Need a "Better" Laptop / Toshiba sucks

[TX69]

I think I am done with Toshiba. I have owned many Toshiba laptops and the last two have failed miserably. Bad keyboards, power cord / motherboard problems, one just smoked out last week (fried), driver issues with keyboards that have no solution and my current one has cooling issue and it is only one year old.

They are all mostly Satellites so I am not sure if it is the model that is the issue?

I looked at ASUS but some of the reviews leave some caution.

Any recommendations for laptop with top end power that is gtg?

 

[TXDARKHORSE361]

I'm gonna get flak for this but I got my wife a MacBook and that thing is about two and a half year old now and still has great battery life and running strong. I had a Toshiba that crapped out on me in Afghanistan with no warning, that sucked.

 

[kusai]

If you want a buy once cry once then its definitely SONY VAIO. I had one for 8 years never flinched once. Yeah changed 3 laptops in the last 3 years after that, most toshiba and dell.

 

[TXDARKHORSE361]

The laptop my wife had before the Mac was a Sony Vaio, wouldn't run in just battery had to stay plugged in to the wall to work. It was about 6 years old at that point though.

 

[GlockOwner]

Steer clear of HP. I bought one, a few weeks in the screen began to flicker and eventually completely distorted and froze. This happened intermittently, and progressively got worse as time went on. I called HP, they had me send it in, then they sent it back saying they couldn't do anything since they didn't see the issue happening. They must not have even tried, cause as soon as I got it back, it happened about 30 seconds after I turned on the laptop. I sent my laptop to them twice more, only to have them send it back to me after doing nothing and giving me the same excuse. I was irate and everyone who talked to me from HP damn well knew it. I finally was sent a person to my house to investigate, and I was able to replicate the issue while he was here, which FINALLY allowed me to convince HP to send me a replacement. They upgraded me to a better laptop, but even this one has it's issues. My HDMI output port (to connect my laptop to my tv) only works some of the time. I can live with that, so I haven't made a big deal about it. But I sure as hell won't be buying an HP again in the future

 

[TheTexasTom]

Generally I have always purchased Dell laptops for my employees. Probably 25-30 in the past few years without any real problems so far.

 

[rushthezeppelin]

Acer and Asus make great laptops for the price. Have you thought about just going straight to a tablet? I haven't felt any need for a laptop since I got my nexus 7.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

 

[Brains]

Sony Vaio in my personal experience have been very hit or miss. Performance often isn't what it should be, some were quite unstable and blue screened constantly (not sure if it was those particular units or the whole model, as they were ultimately replaced). The Vaios often don't fail outright, but they will fail peripheral items that are still costly to fix. Optical drives go bad, USB ports stop working, cabling breakage causing display issues, power brick or power jack issues, battery issues, etc. I no longer recommend them, I got too many of them back.

Hardware wise Apple has it in the bag for laptops. There's a reason you'll find quite a few folks running Windows and Linux on MacBooks in addition to OSX. Even Linus Torvalds totes a MBP but I doubt he's dual booting

There's always the Panasonic ToughBook though, pretty hard to kill those suckers!

 

[TX69]

I'm gonna get flak for this but I got my wife a MacBook and that thing is about two and a half year old now and still has great battery life and running strong. I had a Toshiba that crapped out on me in Afghanistan with no warning, that sucked.

Sorry but I should have mentioned that I am stuck with Windows and not going to Mac.

 

[winchster]

Dell business model. Not the home models.

 

[Brains]

Sorry but I should have mentioned that I am stuck with Windows and not going to Mac.

A Mac is as much as Mac as it is a PC. You can install Windows on a Mac very easily (easier than on some dedicated Windows machines, in fact), either using Boot Camp or virtualized with VMWare Fusion or Parallels. Depending on screen size, you can even find them pretty reasonably priced (about a grand for the 13.3" models). Apple refurbs are an outstanding value because they're new machines with full warranties, not blemished/dented/scratched dumped off junk - like Dell. Price might sound high until you realize 3 years later your computer is still happily humming along. I'd rather have one $1000 computer than two $500 headaches. My son is still happily using my old 2007 model Macbook Pro, and it certainly is no slouch. Paid $1450 delivered as a refurb back in early '08, I'd say I've gotten my money's worth.

 

[TX69]

A Mac is as much as Mac as it is a PC. You can install Windows on a Mac very easily (easier than on some dedicated Windows machines, in fact), either using Boot Camp or virtualized with VMWare Fusion or Parallels. Depending on screen size, you can even find them pretty reasonably priced (about a grand for the 13.3" models). Apple refurbs are an outstanding value because they're new machines with full warranties, not blemished/dented/scratched dumped off junk - like Dell. Price might sound high until you realize 3 years later your computer is still happily humming along. I'd rather have one $1000 computer than two $500 headaches. My son is still happily using my old 2007 model Macbook Pro, and it certainly is no slouch. Paid $1450 delivered as a refurb back in early '08, I'd say I've gotten my money's worth.

Again, no Macs. Sorry man.

I have been looking at Samsung which I have never considered when buying a laptop. Their top end gaming laptop seems to have a bunch of power and a nicer cooling system than Toshiba. Asus has a nice cooling system as well. One reason why I went away from Dell years ago was their flimsy laptops that would flex and bend so much. Several poeple at my company had them break which obviously as a turn off there.

Anyone have experience with Samsung laptops?

 

[35Remington]

Any recommendations for laptop with top end power that is gtg?

A helpful response to this question would require you to divulge your budget for this purchase.

 

[TX69]

A helpful response to this question would require you to divulge your budget for this purchase.

Depends upon the mfg. $1500-$2000 would be a range. Toshiba is very questionable on some of their "upgrades" since I can buy memory at retail prices an install it myself much cheaper than they advertise it for which includes RAM and HD's. SO for Toshiba the price would be a little lower. I am also not interested in Win8, anti-virus programs or anything else that has little or no value add ons. I am only interested in advanced hardware that cannot be added later.

 

[35Remington]

Samsung is fine. Sony is better, but they're priced higher. You're missing out if your anti-Apple stubbornness impedes you from looking at MacBooks. They run Windows 7 better than most non-Apple PCs, and they sure as hell last longer.

Don't want to believe it? Read what PC Mag has to say: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2344661,00.asp

 

[TX69]

Samsung is fine. Sony is better, but they're priced higher. You're missing out if your anti-Apple stubbornness impedes you from looking at MacBooks. They run Windows 7 better than most non-Apple PCs, and they sure as hell last longer.

Don't want to believe it? Read what PC Mag has to say: How to Run Windows on a Mac | PCMag.com

What makes the Vaio better? In the past I have aoided Sony products that have exclusivity.

 

[35Remington]

What makes the Vaio better? In the past I have aoided Sony products that have exclusivity.

I think they're built more robustly. However, you're right: Sony is the king of exclusivity. Remember the Mini-Disc? Memory Stick? Super Audio CD? Didn't think so.

 

[Brains]

Just buy the Macbook Pro and put a sticker over the light-up logo on the lid. Problem solved

 

[Kyle]

Acer and Asus are great computers. I picked up an acer corei3 refurb for 275 (by some miracle I ended up getting a corei5 instead.) it has outlasted any other laptop I've had. I typically go with toshiba but they have gone down drastically in quality lately. Asus just makes an all around badass computer.

 

[jocat54]

I think laptops are just the luck of the draw.
I have an old Dell Inspiron that is about 8 years old (maybe older) and still works great. Don't use it much anymore though I have a new HP(cheapy that works okay....just don't really like Windows 8).