OT: Toshiba laptops - reliability and build quality

Lennart Sorensen lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org
Thu Aug 30 18:57:15 UTC 2007


On Thu, Aug 30, 2007 at 10:25:51AM -0700, asdf wrote:
> My thoughts exactly... and it includes a Core 2 Duo CPU (not the older Pentium Dual
> Core or Core Duo CPUs). And the built-in Intel wireless card appears to be Linux
> compatible (via MadWifi). It's a pretty decent looking unit too but that's highly
> subjective of course. This Toshiba A200-AH9 is available at a few Future Shop
> locations in Scarborough but for some reason is showing as OOS (out of stock) on
> their website.

I would think it was an intel 3945 wireless chip.  Intel at least was
submitting driver code to the kernel 3 or 4 months ago for that.  Not
sure what the current state is, but at least that was a good sign.

Futureshop claims their inventory stuff is updated every hour, but some
stores are very bad at maintaining the data so if the store has crappy
data then the web site gets to have crappy data.

> Good to know. From what I've seen at Future Shop, I am not convinced of any of the
> brand names' reliability. The Acer laptops looked decent but FS isn't carrying very
> many Acer models.

Well Acer at least is a fairly large manufacturer, which also happens to
do some direct to retail sales.  I have never owned any acer products
myself, but I don't think I have really heard any horror stories either.
I figured the Asus laptop for my wife would be worth trying given I have
been a happy Asus mainboard user for 14 years now (I won't buy anything
else).

> I am leaning towards Dell at the moment. For around $1050.00 before taxes I can get
> a similar or better spec-ed system compared to the Toshiba model that I was so
> interested in before.

A friend recently had me look at their Dell laptop which wouldn't power
on, charge or anything else related to power.  Turns out there has been
a large class action lawsuit in the US over it, and there is a lawyer in
toronto trying to do the same in canada due to a systematic failure of
the power system on the mainboard on the model (I believe it was a
5150).  Dell may make OK business stuff, but in general their consumer
stuff is as cheap and low quality as they think they can get away with.
I only buy monitors and the occational UPS from Dell.  No way would I
consider their computers.

--
Len Sorensen
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