In message <[log in to unmask]>, 
Stefan Thibeault <[log in to unmask]> writes
>A non IT coworker of mine asked me to recommend a laptop for her which
>will
>be used primarily for email and surfing the net. I immediately thought
>of a Dell laptop,
>but then I saw some well equipped Toshiba laptops on sale at Best Buy.
>Anyone
>have any experience with Toshiba?  How is the customer support?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Stefan

My 18-month-old Toshiba Satellite P30-110, 6 months out of its standard 
warranty, went back to Toshiba's authorised repairers as the rhs of the 
screen was blank/black.

It turns out the replacement screen ( 17 inches, widescreen) which it 
needs costs £318.00 ex VAT - as an exchange unit from Toshiba!

I could buy *two* entire TFT monitors of comparable size for that money, 
and outright, too.

The whole repair would have cost £504 including VAT; in other words, a 
smidgen under half of what I paid for the laptop. And nearly enough to 
buy me a new one that might be quite as good, technology having moved 
on.

However, with only the gentlest of arm-twisting, Toshiba agreed to 
retrospectively supply me with a two-year extended warranty, for 
£167.00, and the laptop is to be repaired under that.

So: reliability a bit suspect, but customer service top-notch.

The machine was, and is, though, a very good value package for the price 
asked.

And with the new warranty plus the original warranty, the machine will 
be covered for 3 years, which is about how long I expect it to be my 
prime PC for. Instead of it getting early retirement as a boat anchor 
:-)

Just make sure your coworker gets an extended warranty with it, or buys 
one before the year is up.

NB: With the Tosh away, I'm typing this on the Sony Vaio it replaced. 
It's well past its sell-by date - maxed out at 256mB of main memory, not 
enough disc space for Win XP and the latest Office, even - and it takes 
more than a little while to boot up.

But I dug it out after 18 months in a closet, fired it up, and away it 
went again, just like that.

-- 
Roy Brown        'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd     useful, or believe to be beautiful'  William Morris

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *