Toshiba Satillite A135-S4527 Specifications

• Toshiba's spiffy Satellite a135-S4527 laptop model is a sleek and affordable mid-sized machine. Toshiba released the model in 2007. The solid construction, dual-core processor and numerous ports for a variety of peripherals give this machine superior usability. The casual home user will find that the a135-S4527 more than meets the needs of basic computer uses, and the business user will enjoy the multi-tasking prowess and plentiful peripheral capabilities.

Appearance and Display

• The laptop monitor is 15.4 inches, and sports a native display resolution of 1280 by 800 on the WXGA TruBrite screen. TruBrite is clearer and brighter than many laptops in this price range. A black keyboard sits in the silver-colored body. The keys are wide and flat, and comfortable for typing. A small square touchpad is centered across the front wrist rest.

Ports and Slots

• The Satellite a135-S4527 offers a superb selection of available ports and slots. The left side boasts a VGA monitor serial port, a 2.0 USB port, a FireWire port, a PCMCIA slot and the S-video port. Two USB 2.0 ports and the CD/DVD drive flank the right. The speaker and headphone jack, WiFi switch, 5-in1-card and volume dial sit on the front side. The power adapter jack is conveniently situated out of the way, at the back of the machine, with the Ethernet LAN port and another USB port.

Hard Drive and Memory

• The 120 gigabyte hard drive is small by today's standards. However, the hard drive is easily removed and replaced with a larger one. The laptop is equipped with 1GB of RAM, barely enough to run the beefy Windows Vista operating system. Toshiba has provided that it, too, is expandable, up to 2GB.

Processor and Graphics

• The a135-S4527 features an Intel Pentium dual-core processor, running at 1.73GHz. The graphics card is the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950, a shared graphics memory of 8 megabyte to 256MB. This won't win the laptop any speed races, but is suitable for a laptop of this size and price range.

Bundled Software

• As with most retail machines, the computer manufacturer installs its own utility software and a variety of third-party software. The laptop is equipped with Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit version and specialty programs such as the Toshiba Recovery Disc Creator, Toshiba Assist and Speech System. Also included are Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.0, Microsoft Works 8.5, Windows Media Player 11 and Intervideo WinDVD 8 SD.

Battery Performance

• This model carries a six-cell, 4000mAh Lithium Ion battery pack, allowing two to three hours of battery usage. Due to the power-hungry, dual-core processor and TruBrite screen, the battery may drain quickly with intense multi-tasking or gaming applications.