I’m looking to buy a laptop and my two front runners are a Toshiba 2410 and a Dell Inspiron 8200. The Dell is a couple of hundred dollars more, but comes with 512 ram instead of the 256 on the Toshiba, and has an “UltraSharp” UGA screen instead of the Toshiba’s XGA screen. It also comes with 32 mb video ram instead of 16. The Toshiba seems to be a newer design with roller “wheel mouse” and external CD player controls. Does anybody have any experience with either of these? Any other suggestions?
I bought a 2.4ghz 512mb ram notebook from gateway... http://gateway.com/home/prod/hm_400x_proddetail.shtml Fans can get a little loud and it only runs for like an hour and a half when running on batteries and playing a dvd.
I bought a Toshiba S103 Laptop in December and love it. Its not much (1.5 gig Cel, 20 gig HD, 256 Memory, DVD drive) but its the bare minimum for my standards. It just depends on what your are going to use it for. If its for gaming, go for the most powerful system. But if you are just going to use it for surfing, typing up papers, the DVD player, etc.. like me, then go for the cheaper one. Btw, i got mine for a steal, $500 after rebates at Best Buy and I have already got all my rebates!
Don't buy a Dell, mine fell apart (touch pad stopped working, keys popped off, etc) then it completely shut down within 8 months of purchase. When I tried to get the thing serviced under warranty it took 9 hours of phone time (on hold, talking with a service tech). When they finally took it in they told me the warranty was void because I had spilled something on it. That never happened. Now its sitting in a box, while I try to figure out how to deal with dells nonsense.
My dell laptop developed keyboard problems right after the warranty ended. I also had a high-end lemon and they would not abide by their warranty. I had a Toshiba once and it cooked. The models can really make a difference in their performance. We also like our Sony (good performance and great multimedia). Be careful about the batteries. Some like Sony will keep prices low by selling you a crappy battery (ours never lasted longer than 1 hour).
Here's a hint that I think is generally, if not universally true : Dell, Toshiba, etc. don't make their own laptops. Other companies do. Dell, Toshiba, etc. may throw in their own hard drives, cpu's, etc., but the rest of the laptop is made by another company like Compal (as an example). What I'm saying is that you can probably find a very similar laptop "made" by someone else for less. Companies like Sager... That's all I know... and you didn't hear this from me... this message will self-destruct in...
sorry for the multiple posts, but the reason I was saying don't go with the 8200 is because I owned one up until about a month ago. I sold mine to a buddy and bought a Sony Vaiio (very light and paper thing). Here are my Pros and Cons to the 8200 PROS: Lightning fast CPU Powerful memory/system Dell Customer Service CONS: VERY very immobile. Imagine carrying around a bag of bricks. Cheaply assembled. Cheap plastics. Not the most asthetically pleasing thing out there. Pretty much if your looking for a desktop replacement, then go with the 8200. If your looking for a computer in which you take with you everywhere, I'd consider other options. (Sony, Toshiba). only my opinions...
I bought a Toshiba 2545 (or something like that) years ago and it dropped from my desk to the floor twice ever since I had it. And it is still running okay other than the microphone is not working any more. So if I have to buy a new one, I will stick with Toshiba. Of course I never had a Dell or any other brand and my sample size is just one. Shrimpie
Thanks for the tips all! Some of the questions I have about the Dell about the quality, and some of you have confirmed that for me. A couple of different sales people told me that Toshibas are selling very well around here and that people seem to be very happy with them. They are said to be very well built, solid. It’s good to hear this confirmed from you guys too. I wasn’t aware that they didn’t make their own. Thanks for that tip DoD. Does anybody know who makes them? I’m going to be using it for mostly business applications, but I sometimes have Excel, Word, Mozilla, Adobe and a music player open at once, and perhaps PowerPoint too. I also value a good screen quite highly. If your eyes stay fresh longer, you will stay fresh longer. But, I’ve heard a few too many quality complaints about Dells, and what I’m hearing here backs that up. It may explain the sale price too. Thanks again all, you’ve been very helpful! It looks like it’s Toshiba or other now. Sagar is one I’ve never heard of. I’ll check them out.
I am right now using an IBM A 31 P and I love it. It's big, ugly, boxy (did I mention that it is heavy as hell and the battery life is short, even with two batteries?), but the keyboard is really good and the screen is just perfect. 1600 x 1200. It has a 2 Ghz processor and 512 mb RAM, 60 GB HD. The only thing I am missing is a DVD burner... This thing just has a much more solid feel to it than the Compaq and Toshiba I had before...
I do. I bought one of these suckers: http://www.microsoft.com/catalog/display.asp?subid=22&site=11403 Its a kit with a PCMCIA wireless card and a 4 Port Router with a builtin Wireless access point. Its been working great for the past 2 months. I got this at a steal price for $80 after rebate (got the rebate in like 2 weeks) because Target did a screwup in the pricing and were selling it for $99 and had an additional $20 rebate.
