Billye,

I just now read through this thread and and have taken a look at the Toshiba you want to buy. I have owned quite a few Toshiba notebooks - for many years I used one all day at my office. I have had good results from them with fewer than expected problems or repairs. In fact, I still have one of those at home that my wife prefers to use over a newer one. The reason: the keyboard is roomier than on most notebooks. The Satellites typically offer this kind of trade-off.

This particular Satellite continues in that vein - it has the closer to full sized keyboard in exchange for a slower processor. In fact, that would be almost my only concern about this unit. Frankly, it is on a dead-end Intel platform that is being completely phased out. However, that may not really matter at all. If you are going to be doing web surfing, emailing, and word processing, then it should be fine. I would suggest trying to bump up the RAM to 2 GB. On a machine like this, it will make a difference.

The above paragraph leads me into asking what else do you plan to do with this machine? Is there any of your own software that you are planning to load onto it? How about any hardware items, such as printer, scanner, etc.?

You can get a machine with a more up to date processor for about the same price, but of course it will have its own trade-offs. The only other thing that I see missing is Bluetooth. I am a bit surprised that it is not included, but for you I am thinking it won't make a big difference. If you were really going to use this as a "portable" unit, then it would be a problem. But it sounds like not the case - please let me know if you are thinking that you might want to lug this around a lot. It certainly will be fine for some lighter-duty stuff, but it is just too heavy for day-to-day transport. And actually, it is lighter than a few others in its particular class.

I know there was a suggestion you look into buying online. I would agree that you should check it out. Usually all computers are sold at a discount online, although this type of machine is probably not as heavily discounted as some. And it sounds like you need/want the other stuff they are throwing in, so you may not do too much better online, but I do hope you check.