Dell VS Toshiba Laptops

[poolzer]

Shopping for a new laptop and have narrowed down to these 2:

DELL Studio 15 Laptop

COLORS Midnight Blue
PROCESSORS NEW 2010 Intel® Core™ i5-520M 2.40GHz (2.93Ghz Turbo Mode, 3M cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
MEMORY 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz
HARD DRIVE 320GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1 Year Basic Service Plan
VIDEO CARD ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4570, 512MB
HD DISPLAY 15.6” High Definition (1080p) LED Display with TrueLife™ and Camera/Facial Recognition SW
WIRELESS CARDS Intel© Centrino© Advanced-N 6200 edit
KEYBOARD Back-lit Keyboard
BATTERY OPTIONS 85 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell
BLUETOOTH Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth Internal (2.1)
OPTICAL DRIVE 8X Slot Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
SOUND OPTIONS Soundblaster X-Fi Hi Def Audio - Software Enabled
My Accessories
OFFICE SOFTWARE No Microsoft Office
SECURITY SOFTWARE McAfee SecurityCenter, 15-Months
DATASAFE ONLINE BACKUP Dell Online Backup 2GB for 1 year
ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM
PROCESSOR Studio 15 Laptop
MOBILE CONNECTIVITY Internal Mobile Broadband not included
INTEGRATED WEBCAM No Touch Software
INSTALLATION SERVICES 1Yr LoJack for Laptops Theft Protection
PRICE: $999

TOSHIBA SATELLITE A500-ST6644

# Intel® Core™ i5-520M Processor 2.40 GHz (2.93 GHz with Turbo Boost Technology), 3MB L3 Cache, 1066MHz DDR3
# Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
# 4GB DDR3 1066MHz SDRAM (2048MBx2)
# 320GB HDD (5400rpm, Serial-ATA)
# NVIDIA® GeForce® 310M with 512MB GDDR3 discrete graphics memory
# DVD SuperMulti (+/-R double layer) drive
# Fusion Finish™ in Quantum Black
# Glossy Black US LED Backlight Keyboard
# No Bluetooth (No Antenna)
# High Capacity Lithium Ion Battery (12-cell)
# No Modem
# Microsoft® Office Ready with Microsoft Office Professional 2007 60-day Trial Edition
# 1 Year Standard Limited Warranty
# 16" 1366x768 native screen resolution
# LED backlit keyboard
# HDMI port
# Integrated webcam
Price: $1,069.00

So you can see they're almost mirror images of each other and the Dell wins for price, but if quality means paying a bit more, than I have no issue with Toshiba.

Thoughts?

 

[ran]

Never had one, but I see more Toshibas around these days. Last holidays, I ordered a pumped up Dell for my wife and spent a few trips to the PO about it. Dell boxes, covered with the word 'Dell' dissappear from the Post Office quite often. It took 3 months to get a refund.
Perhaps Toshiba would be a better deal.

 

[SkylineGTRracer]

You know whats weird I both have Dell and Toshiba laptops. The Dell we got from bestbuy (DONT BUY FROM THEM! THEY WILL SCREW YOU!) I can let you know more about that if interested and we got the Toshiba from walmart. The dell is a Studio 17 and I got it for college when I started last semester and I'm on my second one for almost a year. the first one was replaced as it couldn't hold the wireless internet for very short periods of time. now on this second one the CD-ROM drive is broken and needs to be fixed. every time I start it makes a grinding noise. The Toshiba however has been a model of reliability and its one of those notebooks. hope this helps

 

[Mark86]

I had a few Toshiba's before I converted to Mac and they were alright. I think Sony built a better overall laptop (when comparing Windows laptops), but I didn't have any terrible experiences with Toshiba. I never had a Dell so I can't offer a fair opinion. Overall, I would take my Mac over any Toshiba or Sony any day.

 

[PTY507]

Have you ever considerer a Mac? do you really run programs build only for Windows OS? Do you only use it for Internet, Microsoft office, Messenger, Skype, or any other programs that also runs in Apple's OS?

A year ago, i had the same dilemma, what PC laptop should i bought, and finally i choose a Mac. And i think that was the best choice.

My work's PC laptop has only 3 moths and has more crashes than my Mac in a hole year.

 

[Mark86]

Actually, have you ever heard of Boot Camp for Mac? You can run both Windows an Mac OS on your Mac. I used to run Windows XP on my Macbook Pro for Microsoft Flight Simulator and it ran flawlessly. My Mac is also the best PC I ever owned!

 

[poolzer]

No issue with Apple other than the price vs thier conterparts. I was brought up on Apple products all the way through college then went over to Windows in '97 when I joined the Navy.

OK, I looked over at Apple, and this is the most comparable setp (do note that the above and the below prices are with the applicable military discount):

MacBook
# 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
# 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
# 320GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
# Keyboard (English) & User’s Guide (English)
# SuperDrive 8x DVD+/-R DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW
$1,034.00

-Would this 2.26GHz comparable to the above i5-520M 2.40GHz?
-No mention of facial recognition software with the webcam that both dell and toshiba have.
-No mention about the video or sound card, so cant compare

So..with these 3 setups, can the Mac compete?

I will play maybe 1-2 games like 1/2 life and red alert 2 & 3, but nothing more recent or graphic bending.

Otherwise just normal word processessing, spreadsheets, internet, web cam with my wife while we are apart etc. I do run Itunes (picked up an Iphone 2 weeks ago).

With music and video, I have about 2TB of movies and tv shows, most that need a/v codecs, how easy will it to play them on a mac? I grab these for deployments so I can watch them on a ship or in a helicopter.

Thanks for the opinions and help!

 

[SkylineGTRracer]

I had macs at my high school mostly for movie making and rendering of the movie and photoshop and illustrator for photography class and they had a hard time. I remember making my movie it would crash everyday. They were macbook pros if that helps. I don't really know what the internals were but even my old Acer had no problem writing movies. However my teacher had this apple monitor computer at school and would have no problems at all. it was a desktop and had tons of stuff on it. however for your situation I think the windows will treat you right. my dell runs autocad for this semester and worked well until it decided to nuke it CD-ROM drive. PS thanks for all you do!

 

[Mark86]

The processor in the Mac is probably not going to compete with the i5 processors in the two above laptops. Those two computers have the newest Intel chip installed. The Macbook you are looking at has an older processor. The core 2 duo is a great chip, but the i5 is definitely going to outperform it. As for graphics, the Macbook has shared VRAM, which is not going to be gamer/heavy duty graphics friendly. I think the Dell and Toshiba have dedicated VRAM, which may be better for your type of use. You would need to get a Macbook Pro 15'' to have an equivalent video card.

The screen size is another difference. The Macbook only has a 13'' screen, which is great if you are carrying the laptop around a lot. I find my 15'' clumsy to carry around at times. You are going to pay more money for a an equivalent Mac, but you definitely get quality and a far superior OS for the money!

 

[PTY507]

All posts has valid points. At the end the important ones are those that you choose. And as mark86 said, if you really miss windows, you can install boot camp or parallels to run it. I'll go for the MacBooks.

 

[RonMAIDEN]

Macs are great but you get alot less for your money with one and $1000 is pretty much an entry level Mac.

 

[peter78]

Macs are great but you get alot less for your money with one and $1000 is pretty much an entry level Mac.

Not sure how Mac got started on this thread. My Son got a new Dell this Christmas for college. He really like the new Windows 7. It is much faster than Vista, especially with the 4GB of memory and he loves the side by side function for windows.

I buy Dell becasue of the extras you can put in, I like the warranty. He closed the lab top and a small ear plug headphone was in it and he crushed the monitor. I don't like calling India, but it got fixed. I do seem to use the Dell extra warranty, not sure if that means they are not built great or what? So, if you like the extras, i.e. extra battiers or long warranty, including accidental damage, Dell may be the way to go. If you don't go with the extra stuff, I would think Toshiba would be a better computer.

 

[JAC]

Never had a Mac.....but I got 4 laptops a Dell a Toshiba, and two HP's (p of crap). Even tho the Hp's are way newer ...the Dell and the Toshiba are way better.. better wireless reception and faster , better sound quality too....

Either one DELL or Toshiba will satisfy your needs...they are both good computers... But If I have to choose one of the 2 I would go with DELL. No problems at all since I got it ..... I have no regrets on that one.

 

[Uneek]

Never had a Toshiba, but some reason I don't find much appeal with a Toshiba.

The Dell Studio looks like it's based on the chassis of the XPS M1330 and it's 15" sibling of that circa. My M1330 has been solid overall, but it did have a power rail failure that required a complete mobo swap. Done by Dell on site, covered under warranty. I had two older Inspirons, one has been flawless and another had a bad battery bridge (the BIOS would lose the clock settings if the primary battery was removed).

I'm looking at getting a newer Dell Studio or XPS16. My other alternative would be a ThinkPad, they're ugly, but solidly built. I've read HP laptops have overheating issues and to avoid them.

BTW, Windows 7 rocks. The slight changes to the task bar takes a little getting use to, but it's much more stable than Vista and doesn't take up as much resources. Vista was just good eye candy, but otherwise a pretty crappy OS.

 

[sheik]

I buy nothing but Lenovo's (previously IBM Thinkpad) at work and have for quite a few years (I do IT/Network Administration). They are die-hard work horses. I've had ONE warranty issue that I can recall on 10+ laptops at my current job.

Typed on my Lenovo W700 as my wife sits next to me on her Lenovo T500.

 

[sheik]

My other alternative would be a ThinkPad, they're ugly, but solidly built.

If you're not into the industrial look of the Lenovo's, check out their IdeaPad line. I bought my mom an IdeaPad Y550 last summer and she absolutely loves it. Very sleek and glossy.

 

[004Gunner]

I would go with the Toshiba. My fiancee bought a Dell Inspiron a little over a year ago and was literally in tears over the p.o.s. and the HORRIBLE customer service. It was all the cliches with each representative having her go through the same processes to troubleshoot every time she would call and then saying she needed new firmware or software. This was to get her Blu Ray drive to work. Replacing the drive, installing new software, updating all the firmware did not fix a thing. I believe it was with the Vista OS and Dell eventually admitted that there were known compatibility issues with the BD drive and the OS but didn't hesitate to charge an extra $200+ for Blu Ray. Fortunately, my 4+ year old Dell desktop with XP has never crashed and never given me a single problem. I would still stay away from Dell just because of the service though, can't say if Toshiba is better

 

[denverunner]

I buy nothing but Lenovo's (previously IBM Thinkpad) at work and have for quite a few years (I do IT/Network Administration). They are die-hard work horses. I've had ONE warranty issue that I can recall on 10+ laptops at my current job.

Typed on my Lenovo W700 as my wife sits next to me on her Lenovo T500.

This.

Lenovo all the way.

You won't get all of the branded bloatware (IE: uneccessary manufacturer apps, etc that bog your LT down)

Lenovo plays nice with external devices/accessories

I don't have any "concrete" evidence supporting my claims, -just stating my experiences.

 

[Scoobs]

Go with the Toshiba.

We have three of them in use at home, including one running XP with only 128mb of RAM ( bought it in 2002 ) and not a bit of trouble with any of them over the years. On the other hand I've wasted lots of hours "rescuing" Dell laptops for friends and family, last Dell I rescued was a co-worker's personal laptop that even a very reputable local computer shop told her was beyond rescue without a full reinstall of the OS. Took me a couple of hours but I did it without a reinstall. Personally, while I have had Dell desktops in the past ( have three at present, although my present desktop is Not a Dell but a scratch-built desktop ) and they weren't bad, I would never waste my time with a Dell laptop.

Also that processor in the Apple is old technology now. The i5 in the Tosh and the Dell is world's better and still will be a couple of years from now. Even if I were thinking of buying an Apple I wouldn't even consider one with that processor.

My wife has a Lenova that she uses through work. No problems with it but I don't like the keyboard.

 

[aeathb]

Really, this comes down to what people have come accustom to, and what they got lucky or unlucky with. I have had 3 Dells, and have absolutely loved them. They are built like a rock (at least the inspirons) and have no trouble with them. If you take them apart, you can see the visible difference in the quality of parts that were use compared to other brands. My last computer, the one I am using now, is an HP and has been nothing but trouble. Like others have said, stay away from HP for sure. As far as Toshiba goes, I can't say I have had a lot of personal experiences with them, but I could definitely recommend Dell.