Experience with Toshiba Notebooks?

White Eagle · Post by **White Eagle** » Thu Sep 14, 2006 10:15 pm

I am looking to buy a Notebook computer soon. I used to use Compaq, but I am not necessarily happy with their quality after the HP/Compaq merger.

I am not overly fond of Dell or Gateway due to past experience.

I have been looking at Toshiba. Does anybody have any experience good or bad with Toshibas?

I could care less about 3D gaming, but would like to be able to play 2D games that use Direct Draw or OpenGL in Windowed mode or fullscreen. I want to buy something nice that will hold up and last me for a few years (3-5), as I do not have a lot of money. This would be a kind of one time thing as I will be getting some unexpected money soon.

How are the screens on Toshibas, do they hold up, no pixel problems. How about hard drive reliability?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Baldrick · Post by **Baldrick** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 2:32 pm

I have a Toshiba 2520 CDS satellite notebook which I bought late in 1998 & still use on a daily basis with my work.
I run a few old dos based programs with my work which manufacturers will not be updating so in a big way I am stuck with good old W98 & it's command.com dos
It has been a real workhorse for me & exceptionally reliable.

The biggest fault I have had with it is with a monitor component which has failed on me twice in all these years of service. ( The last time it happened around 18 months ago, I sent it to the Aus Toshiba dealers in Sydney, who then quoted me $1000.00Au to repair it, I said no just send it back & I will make a desktop out of it. but they then wanted $113.00 for the quote or they would not send it back. So I payed up & asked that they supply me with a new converter pcb which I knew was $35.00. They then offered to put it in for me which I accepted. So, the computer gets back to me & hasn't missed a beat since & ended up costing me a total of $134.00 for repair instead of the $1000.00 I was quoted. - yes the numbers dont add up, but that was what they charged me!)

Anyway, if the latest Toshiba's are anywhere near as reliable as my old beast, I would say go for it for sure.

Killswitch · Post by **Killswitch** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 4:52 pm

I'm tapping away right now on a Toshiba Satellite Pro - I'd highly recommend them. The only thing I'd mention is that (at least the one I got) didn't have enough RAM, but I installed another 256 MB to make a nice, fat 512 and everything is fantastic.

White Eagle · Post by **White Eagle** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 3:22 am

This is the exact model I am considering.

Thoughts on this model?

mskuma · Post by **mskuma** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 3:52 am

I'm using a Satellite P20 (P4 3GHz), and generally it's been fine. I agree about extra RAM - I'm running 512Mb and sometimes wish I had 1Gb. It runs quite hot on the base, which is not unusual for many notebooks, so I run it full-time with an aluminium cooler base.