Toshiba laptop - is it any good?

riley94 on 05/04/2014 - 12:12
Last edited 05/04/2014 - 12:25

I'm in the market for a new laptop, and am finding it all a bit overwhelming!

I'm looking for a laptop for around $500, preferably Toshiba since I think their build quality is supposed to be good? (Related: does anyone have experience with their customer service for warranty claims)

I stumbled across this one, does this look like a good buy?
http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/toshiba-l850d…

I will primarily be using the laptop for watching movies (while multitasking with other things open), photoshop, and playing games.

Edit: or maybe one of the Inspirons on this page from the Dell Factory Outlet would be better value? One of the 15.6" ones from http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/product…

Computing Computer Laptop Toshiba

Comments

  • jaychiew on 05/04/2014 - 12:34
    +1

    Toshiba has solid build and support. I'm currently using one (i7 win 7) for 2 years now and love it. The only brands I buy is Toshiba and ASUS. The rest like SONY is way overpriced.

    • edgar28 on 09/04/2014 - 13:19

      Toshiba yes……. Asus? u sure? too many ppl complaint about the power supply and battery life…….

  • aussieaubs on 05/04/2014 - 12:40
    -3

    walk into JB and buy a win8 laptop touch screen Dell for around $500 … easy

  • scrimshaw on 05/04/2014 - 12:48
    +5

    If build quality is what you're after, you'd be looking at purchasing a business type notebook.

    E.g Dell Latitude Series
    HP Elite series
    Acer TravelMate series. I know some people are averse to Acer, but their Travelmate series are very decent notebooks.

    Dell Outlet is probably your best bet of getting a cheap Latitude. Also check out MSY's notebook pdf.

    • mrmarkau67 on 05/04/2014 - 15:31
      +2

      Every brand has a low end plastic crap range. The Toshiba plastic $500 special is probably no better or worse than the HP or Asus one.

      I agree with Scrimshaw on his selections. When buying a Toshiba, I'd go for a Tecra or Portege and avoid Satellite and Qosmio models.

      With a budget of $500 you could get this and ask them to add an SSD for a very good quality pre-loved option. http://www.recompute.com.au/customise.php?pid=2917

      • Colombian on 05/04/2014 - 15:44
        +2

        Could not agree more. Quality of business laptop are much better than consumer ones.

    • p1 ama on 07/04/2014 - 00:56

      Or Lenovo T series :)

      Not sure how they're now, but I love my T420, it's just a tank.

      • edgar28 on 09/04/2014 - 13:20

        lenovo X series :)

  • stringbean402 on 05/04/2014 - 12:59

    Toshiba's refurbished stock is below,

    https://www.isd.toshiba.com.au/71/live.dll/tstore/homepage_r…

    Some pretty good deals.

  • letmecry on 05/04/2014 - 13:11
    +3

    I heard people said Toshiba was good. But from my experience, it's not quite good to compare with other brands.
    I bought 2 toshiba laptop around 2 years ago.
    One of the battery was broken, right after a year.
    The other one was removed the battery as it just sit on my desk but somehow its charging cable was broken and the wireless network acceptance was not as good as the one with the broken battery(3-5Mb/s lower).

    I'm not happy with Toshiba.

    • Colombian on 05/04/2014 - 15:31

      Batteries die with time in all laptops. I have a Dell Precision and after 2 years the battery does not charge above 75%. My wife has a Toshiba Satellite for 3 years now and it is rock solid but also has battery problems. I installed Windows 8 to the Toshiba and it has been working very well.

      If it was for battery wearing over time, you would never buy a laptop.

      • ozhunter68 on 06/04/2014 - 23:52

        Partly correct. If you do most of the right things with laptop battery care, you would expect longer than one year before dies on you. They do deteriorate with use and time, but with average use and good maintenance ( monthly calibration, let it run flat and charge to max ), you would expect still 90% after one year, 70 % after two, even get into your third or fourth year with 30 to 50 % +-

  • thejew on 05/04/2014 - 16:21
    +2

    Toshiba support is terrible.

    wait six months and try and find drivers for your laptop on Toshiba.com

    they dont publish a laptop service manual ether.

    Just look for the best warranty you can find, if youre lucky you might find 3 or 4 years :)

    • Colombian on 05/04/2014 - 16:44

      Yeah, that's true, the support part of Toshiba is very disappointing as they don't release drivers for most of their products. It is not only for computers but also for televisions and bluray players.

    • jason101 on 05/04/2014 - 17:02

      I think it depends how you handle it - the firm in which I work only uses Toshiba business grade machines, most come with a 3 year warranty - in my time with the firm I have been through 3 (each has lasted around 2.5 years before having some sort of fault) - each time I have called the support number, obtained an RA to take the machine into an approved repairer and dropped the machine off. Admittedly I have used this as an opportunity each time to buy a new machine then pass the old one down the line to lower tier staff - but none the less the process of warranty repair has been painless.

  • stevednj48 on 05/04/2014 - 19:59

    i have been fixing laptops for awhile and i find in my opinion toshiba are the worst going around not very reliable dell seems to be the best i have came across.

  • voiletmay on 05/04/2014 - 22:28

    Had great service from Toshiba service. Acer on the other hand was shockingly expensive.

    Both laptops had the same problem - broken hard drive, both out of warranty.

    Toshiba service fixed it for a $180 (including a larger hard drive) and put the operating system back on, and it only took 3 days.

    Acer - $1300 quote to replace the hard drive, including $100 or so as a disk image of the operating system that we had to pay for. Hubby ended up fixing it - bought a hard drive, installed it and downloaded the image from the acer website

    The Acer service people who gave the quote were actually embarrassed about how much it was, but that is what prices are for parts for them. Considering it was a $1500 laptop just out of warranty, not sure why you'd pay $1300 to fix it.

    Just shocking difference. Would NEVER buy an Acer after that experience. Acer laptop (think it's an ultrabook) is lovely to use though.

    • [Deactivated] on 06/04/2014 - 19:00
      +1

      The fact you could download an image for it is pretty awesome though!

  • DARK KHAOS on 06/04/2014 - 07:28

    The probook is a nice well built laptop.
    http://www.recompute.com.au/customise.php?pid=2935

  • bradsmrbetty on 06/04/2014 - 07:41

    Type in dell clearance centre. Refurbs but good quality.
    Speak to Dell via chat and find out if the stock is still there before trying to buy.

  • Luke88 on 06/04/2014 - 08:05

    I have a toshiba for the past few years and it's still going strong. My first laptop was Asus and It died after 3yrs.

    My brother had his toshiba for a long time, and i guess that's one of the reason why i switched to toshiba.

    Every company, including Toshiba, will have occasional bad ones. I tend to stick with Japanese brand to minimise my chance of getting a bad one.

  • mekalol on 06/04/2014 - 11:34

    Terrible Experience.

    1) Bought with Extended Warranty. , in First Year of Purchase , Problem with Screen, they did Patch work and send it back.
    2)In Another year Major Fault occured. Various Parts needs to replace, Send to them on 04 Jan 2014 didn't get any response till 10 Feb 2014. Tried to contact support centre in mean time ,only reply was given - awaiting parts… No specified time frame.
    3) When called Next Day and Threatned to go to consumer affairs, they told they got parts now and would repaired and send back , warranty on refurbised parts- 3 months… so again,,, i think needs to wait another time…. Finally got rid of Toshiba and told I just needs my money back.

    Retailer tried to push me back again for replacement , told would prefer any brand but not Toshiba.

    Unfortunately Retailer can't provide brandswap so happily took Refund.

    I can only say, the Communication from Retailer was Extremely Professional , other then Toshiba.

    • Weird thing for toshiba support is - they do not have direct contact for Support for Laptop Faults.

    • Hopefully No More Toshiba…

    -Would definately mention, using Asus from 2008 onwards and only One problem - replace the dvd drive, else working perfectly fine.

  • adr8 on 06/04/2014 - 12:40
    +1

    I have no had problems with my Toshiba Qosmio for 3 years, build quality is excellent stays cool while gaming and video rendering.

    I complained about the performance of the battery after 10 months of ownership and they sent me a new battery without me asking for it and I got to keep the old one.

    My next laptop will definitely be a Toshiba.

    • [Deactivated] on 06/04/2014 - 19:06

      I think I'll get a Qosmio for my next laptop if I can confirm onsite warranty in Cairns, otherwise I'll probs just go with good ol' reliable Dell.

  • abadacus on 06/04/2014 - 17:22
    +1

    My Toshiba Satellite is 7 years old and still going strong, even after I dropped it on asphalt once from waist height.

  • Parentheses on 06/04/2014 - 20:17

    Don't buy anything from Toshiba - they treat their customers like dirt (ok, most companies do this to some extent, but Toshiba are blatant with it).

    http://www.tim.id.au/blog/2012/11/10/toshiba-laptop-service-…

  • superadmin on 06/04/2014 - 20:27
    +1

    I have personally had bad experiences with most brands of laptops in general including both toshiba and acer. I've had better experiences with lenovo, asus or dell, but it probably depends on what you are buying. Sony has been good, but they are more expensive.

  • ozhunter68 on 07/04/2014 - 00:22
    +1

    When people talk about build quality, most people mean that it looks nicely made and sturdy on the outside. Unless you are excessively rough with opening your lid unevenly, roughly moving or placing down your laptop whilst hard drive is spinning, dropping or rough placement of your bag containing the laptop, most cheaper entry level laptops, regardless of brand will only scuff and scratch. The real build quality and engineering you should be concerned about for durabilities sake is what you can't see, on the inside. I would say that most <$400-$700 new laptops would all have similar fail rates within 5-8% regardless of the brand. I have seen the odd models here and there from various brands that have issues with drivers or wireless/bluetooth cards that are then discounted cheaper to clear. With tech, do some research, take care, the rest is up to realistic expectations and luck.

  • ozhunter68 on 08/04/2014 - 01:52

    Here are a few good value laptops from MSY. They are not Toshiba, but are well put together, and for $9 added on you get 2 yrs warranty which is good peace of mind. Below are a couple of recommendations that offer great performance for the price, and also have nice up to date features such as bluetooth, 2.35 Kg. and Haswell CPU's.

    Aspire E1-572-54204G50Mnkk $499 after $79 cash back.
    Aspire E1-572-34014G50Mnkk $499 after $59 cash back.
    Aspire E1-570-53334G75Mnkk $549 after $59 cash back. 3rd gen i5 & 750 GB HDD
    Acer Travelmate ( commercial model)P255-M-34014GG50MTSS $549 Win 7 & 8 Haswell i3
    Lenovo B590-59410461 $499 ( Mitcham & Nth. Melb. ) 3rd Gen. i3 3110M 2.4 GHz. Win 7 only ( Pro or Con )
    HP Pavilion 15-E033AX(F9Z61PA) $499 AMD Trinity A6-4400M, bluetooth, 750 GB HHD., White ( Pro or Con )
    HP 250(G0R80PA) $529 3rd Gen i3 3110M 2.4 Mhz., bluetooth
    HP 250(F3K38PA) $529 ( Dandenong ) 3rd Gen i3 3110M 2.4 GHz., bluetooth, Win 7 & 8
    Toshiba Satellite C50(PSCF6A-0ET06S) $459 3rd Gen Pentium 2020M 2.4 MHz
    Asus Ultralight X551CA-SX237H $488 3rd Gen i3 3217U 2.15 Kg., Instant 2 second on from sleep (love this feature)
    Toshiba Satellite C50(PSCG7A-02U01V) $580 3rd Gen i3 3110M 2.4 GHz., Win 7 & 8
    Acer Aspire V5-573-54204G50Amm $549 after $79 cash back Haswell i5, bluetooth, 2 Kg., thin & slick but no DVD
    HP D5F99PA)Touchscreen $599 AMD Trinity Quad Core A8-4555M, TouchSmart Screen, 2.1 Kg. thin & slick but no DVD

    Good luck hunting and enjoy, hoop this helps a little and for other readers too.

    • King Tightarse on 10/04/2014 - 13:21

      Thanks for the list!
      I am in the same boat.
      REALY need a new main laptop but havent seen any decent must have bargains for some time.
      I want reliability over most other features, then nothing flash, just OK will suit me - USB3, separate graphics, i3 or above.

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