Toshiba or Dell?

Inspiron with

You would be absolutely stupid to go with the Toshiba. The guy is just saying that to get you to buy it. The support is good, unless you decide to be an ass everytime something goes wrong. I love Dell support. The Dell is obviously the better value, and if you find a coupon, it's ridiculous.

A $750 coupon is exactly that. It takes $750 of a system priced over a certain amount, usually $1499 or $1999. You can find them at some websites, which I will not list because I am too lazy. There's a thread at the top of the Dell board on this site that is all about coupons. Try looking at that.

Anyway, Toshiba sucks. My advice that I've repeated so many times is this: If you can buy a computer at Wal-Mart, don't buy it.

Go with Dell dude...

neither toshiba or dell suck they both have their good and bad points... i am a toshiba laptop user, and likely will be getting a dell because ti best suits my needs. however i dont by any means think toshiba is inferior as a brand. they are different, not aimed at hardcore gaming, more mainstream and into the business world than into games and massive power. why did the guy suggest toshiba, likely because he wanted to get a fat comission and he knows if you buy from dell it wont be through him and therefor no money.... so of course he is going to suggest something you can purchase through him. as for the actual systems they areboth good, i have not recently used a dell but i can say that toshibas build quality is great and defiantely solid and amazing.

i still would say to try out the dell, it will be the cheapest of the options and that is important for students and those with more budget conciderations. find the specs you like and make your decision on who can provide those at the best price. i would concider service with both to be about equal based on my experiences with them so go with straight hardware/price comparison.

Don't bash Toshiba unless you've tried it. My dad's currently got a Dell 410 from work and we also have an old Inspiron from 3-4 years ago.

Our old Inspiron still works great and it keeps plugging along. However, my sister only uses it for surfing the net, e-mail, etc. so there's no huge pressure being put on it to perform. My dad's new 410 is pretty good as well and it hasn't given any problems as of yet.

I can't say much about Dell tech support because it varies. Sometimes you call them and you get someone that actually knows what they're doing. Other times, you get put on hold and juggled around between different tech guys until you get "dropped." That's incredibly annoying.

Dell is Dell. Some people love them and some people hate them. They make and sell notebooks for the masses and this is how they have made their name. Ask a normal computer user what they think about Dell and I guarantee they say good things about them.

As for Toshiba, I'm 95% sure I'm going to be ordering a S2. It fits my budget and has all the specs I need, and I'm getting a free port replicator from Newegg. I'm heard a lot of the durability of the Tecra line and good things about Toshiba's tech support. I'm not too concerned with tech support because I can usually fix most of my problems (unless it's hardware related).

Those $750 coupons are really nice though. Too bad you can't combine them with the already existing x% off on the Inspirons. Then I would get a Dell. =)

Dell gives great performance in a mediocre, flimsy package that often has LCD problems among other things. You won't find a better performing notebook in the same price range as a Dell in general with the coupons they pass out, but you pay for skimping with all the problems you MAY get. Their support is also extremely poor, outsourced stuff that has things like 2 hour waits and workers who barely speak English or know their stuff. I got to experience this several times; the notebook shipped with a defective power adapter that died a week after the notebook showed up, they then shipped a power adapter that was dead in the box, and the last try they finally got me a working adapter that was still functional when I sold the 9100.

I've owned a Dell d600 and 9100. Both had problem with creaking and bowing keyboards, and the 9100 had some light leakage from the bottom of the screen that was annoying at first but ignorable. The 9100 also had problems with a loose keyboard and the hinges on the LCD creaked loudly whenever it opened and shut pretty much from the box. For the year I owned it though it was great to use; it played games very well and I got a lot of photoshop and 3D work done on the machine. Performance wise I had no complaints.

I own a Toshiba Tecra M4 now, and it has none of the problems I've encountered with Dell, and the build quality is far beyond what they offer. They do not really create machines designed solely in mind for gaming like Dell, and many of the GF 6600 they put in their higher end machines are underclocked. Despite that, my M4 (which is a convertible tablet mind you) can get a 3DMark2003 score over 4000, I can sketch on it without the need of an external wacom tablet, the LCD is pretty much perfect, the keyboard is rock solid and it is far lighter than the 9100 and about on par with the d600 in size and weighs just a little more.

I haven't had the chance to deal with Toshiba's support yet as I've had no reason to actually call them.

toshibas are very kickass, more durable than dell's anyway... most every dell I've encountered that gets heavy use always has problems with the case cracking or coming apart. every heavy use tosh I've seen looks almost new, with little to no flex or cracking. performance-wise my M3 kicks ass, but I'm sure a similarly spec'd dell would perform equally


same here, Its nice to have a machine that I dont have to call once a month on

My current laptop is a Toshiba. I have had no problems with it what so ever. I had it for 4 years now and I would recommend it to anyone. Granted everyone is going to have different experiences with every vendor that they purchase through but I do not think it is fair to say that Toshiba makes an inferior product.

Toshiba has been in the notebook business for 20+ years. Toshiba notebooks are still one of the only companies to engineer thier notebooks in Japan.

Remember to take into account the overall design (Weight, materials used, size, etc.). Too many people get caught up in SPECS (HD, CPU, etc) and forget that notebooks are MOBILE...they take more abuse than a desktop (that sits in ONE spot) will ever see.

There will be a point in time (coming up soon) that this revolution of LOW pricing competition will back fire...as customers will realize that a CHEAP price is not always the most cost effective solution.

FYI, Dell doesn't actually engineer their own notebooks, they work on the various Asian (taiwan, china, phillipines) manufacturers to ENGINEER their notebooks.

Most manufacturers do that lately. Toshiba even does that to some degree... My M4 came out of China, just about every recent Compaq I've seen comes out of there and often uses some notebook clone.

Even Apple does it.

It is the money put into the making of the design and the parts that tend to make one better over the other. Manufacturers do make changes, including Dell, to the reference design that can make or break the base model. Boutique shops are the ones that do less modifications, other than paint jobs.

My first recommendation is to go to the store and try out every notebook that seems interesting to you. Right down the models of the ones that feel good for you, then hop online and check them out. Dig for information on the exact models. Then make your decision. With Dell you most likely won't be able to try them out, so grab whatever you consider your lucky charm if you decide running with them is the way to go. You CAN get a great notebook from them, but I really suggest looking for the problems for the model you decide on (such as the 6000) and avoid the options that people complain the most about.

spy... agreed, but they are still engineered by Toshiba engineers..in japan. They are manufactured outside of Japan. Although some series are still Japanese built (Qosmio, some Tecras, Tablets)

Toshiba! use Toshiba Toshiba is the best I've herd that Toshiba lasts the longest

Well, there was just like 6 people in the row that had good experiences with Toshiba. See why I'm getting a S2? =)

"Dell gives great performance in a mediocre, flimsy package that often has LCD problems among other things."
Dells are not flimsy, and the only ones with any LCD problems that I've heard of are the 17" notebooks. Since you are considering the 6000, you shouldn't have a problem with the LCD. Now, there may be problems, but Dell will resolve them. Anyway, it's expected of a major company to have problems in their systems. Nobody can make millions of perfect systems.

"They do not really create machines designed solely in mind for gaming like Dell"
Dell has one, count them, one notebook devoted to gaming. All the others are for home use or business use. The fact that you can play games very well on some of them is just a plus.

Toshiba laptops may be great, but so are Dells. I wouldn't trust any computer that was cheap enough for Wal-Mart. Listen, if you have to go with something besides Dell, try Sony or HP. Sony is horribly overpriced, but you'll get a quality product. HP is not that great, but I would prefer it over Toshiba.

man you really like to bash toshiba huh

First of all, what does Wal-Mart have anything to do with being cheap in terms of quality? Wal-Mart sells a lot of things for cheap - that's one of the advantages to shopping there. Why wouldn't a smaller company like Toshiba partner with Wal-Mart in order to compete with the big boys? Millions of people shop at Wal-Mart. It makes sense for Toshiba to advertise their produce to all these consumers.

Second, you just stated that Dell is a major company and will have problems. We're not saying that any other company is perfect - there are none. However, from the number of people who have had bad experiences with Dell, I think that its safe to say that their computers aren't as reliable for whatever reason. That's the advantage to a smaller company - they have to be efficient in order to compete.

Third, you just said "Toshiba laptops may be great."

Don't act like we're trying to personally attack Dell. People are just sharing their experiences with Dell and you obviously have had a good one with them. Let's just leave it at that.

you took the words out of my mouth, i was about to come back an edit my post, but you beat me to it