COMPAQ LTE 5200

Toshiba Satellite 100CT Overview Features Intel Mobile Pentium 90Mhz CPU (soldered to the mainboard, not replaceable) 11.3-inch TFT color LCD (800x600 resolution, 100:1 contrast ratio) Chips&Tech CT65548 video controller (1MB VRAM, 16bit colour capable on external SVGA screen) ESS1688 Audio Card, SoundBlaster 2.0/Adlib capable emulation 8 MB EDO RAM (standard) up to 40 MB Max (32MB on Toshiba proprietary format RAM module) 810 MB Toshiba HDD 3.5 inch FDD (unreliable, belt driven platter rotation system) placed in a removable bay or CD-ROM Drive (optional, can replace the FDD in the removable bay) Other Mono speaker with analogue volume knob Integrated microphone Audio input and headphone output on jack 2xPCMCIA Slots VGA Output Proprietary Docking port and docking station NimH rechargable battery Single PS/2, Serial, Parallel ports Built-in 110-240V power supply Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 support, MS-DOS Sound Blaster Pro emulation

Review

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 allright, making the laptop suited for office use as well as vintage games.

The laptop feels quite fast due to the specified CPU, with a reasonably fast video controller. The CPU does get warm and the cooling system is not that great, with a small and noisy single-speed fan, but the laptop handles constant heat quite well with no fan spin. 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 FDD drive was a very poor choice, since the belt driven disk rotation fails after many years, compatible belts being harder to find unreliable. 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 speaker is quite good, even if it is mono. The front placement and size make it sound reasonable well, much better than speakers placed below the top side of the chassis but far from late Pentium era Toshiba laptops. 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.

Software support is great in DOS and Windows 3.1, making the system feel snappy. DOS sound capability is great, with good Adlib compatibility and Sound Blaster Pro emulation. It does not require any TSR or configuration to enable DOS support. In Windows 95 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 486 and Pentium laptops which kept RAM and Video performance from being as high as it could. Although the video controller is faster than some Trident models, it is far from late Pentium 1 era Neomagic 128 chipsets.