[bluevolt]

Originally Posted by noopster

The guy comes and checks it and says, arre yeh toh physical damage hai! No warranty coverage. I say, why? THere are no cracks on the outside or any evidence that it has suffered a fall or a heavy object been placed on it etc. He says, otherwise the screen would not have cracked this way. That seems like cyclical reasoning to me but I say fine- now what?

If the laptop is not physically damaged then in no way you should entertain this service guy. Just call up some senior officials. Why would you even pay a single rupee if there is no fault from your side and unit is under warranty?

[noopster]

Originally Posted by Raccoon

^^^Are you sure Toshiba is a good option when it comes to Laptops? A friend who used to sell and repair laptops said Toshiba laptops were amongst the poor quality ones. The Chinese origin shows right thru, he said. He suggested Asus to me instead. Though he did add that he is not aware of the latest ones as hes pulled out of repairing.

Do others here have any experience or comments about Toshiba and Asus laptops?

I have used 4 successive Toshiba laptops as my official portable workstation over the past 10 years. Starting with a Satellite to my current Portege M900. My unbiased opinion follows:

Pros

• Very reliable. Except one cracked LCD screen I have not had a serious issue with the hardware. No crashed HDDs ever.
• User-friendly: my current model has an HDMI out which is most useful. The keys are positioned perfectly and with the right firmness for fast 2-fingered typing.
• Looks quite good, ages well too

Cons

• Heat sink is placed on the left side whch makes literal "laptop" use difficult. Not recommended if you are in this habit.
• The cursor tends to jump around (in my current model), sometimes inexplicably more than usual. No explanation- vendor says "Virus hogaa"!
• Not spiffy like a Vaio or an iBook if you want to impress clients etc. Highly functional.

Originally Posted by bluevolt

If the laptop is not physically damaged then in no way you should entertain this service guy. Just call up some senior officials. Why would you even pay a single rupee if there is no fault from your side and unit is under warranty?

Blue- good point, but there *is* a small chance the domestic help dropped it when cleaning up during the day and is scared to tell us

[Raccoon]

^^^Thanks! I know they are not spiffy, but hows the general build quality? And screen quality?

[noopster]

@Raccoon-
Some quick mobile phone pics for your reference.






Build quality is quite solid: no loose hinges, or things falling off. The surface has a honeycomb finish which is quite nice to the touch, and looks quite good too.

Screen is decent, I have an old 4:3 ratio one but it's quite easy on the eyes- generally use about 8-10 hours a day without strain. No flickering or dimming either.

[prateekm]

Wanted to purchase a netbook, something that can also act as a 24x7 downloading machine, so went for ASUS 1015CX. Got it for 12,600 from HomeShop18. Will put up pics and a small review after I receive it!

[AlphaKilo]

Originally Posted by noopster

I have a Lenovo G570 purchased Oct 2011. One evening the LCD screen started acting funny. There seems to be a crack running through it (internally). The entire left half of the screen is ruined: it is now a combination of white opaqueness and some black with a couple of vertical bright coloured stripes running through.

So anyway I called up Lenovo helpdesk- they were pretty responsive, assigned a local service dealer to me, who called me and assured me that I could get it replaced under warranty as long as there was no physical damage. I said fine, it was just sitting on my desk all day- no physical damage that I know of.

Since I paid 23K for this lapop (on sale) to start with, am loathe to part with more than half of that just to change the screen! So what to do? Should I call his bluff and ask him to file warranty? Or should I join him in his subterfuge and save a fair bit of money?

Mate, call the Lenovo help desk. They will help you with this or post in the lenovo forums.

By the way, I too recently bought a Thinkpad Edge E530. As everyone has been saying here, keyboard is awesome! Makes me feel I shouldnt stop typing. Has a Matt finish screen, OK sound. My earlier one was a Sony VAIO with Xblack LCD and powerful audio system and there is no match for its sound and picture quality. But, battery in lenovo is mind blowing, even after constant internet usage, it runs for over 4hours without any fuzz and when on lowest setting the indicator shows a battery life of over 6hours. Oh yeah, costed 720euros(699 euros plus 8 gb ram upgrade - student/university shop, hence this rate!)

Config:
i5 - 3210(sandybridge) 2.5Ghz with Turbo(we TBHPians love turbo's) 3.1Ghz
8Gb (upgraded from 4GB default)
750 HDD + 16 GB SSD as HDD performance optimizer
NVIDIA 630M + Intel 4000 or 3000(on-board) (not sure of the number) with dedicated 2GB graphics
Island Key-pad with numpad(seperate)
6cell Li-Ion battery - company mileage - 5hrs, Depending on actual driving style - 4.5 - 6.2hrs
1680x720 screen(Matt finish - no glare no reflections, not so good(compare:my previous Sony VAIO)
Sound with amplifiers in-built - I dont think so! (VAIO - the best!)
rest all same old bla bla bla's

OT: Noopster, I see that you are in your work place, TBHPing. Make sure your manager doesnt looks at this post of yours. FYI, I am also at my work place

[Raccoon]

Originally Posted by noopster

@Raccoon-
Some quick mobile phone pics for your reference.

Build quality is quite solid: no loose hinges, or things falling off. The surface has a honeycomb finish which is quite nice to the touch, and looks quite good too.

Screen is decent, I have an old 4:3 ratio one but it's quite easy on the eyes- generally use about 8-10 hours a day without strain. No flickering or dimming either.

Thanks so much for taking the trouble. Really appreciate it.

What I ment to ask about screen and stuff is how it compares to screens of other brands in its price range. It would be used for seeing videos and pics and stuff, hence that part is pretty important, besides the keyboard.

[Parthasarathig]

Originally Posted by Raccoon

^^^Thanks! I know they are not spiffy, but hows the general build quality? And screen quality?

I purchased an Satellite L300 quite a few years back and it has lasted me till now and still going strong. Subsequently toshiba brought out better models in the same price range. The battery died 2 months ago probably because it was always connected to charging. However the build quality is great. It has fallen quite a few times when it was kept in the cabin luggage of plane or bus. Then my maid had placed a lot of things on top of it while cleaning the room. I was :shocked: but it didnt give up on me and to this day it still works. Though im interested in buying the MBP retina but im going to keep this as my backup machine or always on media server type.

And i watch full 1080p movies on it without a lag even though it doesnt have a dedicated gpu like Nvidia or ATi. The screen is very good and theres no stupid reflections like in the glossy mac screens. Overall its a tough product for the price i bought it.

About your friend who repairs computers i dont wish to badmouth him but he seems to have very limited knowledge of Toshiba.
Firstly Toshiba is a Japanese company. Lenovo is chinese. The name itself says it all. To for Tokyo and Shiba for the district in Japan where it all started.

toshiba has a lot of inventions to its credit. Apple uses toshiba ssds on its iDevices afaik and lots of other technologies are widely used today. IIRC toshiba also created first 3d television without eye glasses requirement.

So for your friend to diss on a world renowned company with a generalised comment only signals his lack of knowledge in that field. Anyone can repair his computers, gimme a screwdriver and ill be able to carry out most of the required tasks for servicing. Sorry if i hurt your feelings about the friend but it upsets me when someone tends to pass a generalised and unknowledgeable comment about one of the pioneering companies in modern day tech.

Its like saying "Oh fiat quality is bad (based on after sales support)" when most of the diesel engines in production today have been made by FIAT. Oh and Toshiba customer care was able to source me a charger for my laptop within two days(had lost the earlier one at airport security check)

Cheers.

[Raccoon]

^^^Err... some misconceptions. My friend did not say anything adverse about Toshiba itself. The comment was about Toshiba lappies that are Made in China! Nobody is saying Toshiba is a Chinese company!! According to him, the ones that started coming out of China were/are decidedly lower quality and build on a tight budget... to compete on cost rather than quality. According to him, Asus is a better option and more reliable than the Chinese made Toshibas. Please note that the comparision is with Asus and not with Lenovo, like you have mentioned above. I have not mentioned Lenovo in any previous post.

Anyway, really appreciate you inputs on the brand. And the fact that the brand has almost made you go personal shows that you have had a pretty good experience with it. It also seems that others here have had a good experience with the brand.

However, I'd request those here who have had good (or bad) experience with Toshiba to please mention the manufacturing country. It may very likely be that Toshiba lappies are made in more than one or two contries, and the quality may differ.

Not that it matters here, but the friend I was talking about is no screwdriver mechanic as alleged. In fact hes an Elect. engg. (BE) who owned a showroom that sells and repairs lappies, mobiles, etc. Repairs included chip level repairing and the like. He does not really fix lappies himself... at least not as part of his work. He had employees for that. I am not aware to what extent he can do the job himself. But after this discussion, I guess I'm going to probe in that area...

[Parthasarathig]

Originally Posted by Raccoon

^^^Err... some misconceptions.

My apologies. Hadnt meant to go personal extremely sorry about that. What i didnt appreciate is that too many shopkeepers tend to impose their own opinions when they know nothing about the brand. Many a times shopkeepers friends have told me "oh this brand eh good luck finding service etc" and my experience with that particular brand's customer service was exemplary. Here im talking about all devices whether fridge or washing machine or laptop.

BTW Why arent you interested in going for dell? Right now given the proliferation of ultrabooks im tempted to go for one as carrying a full fledged laptop only results in a sore back:(

P.s off topic here maybe but most of the goods we use are manufactured in China. Even the tiles that we use in our homes and offices come from China. The brands are Indian itself the renowned ones but they get it from China as its much cheaper. Anyone working at a port customs maybe able to clarify on this but i was literally shocked when my developer blessed me with this info.

And once again I apologise for being irrational wrt your friend.

Best regards.

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by noopster

I have a Lenovo G570 purchased Oct 2011. One evening the LCD screen started acting funny. There seems to be a crack running through it (internally). The entire left half of the screen is ruined: it is now a combination of white opaqueness and some black with a couple of vertical bright coloured stripes running through.

The right half of the screen is fine- unfortunately dosn't do me much good since the Start button and other useful stuff is focused on the left bottom quadrant.

So anyway I called up Lenovo helpdesk- they were pretty responsive, assigned a local service dealer to me, who called me and assured me that I could get it replaced under warranty as long as there was no physical damage. I said fine, it was just sitting on my desk all day- no physical damage that I know of.

The guy comes and checks it and says, arre yeh toh physical damage hai! No warranty coverage. I say, why? THere are no cracks on the outside or any evidence that it has suffered a fall or a heavy object been placed on it etc. He says, otherwise the screen would not have cracked this way. That seems like cyclical reasoning to me but I say fine- now what?

So the guy shows his "enterprising" spirit: says he can order a part from Lenovo and do things officially but the warranty claim will fall through and I will end up paying around 12K. Or I let him quietly source the part locally (Lenovo-compatible, not original) and pay him some 7K. He claims he will even provide his own warranty.

Since I paid 23K for this lapop (on sale) to start with, am loathe to part with more than half of that just to change the screen! So what to do? Should I call his bluff and ask him to file warranty? Or should I join him in his subterfuge and save a fair bit of money?

Edit: The part seems to be easily available online (abroad) for some $65.

Call his bluff.

If they try to charge you, please go to the consumer court. There have been a lot of similar litigation, and if there is no explicit sign of physical damage, you win.

[Raccoon]

^^^No apologies needed mate. I quite agree with you on the shopkeeper experience. I'v had a very similar experience. I guess if they don't have stock of a particular brand or the margins are lower, they may be using such influencing tactics. These experiences have taught me not to trust shopkeeprs/dealers/mechanics/agents and whatever else. However, when the person is a friend and has zero financial implication in what he is saying, then I'd sit up and listen...

[Aroy]

Regarding "Made in China".

A lot of goods are made in China - IBM, Apple, Nokia even HP. That does not mean Chinese goods are bad. Depending on the design and the QA they make excellent stuff as well as extremely sub standard one, depends on what they are paid. So if the brand is international and service back up good you have no problems.

Just beware of some brands, especially some older Indian manufacturers who went belly up about a decade ago. They get down right questionable stuff from China.

[Raccoon]

^^^Quite so. But then just compare say Made in Japan stuff with Made in China.... you are bound to find a difference. And I'm talking about international brands/MNCs... not Chinese brands. He further added that much of the stuff there is handled by workers who work on slave labor pay scales. Which would a contributing factor to the lack of quality. I'm not too well informed about the issue to comment further... but as an eg. some news reports concerning conditions at Foxconn come to mind.

[bluevolt]

Well most of the electronic items are manufactured in China, but we should not be worried as long as the unit was purchased legally with proper bills and warranty. Even my recently purchased Sony Vaio laptop is made in china but it's not that it is a lemon. it's working absolutely fine as per my expectations.