Toshiba Lappy - Yeah or Nay?

K

kilgore777

Gawd
Joined
Sep 12, 2005
Messages
896
Folks,

I am looking for an inexpensive laptop ($500 range). I have seen some Toshibas selling for pretty good prices, but I am leery since I don't know anyone who has one. Someone I work with says that they are renowned for having keyboard issues, but that is hearsay.

Anyone out there have one? How do you like it? Is it dependable? Any Keyboard issues?

Thanks ahead of time.
 
I've had 2 Toshiba laptops and neither have given me ANY issues what-so-ever. When I get another one for my wife soon, Toshiba will be on the top of the list.

In comparison, my Acer laptop has needed repairs twice.
 
Many Toshiba laptops have thermal issues, specifically shutting down while in use when the CPU runs too hot, even when sitting on a flat surface like a table. This has been going on for over a decade. http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=toshiba+shuts+down&aq=0&oq=toshiba+shu (notice that it happens equally with older and newer models)

Their whole attitude about it is "sue me." And they have been fighting tooth and nail to narrow down the scope even though it affected many more models even when sued. If you must buy a Toshiba, be sure to check out the exact model line thoroughly to see if it has random shuting down problems. I haven't considered Toshiba in about a decade because of this. I had a Toshiba laptop that randomly shut down, and Toshiba wouldn't own up to the problem even after the lawsuit.
 
Thank you both for your ....decidedly different answers. I appreciate your feedback! :)

And thanks for the link, pxc. I'll definietly check it out.
 
Last edited:
Please no, toshiba laptops have the crappiest preloaded software I have ever seen in my life.(Hotkey drivers etc.)
 
I have one that gets very heavy use and is 2.5 years old. So, I would buy from them again. I am leery of their new cheap ones, the ones with the power cord plug on the right that sticks out directly and is not angled, seems like they went cheap on the design and that bothers me. I would go with their slightly higher end ones though.
 
bmango said:
I have one that gets very heavy use and is 2.5 years old. So, I would buy from them again. I am leery of their new cheap ones, the ones with the power cord plug on the right that sticks out directly and is not angled, seems like they went cheap on the design and that bothers me. I would go with their slightly higher end ones though.
Click to expand...
The and the DC jack is modular and rather flimsy. I see a few a week with pushed in DC jacks.
 
My mom has a toshiba Quosmio. After 2 years, the backlight died.

It was a good laptop too... i'd say go for it. They are pretty good basic laptops. just normal specs
 
All I can do is share my experience.

I have a Toshiba Tecra S1 which I purchased in 2003. Thankfully it had a 3 year manfuacturer warranty...

It went in once because the speakers stopped working (issue with the headphone jack apparently). It went in twice for motherboard failure (unit wouldn't boot randomly and then eventually just died both times). After the final repair, the LCD wasn't assembled correctly (they decided to replace the LCD on their own because it had one dead pixel with a used one that had a slight discoloration) and as a result, the machine turns on randomly if you use standby/hybernation because the switch that rests under the crappy plastic latch doesn't make good contact (had the machine turn on in my bag a couple of times, not so good).

Each repair took 1 month from sending it away, so I was without this machine for a total of 3 months as a result of service that had to be done. It limped it's way through my
program in college and I occasionally use it now but not often (still works).

Funny enough, I never had random shutdown problems (should have) but this thing got as hot as a firecracker and I wouldn't be surprised if this casued the mobo failures just over time. Unit was always used on a flat surface, never on a bed etc.

Also, almost every person in my program who had a Toshiba laptop had to send it away for one issue or another. From power bricks errupting into a plume of smoke, motherboards, DVD drives that stopped working, keyboard issues, etc. This wasn't limited to one model year of machine or particular line. Sorry I can't be more specific but pretty much if you had a Toshiba laptop, someone made a comment about reliability and asked you if you ever had to send it to be fixed.

I've used the Toshiba Tecra M7 tablet and I think the M5 and the build quality (as with my S1) is very poor for a tablet PC that you are holding in your hand. I feel like I'm going to tear the hinge off every time I rotate the screen (and this has happened to others, very weak).

I can echo the complaints about ridiculous included software that comes with these machines. Mostly quite bloated compared to stuff I've seen on IBM, Dell, HP, Fujitsu machines.

Sorry, I can't reccomend Toshiba machines to you based on my previous experience. Perhaps some of the new machines are better but honestly they have a history of making cheap, crappy machines for the last dacade it would seem. Back in the late 90s, they were very popular and apparently pretty decent.
 
Honestly, wait out a little while... HP offers hot lappy deals on slickdeals.net for the same $$$ and you get a much better product IMO.
 
I work as a Geek Squad agent at Best Buy, and deal with a lot of customer returns/issues. We see a lot of Toshiba laptops. This may be because we sell a lot of them, but compared to other high volume sellers, I believe we see the highest ratio of Toshibas come back/per unit sold.

They have broken DC jacks, with the plug module being pushing into the unit. They have some LCD issues as well, and on the cheaper units, they seem to be plagued by random issues, everything from mobo to wireless card issues. We have had to replace some keyboards, common a a5500 models IIRC.

These come preloaded with a absolute shit-ton of software, a non-issue probably for you, but takes time to remove.

With that said, I would personally skip buying a low end toshiba. I would buy a high mid/high end model, though after reseaching it. This may be out of price range, but there are quality toshiba models out there, just be careful:http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9022979&type=product&id=1218009474848

I too believe that you often get a better product in that range with HPs
 
Again, thanks to all who have responded. After reading these posts and doing some research, I have decided to stay away from Toshiba as the negative seems to outweigh the positive.

gwarren007 said:
Honestly, wait out a little while... HP offers hot lappy deals on slickdeals.net for the same $$$ and you get a much better product IMO.
Click to expand...

Yes, I am looking at HPs. I have friends who have 3 of them and are very happy. I am also considering Lenovo.

Canon and BMWLover - thanks for sharing your experience and taking the time to give me some detailed feedback. Much appreciated! :D
 
I own and have worked on quite a few toshiba. They are very nice. My only complaint is how some of their media buttons and ACPI controls require software hooks that they only provide windows apps for. But then again nearly all computer manufacturers are guilty of that i think.
 
I have a Toshiba I have have been happy with running problem free for two years. It is true that they base install comes with a lot of crap-ware... but I always do a fresh install on new laptops/computers anyway.... they pretty much all have crap-ware on them these days. I would definitely purchase a Toshiba again... really good value/performance.
 
im not a huge fan. Qosmios are usually top notch, tho. for 500 bux you dont really have many options, theyre all going to be meh.

what about a netbook?
 
I'd pass on most Toshiba laptops. I refurbish laptops for a company and Toshiba's are pretty notorious for motherboard and power related issues after a few years. They used to be one of the premium laptop brands, but their quality started slipping badly about 8 or 9 years ago.
 
I purchased an L305-S2951 from NewEgg a few months ago with Intel T3400 CPU, 2 GB RAM, 15" LCD, and 160GB HDD for $360. The pricepoint is what piqued my interest. Upon receiving the laptop, I installed 4GB RAM, a larger hard drive and Vista x64. The laptop is snappy, LCD is bright (possibly a little too bright, perhaps some backlight bleed), and the keyboard is well-sized and responsive. The laptop "case" itself is somewhat large and almost has a cheap feeling. The touchpad is a continuous piece of plastic and offset to the left which takes a few days of getting used to.

Overall, for the price, the laptop was definitely perfect for my daily, light computing needs, and runs Vista 64-bit without issue. I have seen some older models which are significantly more "cheap-feeling", although this model is not so bad. Also, I don't know how much bundled software was installed, because I find it much cleaner to start with a fresh install.

I have alot of experience with HP, IBM and Dell laptops and find their cases and construction to be somewhat cleaner. I would recommend waiting for a good deal on one of those, but if price is really an issue, go for the Toshiba, you won't be significantly disappointed.
 
I tend to like them, have not owned one myself though.. But I know many people who are happy with them. I probably see less toshiba's with problems than any other PC manufacturer though. Check out Lenovo also, they make some damn rugged machines. I have one of those and know a friend who dropped his ideapad off his desk and it was fine (same model I have).
 
REDYOUCH said:
I purchased an L305-S2951 from NewEgg a few months ago with Intel T3400 CPU, 2 GB RAM, 15" LCD, and 160GB HDD for $360. The pricepoint is what piqued my interest. Upon receiving the laptop, I installed 4GB RAM, a larger hard drive and Vista x64. The laptop is snappy, LCD is bright (possibly a little too bright, perhaps some backlight bleed), and the keyboard is well-sized and responsive. The laptop "case" itself is somewhat large and almost has a cheap feeling. The touchpad is a continuous piece of plastic and offset to the left which takes a few days of getting used to.

Overall, for the price, the laptop was definitely perfect for my daily, light computing needs, and runs Vista 64-bit without issue. I have seen some older models which are significantly more "cheap-feeling", although this model is not so bad. Also, I don't know how much bundled software was installed, because I find it much cleaner to start with a fresh install.

I have alot of experience with HP, IBM and Dell laptops and find their cases and construction to be somewhat cleaner. I would recommend waiting for a good deal on one of those, but if price is really an issue, go for the Toshiba, you won't be significantly disappointed.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for your input. As I am not in a huge hurry and I taking your advice and waiting for a good deal on something other than a Toshiba.

Cheers,
Tony
 
i would consider an lenovo thinkpad myself. i always hear good things about those laptops.
 
if i were to buy a lappy i would go for an hp for personal use or a dell for practical use, when i say personal i mean like watching movies and browsing the internet and some very light gaming, when i say practical i mean light usage on resources but used often and sometimes cpu intensive.
 
For basic computing I'm a fan of toshiba, I picked up a satellite in late 2006 and it is still in perfect working order, and I used that thing everyday for all kinds of things, burning, photoshop, adobe suite, office, blah, blah, work, light games, tv shows, etc. It would get quite hot when running intensive things like movies and games and the ventilations system had a ridiculous design, like most cheap laptops, but it has worked for over 2 years, coming up on three, it's now my parents laptop(i fear for it), a friend bought an identical model at the time, and his still works fine as well( and he slings it around in his back pack.

The only problems I've seen with friends toshibas is the powercord breaking, the same thing happened with mine after 1 1/2 years but thats no big deal(my friends mac did the same thing at the same time), just found a cheap universal.

Personally I reccomend them, but I also generally reccomend spending a bit more and getting a higher priced higher class laptop, for 650-900 you can get almost anything you want in a laptop(even blu-ray now) and you have the option to look for the most reliable system/brand rather than whatever is 400 which is either cheap or seriously outdated.

A friend of mine did just buy the same Toshiba L305-S2951, is low end but newer low end, and I have the task of getting it tuned up so it doesn't become the virus ridden, data corrupted, deathbot that my friends old computer was, and I'm fairly impressed with it for 400. It runs well and actually not too much bloatware, had bloatware but not enought to justify reinstall. seems quick enough, feels kinda cheap or rather "basic", the power cord is stupid, and the laptop so far works fine for basic office and internet stuff, also it doesn't seem too hot as of right now, but I can't judge it's reliability yet as it's been running one day. my 22cents
 
I am not a fan of Toshiba, my laptop in hand is HP home entertainment edition and feels it excellent.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top