After my recent experience with Toshiba's support/repair service, I'd say
you should should avoid them. Apparently "next business day" service means
the next day only if their fax system is working and then if it takes
another day because there was nobody at the service depot to receive the
FedEx shipment with your parts in it, it's "a reasonable delay" and we can't
do anything about it. Oh, and if the technician who does fix your machine
forgets to plug in one of the 20 or so connectors so the machine won't start
up you'll have to wait another day for another technician to come and finish
the job the first one started.
Don't even think about either doing the repair yourself or you'll void the
warranty. It must be done by a subcontracted service organisation that
employees highly-trained individuals who have received up to zero hours of
training on your specific model, and they have previously worked on your
specific model "a few times."
It took me 5 days from the first contact with Toshiba to get my laptop
repaired. Out of 6 Toshiba's we've purchased in the last few months, 2 have
required service. I think that's the same number of Dell's that have been
serviced in a year out of probably 50. Plus Dell actually sends out a
technician the same day you call.
However, if you enjoy chatting with people in Turkey (especially employees
of Seimens) when you have technical issues, by all means buy a Toshiba. I
should probably warn you that the call centre uses a 60 second loop of what
is quite possibly the worst on-hold music I have ever heard. It took about a
week before I stopped hearing it in my head every night when I tried to get
to sleep.
I'm not bitter or anything. It's too bad because they used to make fantastic
laptops, and having good speakers with a 15" screen and DVD is really sweet
when it works.
Colin
