DON'T get a Toshiba laptop!

[Deberosa]

They are a piece of JUNK!

Just had a round with Circuit City - My old HP laptop was 5 year old and starting to slow down due to the inefficient software being delivered now adays - see my rant in history! Anyhow I get a brand new Toshiba with 2 Megs of RAM in October with VIsta and it's a mess!

From the start if I hit the wrong button it would expand or shrink the window randomly - I have had windows jumping around my screen for three months but not consistently that I could take it in and it would do it! Then every once in a while the screen with go blank and I won't even be able to turn the computer off - this is not sleep mode - it's frozen and it does it while I type!!! OK irritating but not repeatable. But last night in the middle of typing the keyboard quit! Some keys cause windows to start floating across the screen at an angle and if I reboot I can get a half dozen keys to work and then nothing works - great!!!!

So I call Circuit City - wind my way through their stupid menus to get to a geek, and he says just a sec and hangs up on me!!!! I call back - now really hot! He says bring it in and no I didn't get the extended warranty because you would think a laptop would last more than 90 days!!!!!! I asked if this was only to placate me because I wasn't making a trip into town for nothing and he asked what it was doing (probably thinking a dumb old lady doesn't know how to use a laptop!!!!). So next week I have to go into town and deal with the geeks at Circuit city - not happy!!! RIght now I unplugged my wireless keyboard from my work computer to even use this computer!

Toshiba 's are crossed of my list. I don't hold much hope for getting any satisfaction from these guys, but My next PC will be a Dell (which I have for work) or another HP.

Whew!!!

[sheen_estevez]

First problem I see is Vista. Vista is a hunk of crap

Sorry to hear you are having issues, I owned a Toshiba for many years with no issues, ran solid, as it got old it got a crack around the hinge, then the display wouldn't turn on all the time, figure it was a loose connection, so I replaced it with a IBM Thinkpad, of course I love the Thinkpad, good solid machine.

One thing to keep in mind, if you are going to run Vista (I would stick with XP if staying on Winblows) you need to have a minimum of 2GB of RAM

[Deberosa]

OK, so tonight I opened a bottle of seltzer water at my computer and it sprayed all over!!! I posted here and the keyboard is now working! So I guess it needed a good bath....

I hate this computer!

[macgeoghagen]

in leu of a toshiba, acer makes a good laptop. Ive had once since aug06 and it hasn't given me any trouble beyond the load of "crapware" that it came pre loaded with. another good brand is panasonic. i have a few of their "toughbook" laptops. one is over 10 years old and still runs.

[HockeyFan]

If you only have 2meg of ram, that's your biggest problem. Most OSs wont run on that.

[CarolAnn]

I hate to tell you this, but we have Dell laptops at work and they have a problem. It's a jumping cursor.

That ("jumping cursor") applies both to the little blinking line pointer and the person operating the laptop.

I suspect the best brand to get is whatever one in your area has trained personnel who don't have the personality of a post hole. Find a tech you like and trust and then find out what he works on! *;)

[aerontg]

Sounds to me like the techs at Circuit City have NO CLUE what they are doing. Or they could have just been playing games with you on the phone (like you said) just to get you frustrated and have to come in and shell out big bucks or what could like be a very small problem.

Are you sure you only have 2MB ram on that machine? Who installed Vista on that machine? How new is that Toshiba laptop? I can't imagine a new one would just have 2MB ram. Maybe you mean 2Gigs? (which would be just as extreme to the other end). Vista is complete garbage.

Did you bother asking the tech why he hung up on you the first time? That would have set him in his spot!

[Deberosa]

O gee, I am so over the whole thing. ;-) The PC started working again without explaination and now except for a really crummy keyboard and a bit of magical shrinking screens all of a sudded I am surviving with it.

It must be two gig of ram - I got the highest ram content, Meg, K, Gig, whatever makes sense. Hardware is not my forte, just make it work so I can do my job. ;-)

Now my work PC has been dead since Tuesday and this PC has played backup for email and web meetings. HOwever I can't do VPN and it's getting pretty bad. Supposed to get a new one by Wed. It died in the middle of a mandatory encryption process we are going through. It's so hard to install something on hundreds of different configurations and have it work, but dealing with help desks doesn't help much!

[CarolAnn]

"Help desk?" :P

I've worked for many companies, but only ONE had a really excellent IT department with knowledgable, well-trained, and CUSTOMER SERVICE oriented personnel. From there, they ranged from merely OK to abysmal.

I feel your pain!

Our IT tech is Hellen Wate. ("If you have PC problems, just go to Helen Wate.")


;)

[wy0mn]

I've only had four PC's so far. The best was a HP lapper, the worst I'm using now. An emachine...

[Florida_boy]

I've had a brand new Dell, A new Dell laptop, and this one is a used Dell I picked up after my new desktop died. The desktop only lasted 8 years, what's up with that? I think a power surge killed the motherboard. the tech said it was full of "pregnant capacitors." Seriously, I shouldn't ask one to work after 8 years of being used by three people and one of them a kid playing games. I'm satisfied.

[stephen_tx]

There is ALWAYS going to fallout from whatever brand you choose, personally I've been using Toshiba laptops for 8 years now with not a bit a problem, but I've heard of people who do. My wife bought a brand new Acer last October from Circuit City and it a day and a half it wold not longer boot.

My first computer was an Acer and I loved it, but because of that one incident we won't get another. Dell is suppose to be a good computer, but I've had nothing but problems with mine at work and had to reload the OS 3 times, but other workers swear by Dell, we even run our servers on Dell.

My point is that it's not always the brand of computer that is the problem it could be that the tech who put that one together was a temp and didn't really care about the quality or it was just one of a few in a bad batch.

My recommendation is awlays this. Don't get the extended warranty that the store offers, they are usually a waste of money and your time because the techs there are not worth what the are paid and the ones who are get better positions (That's where I started). Once your normal warranty is up get an extended warranty through a 3rd party, typically if they can't fix it they will replace it no questions asked.