Which is the better laptop, Sony or Toshiba?

[Ade007]

SONY VAIO-VGN-N130 - Windows XP Media Center, Intel Core Duo Processor T2050 1.6GHz, 2MB Level Cache, 533MHz Frontside Bus, 1.OGB PC-4200 DDR2 RAM(Expandable to 2.0GB), 80GB 5,400RPM Serial ATA Hard Drive, 8xDual Layer DVD+/-RW, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 Video Chipset, up to 128MB shared Memory,Internal Max Res. 128 x 800, Mem. Stick Slot, (1)_Express Caed / 34 Slot, Standby WLan On/Off, Intel PRO/Wirless 3945ABG, Windows Sound System Compatible Chipset.or

ToshibaA105-S4284 Core DuoT2050 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM Expandable to 2GB, 100GB Double Layer DVD/RW, Wireless 802.11ABG.

Also, are HP laptops as good as Toshiba or Sony Laptops? I have been hearing some bad things about them. I would like to get the Laptop today.
Thanks.

[oldandinthe way]

When I went shopping for my laptop, almost any choice offered more value than the SONY. And the SONY does not read any flash memory cards other than memory stick, so I would have to buy a memory card reader to read the memory from my cameras.

I considered Toshiba and HP because I could by the equivalent system in either at about the same price by shifting between the various big box stores.

I eliminated Lenovo based on its being higher priced. Imagine my surprise when Office Depot put the Lenovo 3000 N100 on sale for $699.99 after MIR, my model had 512mb, T2300 centrino dual (not T2300E), 80gb HD, 15.4" LCD, 802.11ABG (intel chipset), Bluetooth, Fingerprint reader, 100mb Ethernet, DL DVDR/W (8x), sound. XP Home, A Roxio S/W bundle, Word Perfect and lots of utilities. The only thing about it I don;t like after 5 months is the mouse substitue - and HP and Toshiba include touch pads from the very same vendor.

There are variants of this Lenovo unit with faster and slower processors, more and less hard disk and more or less memory at various retailers this week at about what I paid.

If you don;t know Lenovo, its the chinese company which bought IBM's PC business. Many of the support and maintainence utilities are IBM developed and IBM does the service. Most of the units have a courier type warranty with 2 day turnaround. And if you are capable they will overnight you parts to swap.

Complaints in reviews are the mouse and lack of an Express slot (it has one but the bluetooth card is in it - a fact lost on one of the reviewers).

[Marvingj]

HP gives you more bang for the bucks... But toshiba is a solid thru & thru .. Sony is excellent but usually no growth due to no expanibility..

[redwudz]

Ade007, One post per topic is enough. Please don't double post. I've locked the other topic.

Moderator redwudz

[Ade007]

Moderator redwudz,

Sorry for the double post, must have happened when my pc was experiencing some problems. It wasn't intentional.

Thanks for your suggestions.

[TBoneit]

FWIW if I could afford them instead of sticking with my desktop and 2Ghz P4 laptop then I'd say based on what we see at work in our computer store (repairs and upgrade and custom PCs)

I'd say Sony or Thinkpad.

Never seen for example hinge problems on the display with either.
Rarely see power connector problems. Thinkpads just aren't sexy looking but are rock solid. Good Support, We just replaced a Thinkpad t42 motherboard due to customer and water mishap. Replacement part came next day at 9:30 am. Second T42 sent in for warranty, IBM... Sorry no warranty due to liquid intrusion. Sent it back overnight. I wan't surprised when they wouldn't warranty it, we had to fix the keyboard, clean out the sand and fix something else so it didn't look beatup. Later on customer admitted well maybe they did spill a little water on the keyboard.

NOT an IBM fault customers spill water in the computer.

Sony always seems solid.

OTOH if you are a costco member, they do have a decent return period.

HPs we've seen models with hinge problems (Compaq too), and another model that has a known Mobo problem they fixed under warranty.

Dell has some decent models and some not so good... Example look up the Inspiron 5100 and heating problem on the internet.

E-Machines well they'd be my last choice.

Toshiba I have seen some flakey models there too.

We have a Sony 600Mhz P3 laptop for sale, still runs nice, still looks good. Sony is good.

If you can spring for teh money think the ultra light if you will be lugging it around.

Cheers

[Ade007]

If Sony doesn't read all flash memory cards, is a memory card reader expensive and a hassle? I know I have some sd cards and I will need to transfer some pictures to the laptop. All the memory cards I currenttly have are sd cards. Would this be considered a huge issue? I'm buying thislaptop for my mom and I would like to get something reliable for her.

[redwudz]

You can get inexpensive USB flash card readers or even PCMCIA ones that plug right into your card slots. That's not much of a problem. They autoconfigure, so no software required. Just like a USB thumb drive.

You choice would somewhat depend on the end use of the laptop. If you need high portability and small size, the Thinkpads are nice. If it's more of a desktop replacement type of use, most any will work. Look for a good warranty/replacement plan.

When you find some you like, try a Google search for the laptop model, along with the word 'review' added and see what others have to say.

If you need to save a few dollars, consider a refurbished laptop from one of the major laptop companies. You can often get a great deal from corporate trade-ins that are in excellent condition for economy prices.

[oldandinthe way]

Beware of the seduction of handing things off the USB on your laptop.

First comes a wireless mouse. If you don't have bluetooth on your system and buy a bluetooth mouse, you need to plug a dongle into the USB port. Then a USB based memory card reader. Do you need a floppy - then a USB floppy. An external second hard disk is useful, especially since the hard disks are small and externals have prices in freefall.

Pretty soon you get a Christmas tree.

Sony is the only of these vendors which builds in a reader only for its propietary card. If you have another brand of camera - buy another system. Most of the other systems will read a sony memory card as well as the more standard SD/MMC/SM/CF/MD and you won't spend more and have on more item on the desk and in your carrying case.

[ZAPPER]

ThinkPad here. It has more curser functions, eraserhead, touchpad with buttons above and below the pad and scroll button above touch pad to give you the widest possibilities in finding a comfortable way to use it. (Me? I use a mouse if I am set up at a desk or table for any long amount of time)

Downside? Heavy.

Lousy battery life when actually using it (it should have just came with the transformer built in and a 20' retractable power cord) I hear that most laptops actually suffer from short batterylife.

Speakers suck, well ok it ain't no boom box and I haven't really heard a laptop that was.

The one possible upside that I have heard is that alot of businesses use them and when they up grade to the next lot, used parts do become available (replacement screen for mine came about this way)

A girl in our office has Sony media center, nice unit, the laptop that is.

As I recall from my own searching around, Sony may have had the loudest speakers at the time.

[MOVIEGEEK]

For the most bang for the buck I vote Toshiba.
After comparing all makes I decided on a Satellite A105:
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cfam.to?seg=HHO&coid=-26377&sel=0&rcid=-26367&ccid=1291021

[jollyjohn]

Has someone had a Sony laptop serviced by Sony? It costs an arm and a leg, and the custommer servece sucks big time.

[guns1inger]

We provide Toshibas through a leasing program to students between year 5 and 12, so they see a lot of use and abuse. They generally stand up pretty well, and the vast majority see out their three years without incident. On the other hand, students can also procure their own laptops from outside sources. Most go for the cheaper Compaq (HP), Dell or ASUS, and they generally have a much shorter shelf life and seem less featured. The Sonys have a pretty good reputation, and look very nice, but even those seem to have more problems per head of population than the Toshibas.

[InXess]

Sony has the nicest display. Brightness and image quality is better then other brands. They tend to be most expensive but the display is the best. I'd vote Sony.

[edDV]

Has someone had a Sony laptop serviced by Sony? It costs an arm and a leg, and the custommer servece sucks big time.

Been there. After the warranty runs out you need to pay them to answer the phone. Also, their support website is very thin for self support compared to the others.

Their only option for a flickering backlight was to replace the entire LCD display.

[lacywest]

I bought a Dell 5150 Laptop to use at work. My main concerns was it had USB 2. I bought it the Summer of 2004. Still works fine. Spring of 2006 it would sit on a desk in our office lounge [on graveyard shift] with a external DVD burner attached and 6 external hard drives. I use a USB 2.0 card and a Dynex 7-Port USB 2.0 hub to connect everything.

Last weekend it sat on the secretary's desk processing Superman II [the Richard Donner Cut] I used DVD-Rebuilder Pro with CCE at 3 Passes ... took about 192 minutes. Two harddrives [200 GB Seagate and a 250 GB Maxtor] were connected and a Lite-On DVD burner in a Bytecc USB 2 enclosure.

There has been some bad reviews about the Dell 5150 laptop having a IC chip located on the side of the mobo cracking after about a years use and needing repairs. Well ... mine is doing fine ... I have absolutely no complaints at all. Came with a 40 GB HD and runs at 2.8 GHZ. I have 768 megs of ram in it. I carry it around in a Laptop padded Targus case ... I keep it in the trunk of my car ... and it doesn't see the insides of my home.

Addon ... When I first got it ... I reformated the hard drive and reinstalled WINXP ... it was included on a separate CD ... Reason ... I didn't need or want all that extra stuff included. My Norton Internet Security Pro 2004 ran out a couple of months ago ... I will need to take of that ... in the manner I take care of those sort of things.

[TBoneit]

Has someone had a Sony laptop serviced by Sony? It costs an arm and a leg, and the custommer servece sucks big time.

Been there. After the warranty runs out you need to pay them to answer the phone. Also, their support website is very thin for self support compared to the others.

Their only option for a flickering backlight was to replace the entire LCD display.

My guess on a flickering display would be bad LCD panel backlight or the inverter. However I would first try the panel. It is a fluorescent light and they do tend to flicker. My main reason for shying away from LCDs for so long. Unfortunately I couldn't afford a 32" 16:9 tube HDTV whereas I could afford a 32" LCD HDTV. Fingers crossed. le DVD players here for repair that have a flickering display. Whenever the new panels get in I'll replace them, fit a new DVD drive and then fixed and available for the next RMA replacement needed. (Sharp LCD). Holds up better than the no name panel used in another brand that seems to develop a light bleeding problem around the edges of the screen causing the edges to be bright. Brand name vs Cheapo. And the one with the sharp lcd has a better, more durable DVD drive, a reason to buy the more expensive player too.

[Capmaster]

Also, are HP laptops as good as Toshiba or Sony Laptops?

Better, in my opinion. We're currently on our second HP laptop. The first one outlived my old Compaq I bought at the same time (it was bought in 2002 and died in 2004). The HP is rugged 8)

The first still works fine but it is 4 years old and slow. The new one is a Core Duo, and is the closest thing to a "perfect" laptop for us. We're big fans of HP now, and we currently have 4 in the house (2LT, 2DT)

[TBoneit]

One nice thing about the Dell XP disc if you order it, it is an extra cost option now, is they don't seem to need activation if usedon a Dell. This will keep the machine running easily no matter how many times you re-install without needing to get on the phone to activate every six months even.

[tgm4883]

Dell Inspiron 5100 here. Main problem with this is that it 1.5 Hours battery life. This is because they use a DESKTOP processor. You're not going to have that problem anymore. That also seems to be the problem with everyone that has overheating problems with it, I don't as I know how to open and clean the thing. Linux installed perfectly on it, works like a charm (although a little heavy)

At work I manage 2 Inspiron e1505, 1 Inspiron 6000, two sony's and a gateway. All are great computers with long battery life (sony's get alot of battery life, but thats cause they only have 7 in screens). What you really need to focus on is what it is used for. For instance, the sony's are great, they are very light, very small, super clear picture, but a real pain to type on. All of them have very clear pictures, and pretty good battery life (thanks to the great processors) so I would choose based on use, weight, size.

[edDV]

Has someone had a Sony laptop serviced by Sony? It costs an arm and a leg, and the custommer servece sucks big time.

Been there. After the warranty runs out you need to pay them to answer the phone. Also, their support website is very thin for self support compared to the others.

Their only option for a flickering backlight was to replace the entire LCD display.

My guess on a flickering display would be bad LCD panel backlight or the inverter. However I would first try the panel. It is a fluorescent light and they do tend to flicker. My main reason for shying away from LCDs for so long. Unfortunately I couldn't afford a 32" 16:9 tube HDTV whereas I could afford a 32" LCD HDTV. Fingers crossed. le DVD players here for repair that have a flickering display. Whenever the new panels get in I'll replace them, fit a new DVD drive and then fixed and available for the next RMA replacement needed. (Sharp LCD). Holds up better than the no name panel used in another brand that seems to develop a light bleeding problem around the edges of the screen causing the edges to be bright. Brand name vs Cheapo. And the one with the sharp lcd has a better, more durable DVD drive, a reason to buy the more expensive player too.

Independent service shops will disassemble the display and replace the backlight and/or inverter for $89-150 if you shop around. Sony service requires a figure over $500 to replare the entire LCD assembly and will not repair.

Anyone buying an LCD display should be concerned about the backlight and whether it is user replaceable. This can be a big expense in about 3-5 years.

[rallynavvie]

I faced the laptop conundrum last spring when I took a promotion that required me to travel a lot. Normally my desktops did all my work since I worked from home most of the time, I only had a tough old ThinkPad with a P3-M in it that I still used for email, internet, and Office apps when I was on the road. The new lapper needed to have the power of a desktop but I wanted something light so I went with the Sony.

From my experiences with laptops:
Dell - Our company issues Latitudes and I once had a Latitude from school. I do know that the Latitudes are the economy models but they have plastic bits breaking off constantly. They're also much heavier than I wanted from a new laptop. The internals are average but I'd serviced a lot of the old IDE HDDs on them. I've heard good things about the new, higher-end lines and Dell service plans are generally pretty good (just call and they're replace the part with a minimum of hassle).

HP (Compaq) - I have a 2135US and I absolutely loathe it. It's heavy, the hardware is bizarre so finding proper drivers is pain. It's older, but my even older P3 ThinkPad runs circles around it.

IBM (ThinkPad) - My trusty old P3 platform. It's heavy but it's a tank and can take a lot of abuse. I've dropped it a couple times and neither the display or the internals were damaged.

Sony (Vaio) - I've always like their styling and displays. They also generally have a lot of onboard features like i.Link (4-pin FireWire). However my SZ-series doesn't have GbE, DVI, or TV outputs on it which is disappointing. It does have MemoryStick, SD, CF, and xD card readers on it. All but the MemoryStick reader are on a MiniExpress card slot (a newer PCI-E card slot). I still have one more legacy PCMCIA slot. It also has Bluetooth so I got a BT mouse for it and never need a USB dongle. The feature that sold me was the swtichable video card: I can switch between onboard (Intel 945) or dedicated (GeForce 7400) video acceleration to conserve battery or game. With the 7400 I get about 2 hours battery life, 4.5 on the 945. I highly recommend a service plan through a local retailer rather than direct through Sony, it makes repairs go a lot easier.

Apple - I had a PowerMac G4 titanium and loved it. I donated it to my sis and never saw it again. I would have got a new MacBook Pro instead of the Vaio had the ability to dual-boot been out sooner. You get what you pay for with the Apples. Aside from the heatsink issues (which can be fixed) they are tough, light, have one of the best displays available, and are pretty quick. Problem is that quickness eats battery fast. I think the new ones get about 2-2.5 hours on a battery.

My recommendation is for Sony, Apple, or IBM. I've also heard some great things about Panasonic Toughbooks and Asus' new line of laptops. Not had any experience with Acers.

[InXess]

Been there. After the warranty runs out you need to pay them to answer the phone. Also, their support website is very thin for self support compared to the others.

It only appears so... I have a Dell and Sony and when the warranty is up everybody wants to have their hand in your pocket. Recovery disk was free from Sony (with lightning fast free delivery) but $65 from Acer plus pickup - you have to drive to get it. My Sony is better built then Dell (feels very solid - like a brick). Displays as I said are beyond comparison.
Service is a nightmare WHATEVER BRAND you pick. All parts seem to be at least 5x the desktop cost equivalent.

EDIT: good thing about Dell, their full service manual was available straight from Dell support site - free download.

[TBoneit]

Dell Inspiron 5100 here. Main problem with this is that it 1.5 Hours battery life. This is because they use a DESKTOP processor. You're not going to have that problem anymore. That also seems to be the problem with everyone that has overheating problems with it, I don't as I know how to open and clean the thing. Linux installed perfectly on it, works like a charm (although a little heavy)

At work I manage 2 Inspiron e1505, 1 Inspiron 6000, two sony's and a gateway. All are great computers with long battery life (sony's get alot of battery life, but thats cause they only have 7 in screens). What you really need to focus on is what it is used for. For instance, the sony's are great, they are very light, very small, super clear picture, but a real pain to type on. All of them have very clear pictures, and pretty good battery life (thanks to the great processors) so I would choose based on use, weight, size.

You can blow backwards through the heatsink and through the bottom to do a fairly good clean. I'd blow out the fan that you can see from the bottom. Then look through the back or side, I do not remember and blow from there to blow the dust out the bottom. This will do a decent job if it isn't gummed up from smoking. They open fairly easy for cleaning too. I do not reccomend this if you aren't familiar with doing so.

[DanielSmith]

IBM is the your choice definitely,Toshiba is good too for its well design. And lenovo is a famous brand in Asia with high quality and good service,the IBM' PC department had been bought by it