laptop brands.. any horror stories with toshiba?

Last two places of work deployed dells, have second hand accounts of at least 3 more fair sized offices (200+ units per). All had significant teething problems, roughly 25% were having failures in the first 6 months and had to be replaced. Long term (3-4 years) batteries were suffering 80% or better failure rates.

I know many others have had good results with dell, and I too have witnessed dell stand behind the product. But as a individual, it has completely turned me off to them.

HP/compaq feels flimsy. IBM is too expensive for my needs.

I'm left considering either toshiba or fujitsu. If anyone has any recurring horror stories involving either of these brands, I'd appreciate a heads up.

Also, does anyone find 1024x768 too low a resolution on a 15" screen?

Have a look at this thread for my thoughts on the matter. It's more related to Toshiba Australia though, so make of it what you will.

On one day Toshiba Australia lost deals of over 2k units per year. They continue to lose deals like this, and have now taken to blaming us, the customers, for this.

We've gone over to Fujitsu, so can't give much of a verdict until we've had them at least a year. Can't be much worse :)

Whatever you decide, make sure it's based on solid research. You may find that Toshiba in your area is great, and if that's the case, then give my rant less credence and consider them :)

Mojo, already caught your thread. I would strongly suspect your systems were assembled somewhere in the pacific rim (HK, new zealand, etc). I find it questionable that it'd be cost efficent to ship the ram/screen/etc out of the pacific rim for final assembly and then drop ship it to australia. Just doesn't make good sense. A regional VP trying to cut costs in a secondary market and shafting the service clerks.. Now that does make sense.

A friends husband has been carrying a P series fujitsu around a hospital for most of the last year (he's a surgical tech, working on a MBA. needs the laptop for papers and what not). Keyboard was too small for my ham-hands, which is my biggest concern. Can't fault the unit tho, its fit and finish was easily as nice as higher end sony's.

:) i love mine

and i beat the crap outta it too and it runs like a dream, battery is great, and its fast!

toshiba 5205-s505
great laptop

I got portege 3505 and not leaving it more than 3meters after I got it :D (even bring it to kitchen for WiFi while cooking or write while having class in school and everyone says cool with it). My cousin has the portege M-100 that I tried and never saw he uses for charging(centrino based) and turning cpu speed maximumized all the time with 4hours battery life. What can I say with it? ;)