for 279 bucks, is this thing worth a punt?

Roger Hassenforder · 13-01-2015 10:41pm #1

all I want it is for taking fotos and videos off cameras and backing them up, and maybe writing the odd letter of complaint.

http://www.harveynorman.ie/computing/laptops/toshiba-15.6-laptop-c50-b-14z.html

cheers for any comments.

davo2001 · 14-01-2015 3:48pm

Yup, should do fine. There will be people here saying you need more RAM and CPU power but for what you need it is fine.

whomitconcerns · 14-01-2015 3:54pm

go in and have a look at it in person...its quite funky looking and may not be to everyones taste...

mordeith · 14-01-2015 8:03pm

Only thing I'd flag (and maybe it's different now) but Toshibas used to ship with some fair amount of bloatware.

stimpson · 14-01-2015 8:06pm

I'd like to flag that Toshiba Laptops are pieces of crap. I'd imagine the letters of complaint would be mainly written to Toshibs and Harvey Norman.

professore · 14-01-2015 8:09pm

Been using Toshibas for years, passing them on to my kids on upgrading. Apart from a USB port failing on one after 8 years they are all 4 still working fine. Great machines.

Roger Hassenforder · 14-01-2015 8:29pm

went and had a look at it, it looked grand for the money, your man said for the money, its ok, not fantastic. Didnt but it in the end, but thank for the comments.
(bought a different toshiba)

Roger Hassenforder · 17-02-2015 1:18am

& in case anyone is interested, was this Toshiba

And it went back to Argos at the weekend, who fair enough gave me my money back when I listed all the issues.

Re a l l y Slo w, apps crashing, not loading, unable to read from some USB devices, struggles to attach an attachment to an email. Half the bloatware didnt work properly, if at all.
Nail in its coffin was the time it took to move between cells in a not very elaborte excel spreadsheet. Up, down, left, right. Didnt matter. Took about 3 seconds.

crazygeryy · 25-02-2015 8:46pm

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

& in case anyone is interested, was this Toshiba

And it went back to Argos at the weekend, who fair enough gave me my money back when I listed all the issues.

Re a l l y Slo w, apps crashing, not loading, unable to read from some USB devices, struggles to attach an attachment to an email. Half the bloatware didnt work properly, if at all.
Nail in its coffin was the time it took to move between cells in a not very elaborte excel spreadsheet. Up, down, left, right. Didnt matter. Took about 3 seconds.

Exact same thing happened me. Bought a toshiba for my son and had to bring it back. So slow in everything it did.brought it back and got the money back. Got a dell instead.working brilliantly
I wouldn't wipe my arse with a toshiba after that.

yoyo · 26-02-2015 7:00pm

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

& in case anyone is interested, was this Toshiba

And it went back to Argos at the weekend, who fair enough gave me my money back when I listed all the issues.

Re a l l y Slo w, apps crashing, not loading, unable to read from some USB devices, struggles to attach an attachment to an email. Half the bloatware didnt work properly, if at all.
Nail in its coffin was the time it took to move between cells in a not very elaborte excel spreadsheet. Up, down, left, right. Didnt matter. Took about 3 seconds.

It's actually a decent spec so that's very strange.
Btw for new laptops a great tool to "Decrapify" it actually exists! You can get the PC Decrapifier here

.

Nick

Roger Hassenforder · 26-02-2015 9:42pm

yoyo wrote: »

It's actually a decent spec so that's very strange.
Btw for new laptops a great tool to "Decrapify" it actually exists! You can get the PC Decrapifier here .

Nick

knowing my luck/incompetence I'd probably uninstall the screen or something with that!

johnnybmac · 26-02-2015 11:11pm

Most Toshiba laptops shipped with Toshiba Hard Drives "obviously"...

The problem with these is, that they are useless, IMO. The highest fail rate of any HDD that I've come across...

Also, USB ports failed regularly (on the older satellites in particular).

Also, the power jacks were usually just held in place with a couple of very flimsy pieces of plastic down either side, which would give way and would end up with the jack falling back into the laptop. This would then need a disassemble in order to glue/epoxy the power jack back in place (only saving grace was that the jack wasn't soldered directly to the board)

stimpson · 26-02-2015 11:24pm

johnnybmac wrote: »

Most Toshiba laptops shipped with Toshiba Hard Drives "obviously"...

The problem with these is, that they are useless, IMO. The highest fail rate of any HDD that I've come across...

Also, USB ports failed regularly (on the older satellites in particular).

Also, the power jacks were usually just held in place with a couple of very flimsy pieces of plastic down either side, which would give way and would end up with the jack falling back into the laptop. This would then need a disassemble in order to glue/epoxy the power jack back in place (only saving grace was that the jack wasn't soldered directly to the board)

If a machine is cheap and has a decent spec then they have cut corners to still turn a profit. I had a Lenovo T430 for work and it was close to useless, despite having 8gb of RAM and a decent i5 processor. I now have a Lenovo X1 Carbon (IT will only support Lenovo or Apple) with a slightly faster i7 and an SSD and the difference is night and day. It's blisteringly fast even on battery. You wouldn't think the difference would be that big by looking at the headline specs, but it is.

beauf · 27-02-2015 1:55am

An SSD makes a night and day difference to most machines.

IMO what really suffers on cheap laptops, is the build quality, keyboard, and screen quality.

I personally prefer re-installing the OS on any machine I get myself. They always seem much more reliable once I've wiped the factory install.

for 279 bucks, is this thing worth a punt?

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