rounded performance. The only slight drawback is due to the video chipset not being as fast as NeoMagic controllers, making the laptop suited for most classic DOS games, including Quake, avoiding any resolution that is higher than 400x300 resolutions if 3D acceleration is required. 2D games run perfect in 640x480 resolutions.

| Great Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS gaming, good Windows 95 support || Mediocre Windows 98 2D acceleration

| Great SoundBlaster compatible support, great speakers || Proprietary RAM modules, incompatible with standard EDO

| Removable bay for floppy and CD-ROM drive, great, quiet cooling || Poor reliability harddrive

A mid-range laptop, features wise, with a good LCD screen. The display has only two brightness levels, being somewhat inadequate in use. Response time is alright, making the laptop suited for office use as well as vintage games. The speaker setup is one of the best in its time, being one of the highlights of this laptop. The design, format and weight are not as spectacular as some IBM laptops, even if this Toshiba lineup was positioned as high-end.

The laptop feels quite fast due to the specified CPU, with a reasonably fast video controller, although it is far from Neomagic models. The CPU does not get warm and the cooling system handles load very well, with a quite large fan for its time. The laptop handles constant heat quite well with no fan spin, which is a major benefit. The keyboard has reasonable tactile feedback but it is far from being the best, with quite a long key travel and a mushy feel. The Accupoint cursor system (mouse compatible) is reasonably accurate but the cap disintegrates and the click buttons rubbery face fails similarly, in time, becoming sticky. The laptop's plastic case is quite durable but not the best.

The removable disk bay is very good for a laptop of its generation and the rechargeable battery can be easily removed or replaced. There were many Toshiba laptops that used the same battery and working with a removed battery does not affect stability or aesthetics. There are two more internal rechargeable NimH batteries inside the laptop that may leak and are somewhat harder to replace (not the typical, compact CR2032 3V button cell). They are used for Bios settings and memory suspension features.

The integrated speakers are very good. The front placement and large size make them very pleasant. Actually, the sound output is one strong point of Toshiba Satellite laptop throughout many generations. The microphone quality and positioning is mediocre, with chassis noise (hard-drive) being picked up easily as in most laptops of this era.

The standard HDDs supplied by Toshiba have a known tendency to have their heads stick to the parking position limiter when old, making the drive fail to start. Careful internal dissassembly is required to unstick the heads from the parking position. Use care and touch only the drive arm near the center pin to slowly unstick it. Overall, the hard-drive offers medium performance while having quite a pleasant sound in operation. The use of proprietary memory that is EDO RAM pin compatible but cannot work in the laptop if standard memory modules are used is highly annoying.  

Software support is great in DOS, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95/98 as well, making the system feel snappy. DOS sound capability is great, with good Adlib compatibility and Sound Blaster Pro emulation. While configuration to enable DOS support is quite cumbersome, it is properly working. In Windows 98 you start to feel the sluggishness of the system as the video controller has insufficient acceleration and low screen scrolling performance. Basically Toshiba used roughly the same platform on Pentium laptops with little diferentiation. Although the video controller is faster than some Trident models, it is far from late Pentium 1 era Neomagic 128 chipsets.

# Only the screen is different between CS and CT models, all specifications and the potential performance is the same. The CS version was marketed as a low cost option of the CT model due to the cheaper screen.