Not technology savvy... Help!

August 8, 2006 4:21 PM

Anyone have experience with Toshiba vs. Dell laptops?

I am looking at purchasing a Toshiba laptop and am a little nervous. I'm a Dell girl, but am tired of what I view as overpaying for essentially the same product that I can get elsewhere... Any advice? I was looking and the Toshiba laptop was about $1,100 compared to the comparable Dell at $2,000.

posted by slim to technology (21 comments total)

Both my wife and I had Toshiba Satellites three or four years ago. I now have a Dell Inspiron, about half a year old, and she still has her Satellite. I have no discernable opinion between the two, because i've had no big problems with either make. So a price difference that you quote above would make my decision easy, i'd go for the Toshiba.
posted by iurodivii at 4:27 PM on August 8, 2006

Watch www.bensbargains.net and buy the cheapest high end or most expensive low end Dell that pops up.
posted by k8t at 4:28 PM on August 8, 2006

In my experience, the build quality and failure rates don't seem that different. Toshiba hasn't won any awards in customer service (and I wouldn't give Dell any awards either) so there's not much difference there. With the exception of Sony (absolute crap warranties and service) and IBM (terrific warranty and service), I'd put all other manufacturers on equal playing field.

I'm surprised you found a Toshiba laptop for close to $1,000 less than a comparable Dell. Toshiba historically has carried a heavy premium, especially compared to Dell. Care to link to the Toshiba and Dell laptops you picked out?
posted by junesix at 4:36 PM on August 8, 2006

I second junesix, toshiba is usually more expensive. Are you getting some sort of special deal?

For the record, I love my Fujitsu Lifebook (Tablet), and the various IBM thinkpads I've owned (though I can't vote for post-lenovo)

Friends have gotten toshibas as corporate laptops and hated them, but I don't have specific model numbers. Dells is the supplier of choice where I work, but I can't tell you how many problems they do or don't have, since I'm not in IT.
posted by defcom1 at 5:00 PM on August 8, 2006

Based on anecdotal evidence, I like Toshiba over Dell. At my last job, we issued old (Celeron 300-ish) Toshiba laptops to four rural field techs, and bought two new Dells for the top executives. The techs' laptops lasted for 2-3 years, until the back-of-truck conditions eventually corroded the motherboards. On the executive PCs, we had two failed PC card slots, a busted keyboard, and a dead NIC within the first 6 months.

Dell has certainly got the price-performance ratio nailed, but I find their build quality subpar, based on what I saw there.
posted by pocams at 5:06 PM on August 8, 2006

Haven't used Toshiba, as my company (massive world-wide consulting firm) uses mainly Dells.

I've been here for a year and a half and have had my hard drive moved to no less than 4 new shells, for issues from network cards to casing cracks to general performance stuff.
posted by allkindsoftime at 5:20 PM on August 8, 2006

Anecdotal-ish, but I have a friend in the PC Support business who, based on experience, "would never ever buy a Dell laptop" and when asked what they would buy, named Toshiba and IBM as the only manufacturers to trust. If you buy a Dell, they told me, "make sure you back up your entire HD, just before the warranty runs out..."

But that's just hardware-reliability of course, coming from someone happy to do their own support of all kinds.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 5:37 PM on August 8, 2006

I must have had the cursed Toshiba. It was a beast of a machine which had two hard drive failures as well as many, many other problems in the 2 years my company saddled me with it. I now have an IBM Thinkpad for work and am pretty pleased with it. At home, I have a Dell. It has been great for the year that I've had it.
posted by onhazier at 6:10 PM on August 8, 2006

Toshiba currently has an "F" rating with the Better Business Bureau for their failure to address warranty and technical support issues that caused customers' laptops to be unusable.

Dell's laptops are decent, but you may run into your own issues with them. Some people do... mileage can vary greatly.

The only laptops I've never heard anything bad about are IBM's.
posted by SpecialK at 6:17 PM on August 8, 2006

We have a Toshiba and like it (no problems yet - had it going on 6 months. I DO have a problem with Circuit City, where we got it, but that is a differnt story). Previously I had a Gateway and loved it (and their customer service was great). Have had bad experiences with Dell all around, as have several members of my family, but never with a laptop.
posted by dpx.mfx at 7:24 PM on August 8, 2006

GET A THINKPAD!!!!!!! You will constantly be impressed by how much thought was put into the design of a thinkpad. They are arguably the most reliable laptops available. You can even get a fingerprint scanner built into it!!1!1!!! At the very least put it on your list.
posted by pwally at 7:51 PM on August 8, 2006

The Toshiba I found was on sale at Office Max I think. It's on sale through the 12th. The ad is at my parents house so I will confirm and post that for you tomorrow.

Thank you everyone for your input. Very helpful, as always!
posted by slim at 7:51 PM on August 8, 2006

Chatfilter: Every IT department hates Dell but there's nothing to be done. Small companies start with Dell because it's cheap and "that's what the big companies buy." But once they have enough employees to warrant an IT dept, they learn that it's crap and the service sucks. By then it's too late. If it were up to me and an unlimited budget, I'd move our entire small firm over to Gateway of which I've nothing but good things since they became a non-competitor.
posted by junesix at 7:58 PM on August 8, 2006

The cheaper toshiba is proably not comparable to the dell. Dell notebooks tend to be true portable computers - they are usually light enough to be carried around, and have at least an hour of battery life. Toshiba has a line of cheap "notebooks" that are really portable desktop computers. They use desktop chips, and the build quality is not up to par for constant use on the move. Those cheap toshibas are great dorm machines, but terrible if you really plan to carry it around with you.

Dell service is great IF you pay for it. Buy the three year on-site service contract, and all your issues will be resolved within about 48 hours. I was able to get most of my Inspiron 8000 replaced two years and ten months after I bought it.
posted by b1tr0t at 8:00 PM on August 8, 2006

Toshiba.

From experience. The toughest laptops I have owned were all Toshiba (frequent travel, use and abuse in computer-hostile environments). Lately, I have heard bad things about Toshiba's customer service in the United States. Can't really comment on customer service because I have never had a use for it (which may say something about the quality of the machines or just my luck) but it does seem odd that you were able to find a machine of equal specifications at a lower price. In my experience, you pay more for Toshiba but they are worth every penny.

I would avoid Dell like the plague.

Dell's three year on-site service contract is useless if your computer breaks down while you are on a project in Venezuela or Indonesia. My experiences are similar to pocams' above. In adverse conditions, Dell and Sony laptops die first (and quickly).

I second the opinion that the only thing worse than Dell is Sony.
posted by cup at 9:12 PM on August 8, 2006

My Sonys are still going strong. Maybe I'm not abusing them enough?
posted by b1tr0t at 9:47 PM on August 8, 2006

I don't know if it's widely known that IBM isn't in that business any more. Thinkpads are now designed by someone else.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:59 PM on August 8, 2006

Chatfilter: Every IT department hates Dell but there's nothing to be done.

I'd second that. I work part-time for tech support on campus. The entire university buys Dells by default, and all us IT guys absolutey hate them. The failure rates we see on Dells are pretty bad.

Most laptops use commodity mass-produced components (and so there wont be all that much difference in quality and its a crapshoot in the end). BUT -

Personally I've had two Toshiba Satellites in a row and my experience with them has been SPECTACULAR. I pretty much will only buy toshiba when it comes to laptops (i'd consider a thinkpad if I have the money.)

My first Toshiba Satellite lasted 9 YEARS (no kidding), and was STILL going strong when I finally had to upgrade in order to get winXP; I sold the still-working toshiba for a hundred bucks on craigslist.
I had only paid about 700 bucks for it, on sale at best buy.

I shopped around with different manufacturers but went back to Toshiba for my second laptop. Another Satellite. I got for about 600 bucks also at bestbuy. These prices are competitive with anything Dell has. So far its been excellent, not a single issue, and it evens looks pretty cool. I love it.

I also like the keyboards on the toshiba laptops, for some reason, as compared with most other laptop keyboards.

So I'm pretty much sold on Toshiba; I've had absolutely great experiences with them and always got them at competitive prices.

I'd never buy a Dell because of the quality problems we see so often at work. I'd also not buy a Sony because my sister bought a VAIO that had nothing but problems from day one, with lousy tech support. I'd consider a thinkpad but there is a stiff price premium for those.

If you can get a Toshiba at a competitive price, go for it. Its a great computer and tech support, the few times I've called them, have always been responsive in my experience.
posted by jak68 at 10:10 PM on August 8, 2006

Steven C. Den Beste, the ThinkPads you can buy now are the same ThinkPads from years ago. Lenovo has been manufacturing them for IBM for a long time - it's only recently that they acquired the entire business from IBM. The tech support is also IBM as they have a contract in place for a few years. For a personal consumer, ThinkPads are still the best laptops in terms of hardware and service. For corporations, the uncertainty of whether Lenovo will maintain the same level of quality once IBM's holdover contract expires is what's pushing most of them to seek alternate vendors.
posted by junesix at 11:24 PM on August 8, 2006

jak - I've had horrible experiences with Toshiba, but my old Dell c400 is still going strong. I bought it used from a guy at 3 years old, and then used it daily for a programming business for two years before buying a Powerbook. Half of the keys on the dell didn't have their letter markings any longer from the daily heavy use. I sold it to my best buddy's fiancee for $200 and she's using it for school for a year ... it still works perfectly.
posted by SpecialK at 1:41 PM on August 9, 2006

specialk - well, like I say its a crapshoot in the end, but in general I hear a lot more complaints about dells than about toshibas. I'm sure dell sells more laptops than toshiba and that partly accounts for proportionally more complaints (I dont have any hard stats to back me up), but just relating my experiences and impressions with both.

slim- you might want to check consumer reports or something for more objective comparisons. (or - just buy the toshiba. [grin]).

Toshibas also have some nice little ergonomic touches (not as much as macs or thinkpads, but nevertheless). for instance, all the toshibas I've seen have always had a mechanical volume knob for the speakers - no fumbling about with the function key on the keyboard while trying to mute your sound in the library.
And the keyboards are nice...
posted by jak68 at 2:49 PM on August 9, 2006