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Toshiba Settles Class Action Suit
sidney writes "I was happy to receive an email January 5 informing of a class action settlement that could get me up to $1000 back on my Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100 Notebook. This follows an announcement last month that the court granted preliminary approval of settlement. The email looks like a phishing attempt, but whois says the website's domain is owned by Garden City Group who are well known for administering class action settlements. After going through four hard disks, motherboards, power supply daughterboards, and VGA cards in eight repairs during the three-year extended warranty of this piece of junk I'm more than happy to send it back to Toshiba in exchange for a down payment on a new Mac."
Useless unless you put linux on it ;)
Be or ben't
"UP to $1000.."
..i'm sure it wont be that much, more like $150.
To dare, is to do.
I love my Mac, however with over 1000 registerd complaints pertaining to a lower memory slot failure, and a potential class action lawsuit about to emerge, you could end up with the same problem. http://lowermemoryslot.editkid.com/ Make sure you take out AppleCare...
After going through four hard disks, motherboards, power supply daughterboards, and VGA cards in eight repairs during the three-year extended warranty of this piece of junk I'm more than happy to send it back to Toshiba in exchange for a down payment on a new Mac."
Good luck with that Mac. And your upcoming class-action lawsuit trying to get it serviced.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
CNet Rating: 7.8
Avg. User Rating: 3.1
From the review "As corporate as a blue suit and a tacky tie, Toshiba's Satellite Pro 6100 is a desktop-replacement notebook built strictly for business...the Satellite Pro 6100 is that rare notebook that does everything well enough to replace a desktop computer."
How are we supposed to trust CNET's ratings now? Shouldn't they review and change their ratings to reflect its true/overall quality?
'As corporate as a blue suit'... maybe it works great in one of those corporations like Enron - looks great at first and works okay for a while, but later it comes crashing to the ground.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
If it's any consolation, the Toshiba Satellite A75 I purchased last January is also a piece of junk. It is almost impossible to run at high clock speed without overheating. Anything that is both processor- and disk-intensive (like, say, a system-wide antivirus scan) is almost guaranteed to overheat the system. When it overheats, it spontaneously shutsdown.
From the articles I've read, it appears to be a design flaw with many recent Toshiba notebooks.
This is definitely the last Toshiba I will ever buy. It's unfortunate that Sony pissed me off so badly with the DRM fiasco -- I like their Vaio laptops. Spendy, but nice, but I'll never buy Sony again, either.
Maybe it's time to buy a Powerbook.
Apple is about to release a new generation of iBooks and/or Powerbooks, most likely including Intel iBooks at least. This month. So hold your horses.
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
It could be that review units were manufactured to a higher standard, or subjected to more rigorous quality control, than general retail units. All they'd have to do is cherry-pick 30 perfect laptops from 30,000 wonky ones, send that 30 to review sites, and the product looks good. After all, CNet are testing the quality and design of the hardware, not its reliability.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
How are we supposed to trust CNET's ratings now? Shouldn't they review and change their ratings to reflect its true/overall quality?
CNet has started including video reviews that are brief, but usually a pretty good overview of the product. I would ignore the "editor's rating" number, though. I've never found those to be consistent, on any website. If you want an indicator of quality, check the user ratings. Those usually point out any glarinf product deficiencies.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Did you really have to include the blurb about a new Vendor ?
....
Jeebus, I thought the idea was to be more apolitical these days
I wonder if this means I'll see a class action suit regarding the M35. In the 23 months I've owned it, I've used 4 screens, 4 motherboards, 2 power supplies, and now the fan has gone out and I have to operate at 586 MHz to avoid it from shutting itself down. I am never buying anything Toshiba again.
Well, we got 2 of those notebooks where we work and we can't take part in the settlement because you must have at least 3 documented failures. So far, they both have had no issues whatsoever, and they're pretty much at their end of life for us.
I guess we had a lucky batch or something, and maybe so did CNet. It's Either that or a golden sample.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
My university took back all 1500 Toshiba 6100 pro's they handed out to their students and purchased NEC's instead. They filed a lawsuit against Toshiba but lost because Toshiba denied liability saying that warranty should be handled by the party that sold the laptops to my university. Unfortunately the seller went broke right after the second wave of laptops was send back to them for repairs. Mine had to be repaired twice, both times the display failed. In the full year before I got my NEC I got to use my Toshiba 7 months.
I guess we had a lucky batch or something, and maybe so did CNet. It's Either that or a golden sample.
I guess it also passed its pee test.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Almost all "mass media" reviews of products occur when the product is released.
As a result, unless there are blatantly obvious build quality problems - "feels flimsy" and such, build quality/reliability problems go unnoticed in the initial review. Many build quality and reliability problems are invisible until a product has been available long enough for failures to occur.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I have a Toshiba laptop too. The overheating problem seems to be quite widespread. When a company gets it wrong, they should own up to it and fix the problem. Is there any tech firm that does this anymore? My first commodore computer seemed to be made of steel. The stuff you get these days ... Toshibas, Dells, XBOX360s etc. all seems to be made out of putty. I don't think outsourcing the manufacturing seems to be the reason why these problems are occuring. First, it is beneficial to companies as a group when their products fail. It means the consumer will have to go out and buy another unit. Its like musical chairs. Second, quality control on the factory floor seems to be going downhill. This might be happening in the name of cost cutting.
... positive or negative? There should be a list of companies who don't manufacture crap. They'll defn be getting my dollars.
I read an article that Samsung is obsessed with quality control. They subject all their equipment to stringent testing. Has anyone had any experience
The original i8k is an ancient model.
While insufficient thermal paste is one issue, in such an old machine I'd first suspect heatsink dust clogging. (My 8200 has never had any overheating problems, although I have had to clean out the radiator/fans and re-lube the fans once.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Buy a Toshiba notebook, send it in for repair and back again, join a class suit, collect (up to) $1000...
Seems like a particularly inefficient and masochistic method of confirming that a ThinkPad is the optimal choice for an x86 notebook.
*shrug*
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
For an added laugh, go take a look at their "worst products of the year"
Lowest score? 3.5 and the Toshiba Satellite M35X-S163 was rated 4.2.
So yeah, basically whore shills.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Macs cost too much, thats why you will never see me with one. As for problems -- Apple does not do well with their first set of hardware from new lines(like the upcoming intel macs)
Toshiba and IBM make the best laptops out there, the trick is you have to buy the correct model. The satelite laptops are doorstops, the one you should have gone with was the Tecra line, they're bulletproof. IBM's Thinkpad line is also superb. Sony's laptops are worse than the Satelite line. I havent had enough experience with Compaq/HP laptops recently, but the Armada line used to be the chosen one way back when.
Attempt to post your own story about an email 4 months ago with a $1000 settlement on the 5100 series, and get turned down twice... log into today, and see they've posted one on the 6100... How was the 5100 not news if this is? Or is slashdot story posting just that random.
~~ Please keep your arms, legs, and outright stupidity inside the ride at all times. Thank You ~~
I've got a Satellite 5220 (bought in Australia) and it has been nothing short of pathetic.
During the 12 month warranty the hard drive failed, but then started working and I was refused that they'd even look at it while it wasn't failing. The DVD burner also failed intermittently.
Just after the 12 month warranty went out the DVD-RW died completely. At approximately 18 months old the HDD failed almost completely (now with no way of booting from CD. Fortunately I had switched it to pure linux - gentoo - and the boot sector was still available so it hobbled along with a kernel that switched to running from an external USB lacie on boot. A few months later that HDD failed as well at which point I bought a new internal hard drive and installed gentoo on it using network boot.)
As it aged it got progressively hotter. Running at high nineties to just over a hundred degrees usually. Of course if it did any work, most of which was quite unstable it'd just overheat and switch off. With next to nothing left to lose at this point I finally dismantled it to take a look. The air filtration on the machine plain doesn't work. The heatsink at the air outlet was completely blocked with dust. I removed this and the machine ran to 40-50 degrees for quite a while. It's now back up to the hundred or so most of the time. I'm probably just going to dremel a big hole in the exhaust and vacuum it regularly to sap the last bit of life out of a machine that's only 2.5 years old and failing badly since 12 months.
In short - do not buy Toshiba under any circumstance. I'm wishing now I'd waited for delivery - getting an ASUS would have been the better choice.
Cheers,
Alan.
This is a problem specifc to several root causes, with more than just CNET but other sites and magazines as well:
When the "editor" product review varies that heavily from user reviews, you can tell there is a problem -- not just with the product but the review process as well.
{ - Generic Guy - }
Toshiba has had one of the worst records for laptop manufacturer's out there, both in terms of reliability and the people who they hire for "support". This isn't exactly news, people have been complaining about them for years. Google "toshiba sucks" and you're going to get results about laptops and PDAs. ;). The worst thing is, they have techs that you can actually understand, but talking to their techs is like talking to the retarded child of a 7-11 employee.
To those who don't know, Toshiba makes a lot of other things BESIDES laptops and PDAs (stuff like, oh, I don't know, something to do with propeller milling for submarines
That said, once you actually talk to someone without an indian accent, you're set. The folks they still have here are quite reasonable and easy to deal with. Probably the fastest way to do this is to file a BBB claim or contact their registered agent directly.
Still, if don't want to cough up blood from a newly formed ulcer, get a warranty from another company (i.e. not toshiba). Not dealing with their support is easily worth $150ish.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
anyone have any idea what Canadian customers can do? I've sent mine in twice for servicing. The article suggests this is for US customers only.
Just curious,
PL from Calgary
I regularly hear of folk with iBooks or PBs suffering from these mysterious motherboard failures.
Apple's service leaves alot to be desired here in the EU also - a colleague of mine had a 5 week turnaround on repairing such motherboard failure. Another had to have hers shipped out to the U.S with a return date that swelled from 2 to 6 weeks. Her experience was bad enough for her to go out and buy a Thinkpad in the interim. A wise choice - IBM's service and Lenovo's hardware is hard breed to top.
How are we supposed to trust CNET's ratings now? Shouldn't they review and change their ratings to reflect its true/overall quality?
In CNET's defense, they didn't do a long-term reliability test, just a test of the features and obvious initial quality. We bought a bunch of 6100s based on our own internal testing which, like the CNET review, showed that it was a nice laptop. Only later did we notice that the suckers were always in the shop.
As far as changing the review is concerned, unless CNET decided to do an independent analysis of the data, I wouldn't expect them to change their reviews at all. Since the 6100s aren't even on the market anymore, I wouldn't expect them to waste manpower or energy on that type of work. I'd expect them to focus more on what they traditionally review; new equipment that's commonly available.
TW
Maybe their experience was like mine. I've had my 6100 for a while (2+ years) now and I've never had a single problem with it. In fact, it's been just as reliable as any other Toshiba notebook that I've owned in the past... and I've owned a lot of them, starting with the Toshiba T1000 I bought in the late eighties. I've dabbled in other brands, like WinBook and Compaq, but none have ever lived up to how good these Toshibas have been - and besides, these things still have the eraser head mouses that I love!
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
You know it makes sense.
I would think, after 3 major repairs, you could demand a refund under your local lemon law.
Even if not, some credit card companies offer similar protection, too. What did you find when you looked into these options?
Is it only me who thinks this is one of the most pathetic settlements imaginable? My wife owend a 6100 that underwent 4-5 repairs, all covered by warranty, which can't be included in a settlement claim. She had to finagle to extend the warranty another month or two so they could repair her last (of several) motherboard failure. Another 2 months later her hard drive died, and rather than futilely fixing it she started borrowing a Powerbook from work. Now I have a hard drive-less laptop sitting in the closet that would cost ~$80-100 to fully replace the nice 60gig 5400rpm drive. According the settlement, I'd be entitled to collect $50-$75 for my troubles, and STILL have a computer that's only going to last another 2 months before frying again!
This is NOT a victory. As a owner of this laptop, my best course of action would be to NOT be part of the settlement, buy a cheap new hard drive, and amorally try to sell it to some sucker on ebay for $600.
The way I see it, we're missing out because we didn't pay for our repairs. We DID pay for a $2200 useless piece of unfixable junk, but that doesn't seem to be covered in this suit. Unless I'm missing something. Seriously, am I reading it wrong?
Thats why they have the Average user rating. CNET does its job by testing a few machines and giving it a score...obviously it is not possible for them to test it for months or years so their numbers (any companies numbers) are generally going to be better then an individual users numbers. CNET is good to use, but don't rely on that totally...or at least realize there is Average User Rating and put some credence into that.-
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
My friend (now wife) bought herself a Toshiba Satellite a few years back. It lasted for 2-3 years and then just died. It was out of warranty, but we called Toshiba's support line and requested repair advice anyway. Nothing happened, so we sold off the few usable parts (battery, RAM module) on eBay and threw the laptop away.
...
13 months later, a Toshiba technician called her up, saying he'd just gotten her support request. Oh boy
Anyway, we're both happy Mac users these days. My wife's G5 iMac did stop booting the other day, but Apple picked it up, fixed it, and dropped it off at the door before the week was over. She didn't even lose any data.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
I've had several friends who I've convenced to buy thinkpads, and now they swear by them. I think they are well built quality machines. Two of my friends have purchased at least 2 IBM Thinkpads.
That being said, I saw Dell running 40% off their notebooks several months ago and couldn't pass the deal up. I managed to get linux installed on it without much trouble and have wireless also working successfully. I haven't had any problems yet, but I don't feel like the construction quality is as good as IBM.
A few months ago I was doing some work for a client on a Dell laptop and ended up spending over 8 hours with their online support convencing them that there was a hardware issue with the notebook. One of the first few things they wanted me to try was to format the hard drive. The issue was with the video card causing the system to crash on boot so I couldn't backup the data either. I told the support person that it was an unacceptable solution and started telling her how I should attempt to move forward. On the 3rd or 4th call I managed to find someone who said they'd accept the return, but then proceded to ask for information and confirm and reconfirm on every little thing. What should have been a 30 minute phone call took over 4 hours. Between this and a few other situations I've had with Dell I've sworn off ever buying any of their products again.
I also have a friend who's not very computer savy who picked up a powerbook when she went to college and fell in love with it. She recently upgraded to a newer model in fact. I have to say it's pretty looking, but I think they are even more overpriced (compared to IBM). I love being able to do portible computing, but when everything is at least 3 times as expensive as a desktop I find it so hard to spend the money.
From the PDF:
Class Members with proof sufficient to establish the occurrence of 1 Qualifying Repair will receive $50 in cash AND a $75
credit redeemable for the purchase of any merchandise available on www.toshibadirect.com AND retain the right to keep their
Satellite Pro 6100.
Class Members with proof sufficient to establish the occurrence of 2 Qualifying Repairs will receive $250 in cash OR a $325
credit redeemable for the purchase of any merchandise available on www.toshibadirect.com AND retain the right to keep their
Satellite Pro 6100.
Class Members with proof sufficient to establish the occurrence of 3 Qualifying Repairs will receive $650 in cash OR a $800
credit redeemable for the purchase of any merchandise available on www.toshibadirect.com AND retain the right to keep their
Satellite Pro 6100.
Class Members with proof sufficient to establish the occurrence of 4 or more Qualifying Repairs will receive $1,000 in cash
OR a $1,500 credit redeemable for the purchase of any merchandise available on www.toshibadirect.com IF they return their
Satellite Pro 6100 to Toshiba. Toshiba will pay the shipping cost associated with return of the computer.
I just got my check from toshiba last summer for the overheating problems in my satellite 5005. Those were the ones built with a desktop pentium 3 (rather than a mobile cpu) and really crappy cooling. Running the machine at full CPU for more than 20 seconds would cause a hard reset. Toshiba released a BIOS update that just underclocked the 1.1ghz cpu to like 800mhz. The cd drive also stopped working after a few months and the battery was worthless. id never buy toshiba again.
Unfortunately, this seems to be par for the course for not just Toshiba but many other laptop manufacturers (and/or their overseas OEMs). I've owned a pile of laptops myself and it's my job at work to fix everybody's computers when they go south.
We're firmly entrenched in the WinTel world here, and we have lots of 'corporate' end laptops. Until recently, everybody's had a Thinkpad. Now that the Thinkpad line is no longer manufactured by IBM but instead Lenovo the quality has completely gone to pot. We no longer buy Thinkpads. For about a year before the Lenovo move we've had plenty of problems with the Thinkpads, too, mostly pertaining to various pieces of integrated communication hardware failing, requiring a motherboard replacement. We've had IBM (back when they still made the things) back out of warranty agreements on three laptops by now. I managed to scrounge parts for two and repair them myself; The third needed a mainboard costing more than the machine was worth and it's living out the rest of its life cycle with a PCMCIA combo card instead.
So it goes.
The Dells we've moved to aren't significantly better, though they are considerably cheaper and once you cut though the red tape Dell's corporate warranty plans let us just have the things replaced one after another like grains of sand tumbling through an hourglass. It sort of makes you wonder how much it really costs Dell to make and move these things. Mostly our problems are overheating or heat related damage to components.
I also personally own a Toshiba and so does a friend of mine. These Toshibas - Mine an 1805-S204 (I know, old) and S40 seems to ring a bell for the other model. At any rate, we've had a pile of problems with both, again heat related. The factor that always seems to tie these things together regardless of who makes them is their class. All these are 'desktop replacement' models which are designed to pack in the maximum amount of features at the lowest possible cost at the sacrifice of portability and stability. Usually they use vanialla desktop processors in them which are cheaper but use more power and make more heat. They also commonly use cheapo VIA or SIS budget level chipsets. This combination in a tiny underventiated case causes all sorts of interesting problems, ranging from random shutdowns on overheat (common on many Toshiba models) to damage to processors (happened to mine), video hardware, and other flakiness.
I went 'round and 'round with Toshiba over my 1805 back when it was new. It was giving me strange performance problems that eventually distilled to heat on my processor, causing it to go routinely haywire in its speed regulation. This was a known issue with a similar model from Toshiba and at the time was posted all over their site and in their support forums merely because more people owned that machine and made a stink about it. I sent the thing in for repair and it got the same fix as the other models, even though the techs I spoke to swore up and down it wasn't a 'known issue'.
In the realm of poor design, the squeaky wheels get the grease. I can imagine it's in Toshiba's (or whoever's) best interest to try to minimize the cross section of their line that they admit is affected to save face, but I'll bet a box of doughnuts that lots of other machines are using the same architecture with the same problems.
You'll never get results without the runaround, though. With my Toshiba, I was told it was my software, the quality of the power in my house, viruses, the types of work I was trying to do with my computer... Toshiba pointed their fingers at absolutely everyone but themselves. The standard response was to run my restore disks (gee, thanks, I was thinking it would be fun to back up all my data to CD-R today) and the first time I sent the thing in for warranty repair all they did was format my hard drive (without asking me!) and reinstall Windows.
The second time I left a post it note stuck to the screen reading that I had already reinstalled windows nine times today at
It could be that review units were manufactured to a higher standard, or subjected to more rigorous quality control, than general retail units. All they'd have to do is cherry-pick 30 perfect laptops from 30,000 wonky ones, send that 30 to review sites, and the product looks good. After all, CNet are testing the quality and design of the hardware, not its reliability.
So basically what you're saying is that Toshiba doesn't have Quality Control on their products, and somehow they are able to rank quality in 30,000 laptops to be able to pick out 30 good ones?
How does that even begin to make sense?
Live forever, or die trying.
Then why do you feel the desire to have a part in the settlement? It's supposed to componsate people who have lost out due to reliability problems, not provide free money to greedy bastards.
Read the class action lawsuit again. A single failure since you purchased it entitles you to the claim. I'm kind of wishing I'd paid Toshiba to fix my dead HDD after the mobo went south twice, then I'd get $650 instead of $250. It is what it is, though.
To the darkened skies once more, and ever onward.
... until I witnessed what my friends went through:
15" Powerbook: 3 motherboard replacements (1 year)
12" Powerbook: top half "warped" so it would not longer close properly
ibook 14": battery just started crapping out after short period of time.
Now I'm not fan of Dell, and my Dell is a POS, but I got it used for $250 and it's lasted longer than any of thos above examples.
If you want a durable notebook buy an IBM/Lonovo notebook.
--- tracer.ca
According to one recent survey posted on Slashdot, you just have some unlucky friends. I recommend choosing your friends more carefully next time -- ask around and check their reliability, see what others have to say about their faults and quirks. You may be able to trade these unlucky friends in for a super BestFriend; you'll get years out of one of those.
BTW, what generation were the notebooks? I ask because I'm thinking of getting a 12" PB for myself and want to know what I'm In For. I've already decided to get AppleCare, but (etc. etc.)
So everything would be 'OEM crap' right?
I'll vouch for Thinkpads. These stay together - I dropped one four feet onto concrete once at Security at Midway. It was bent like a banana but still ran perfectly. I bought another with cracked LCD from eBay. The jarhead owner not only had stepped on it but spilled beer into the back. It ran anyway. On the IBM/Lenovo site you can download the hardware manual. Anyone with the slightest mechanical ability and simple hand tools can take apart a Thinkpad down to the back shell with that info. I did that, cleaned all the parts, hosed out the dried beer and put it back together with new screen - and no parts left over.
I've had several of these and also a Dell and a Snoy. Those feel like cheap plastic flexi-fliers compared to even the R50 and the Sony had a mobo failure and was scrapped. These things only come in jet black, no attempt is made to catch the consumer eye with lame gimmicks and cuteness. My IBMs have been purchased used off eBay (one was a refurb). No Thinkpad has had a component failure. The one thing that seems generally weak is the DC Power-In jack - don't knock that around. Now that Lenovo has taken over (including support) so far nothing has changed.
IBM has always had tremendous Linux support, & they provide drivers for all OS making it easy to downgrade to Win2K (I won't run XP) and I can't see why anyone wastes time with thin plastic junk.
You can take part in the settlement because everyone gets an additional year of full warranty and an additional 6 months beyond that for the problematic components. I have a 6100 Pro sitting on the shelf because the first repair broke down after my warranty expired. Having the new year will allow me to get the unit fixed for free.
--- Gary McClellan
My brother's Satellite M35 is also a lemon -- worst recommendation I ever made. We spent $600 in December 2004, which I thought was cheaper than a Dell deal -- turns out that we had to buy an extended warranty for $150, so a Dell would have been just as good a deal. So far they've replaced the motherboard (once but for three separate reasons: display flickering, loose power jack, and dead hard drive connector), and it's back into the shop again because the WiFi no longer works and it's getting BSODs.
FYI, there is a A70/A75/M30/M35 class-action suit pending.
Sorry to hear that your friends were so unlucky. I've bought one of the very first iBooks, another several years later, and a couple years back a 12" PowerBook, and I've never had anything go wrong.
I have a Toshiba Satellite 2410 that has lasted me about 4 years now. I can't even count the number of times I've dropped it, broken parts, and it's still working. The DC jack harness doesn't work perfectly, display hinges are broken, battery casing broken. My brother even dropped it from about 6 feet onto cement and it still runs.
It has died twice on me, at least tried, but I brought it back to life both times. First, it started hanging for me in linux, so I went into Windows and got the message some cooling system is failing. So I took it apart and put it back together, no more problems afterwords. Then, several months later the display would just shut off and notebook die after couple minutes, then seconds being on. I really thought it was it this times. I took it apart again, looked like the heat sink was a little loose. So I tighened it up after putting some new thermal paste on the cpu. No problems since.
So I've been very happy with my Toshiba, really suprised it's running considering the abuse I've put it through.
So basically what you're saying is that Toshiba doesn't have Quality Control on their products, and somehow they are able to rank quality in 30,000 laptops to be able to pick out 30 good ones? How does that even begin to make sense?
Here's an over simplified idea: "Ok everyone. Today we are making 30 laptops for reviews. Take your time. Double check everything. If you are at all unsure of a part, save it for tomorrow."
Does that make sense?
An option if you happen to not use the CD/DVD drive often on your A75: If you just remove the drive (I think there's a single screw underneath that holds it in) the computer runs MUCH cooler. With the air path clean the fans rarely even have to turn on.
I too find it interesting that with the exception of three laptops that scored in the 4.0-4.9 range, every other laptop scored a 5.0 or better. This is based on ratings for 519 laptops. So, of all the laptops they reviewed, 516 are average or above, and only 3 out of 519 are below average. It makes me wonder if CNET knows what the word average means. On another note, the highest rating is an 8.8, so they don't like giving out really high scores either.
So the vast majority of their ratings fall between 5 and 9. So really, the rating system would be more like 5=bad, 6=below average, 7=average, 8=above average, 9=good. If they get a bad system, and rate it a 5, when the manufacturer gets huffy they can say they gave it an average score. But anyone who realizes the way the system works will know that a system scoring below a 7 is probably lacking.
Though, as we can see here, CNET doesn't always get it right. I don't know if I would accuse them of being shills for this though, if most of these problems cropped up over time, and where not apparent right away.
The SP6100, one of which I owned, usually lasted for about three-to-six months before failing; this was certainly the case for me (four main/power-board failures in eighteen months; three severe, one total). C|net probably only had it for a couple of weeks; and, when it was working, it was an excellent laptop for its time, so I don't see that original rating as a problem.
I don't qualify for this because (a) I live in the UK and (b) due to much nagging after the fourth failure Toshiba swapped it for a Tecra M2, a machine that has now lasted for longer without trouble than its predecessor did in total. To their credit, Toshiba did service the 6100 for free outside the 12-month warranty, which is more than can be said for certain other PC vendors.
This video corruption problem isn't only limited to the pro 6100 model line. There was also one other class action suit before this one: http://www.lieffcabraser.com/notebookcomplaint.htm
Myself and a large number of others also have the problem on the 5105-Sxxx model line.
Here is a huge thread on the issue:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=2 6673
Also a MSN group has been started to try and get a settlement for 5105 users here:
http://groups.msn.com/TOSHIBA5105DISPLAYPROBLEM/me ssages.msnw
If anyone else is having these issues on this model line (or for that matter other models not included in the two earlier class action suits please sign up!
I've had Satellite Pro's and Librettos (including the new one) which are just amazing.
But I've also had one Satellite (non Pro), and not the model in the article; it was back for repair several times (motherboard, memory, battery, DVD, mouse, etc.), and after the year warrantee was up, I just gave up on it. It was a total piece of garbage. It sure would be nice to get some compensation for the incredibly poor quality of this unit, too.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Mine was serviced five times in two years. It was sad because my company would just send you another 6100 when your was broken. One guy had to go through 3 laptops before he got his original 6100 back. They had everyone get their computer serviced to proactive fix things and that left my laptop without sound until I finally could get rid of the thing.
My Toshiba laptop began shutting itself off after getting too warm. While attempts to use a metal cookie sheet under it as a heat sink did not work too well I found that those dual fan "laptop coolers", intended to keep one's lap from being cooked by the laptop, does a great job in keeping the computer itself from overheating.
For around $20 this well used 3 year old Toshiba has been given a new lease on life that even disassembly and blowing out the accumulation of dust did not achieve.
Heh heh heh.... getting a Mac does not necessarily free you from Toshiba's shit quality *looks at the dead Toshiba 2.5" drive he painstakingly extracted from his Powerbook with the help of pbfixit.com*
I was one of the unlucky bastards who bought one of these pieces of shit. I have replaced the HD twice, on #3 now. It turns out the HD just cooks away. You have to monitor the HD temp which means maybe 30 minutes of use before the HD is really too hot and you have to shut it down. If you want to shut it down quickly, press below the keyboard with your left hand. It seems to cause the battery to disconnect. It used to happen to me while tyoing all the time before I figured out what was happening.
But I digress... I replaced those HDs myself (not wanting to surrender my data to a corporation). I didn't save the receipts because I really didn't think there was any reason to do so. So, I am probably out of luck.
I noticed that on my settlement notice, one of the "rewards" was a coupon to be redeemed on MORE Toshiba shit. Fat chance of me taking them up on that one because I feel they screwed me over. I am not going to EVER buy another Toshiba product. Toshiba, welcome to my shit list. Notice GM is at the top of that list.
I have one and I hate this laptop. I have never seen such an unmitigated piece of CRAP in all my time dealing with computers. I'm getting in on this.
Then why do you feel the desire to have a part in the settlement?
He never said he felt that way. He might be a greedy bastard, but you are wrong to presume it.
The AC reply got this about right, but for completeness, I imagine that every product that's sent out for review will be double and triple checked for faults. If a unit's even slightly below the quality that the company's trying to convey (most products do vary in quality throughout a single batch) then it's sent back and another brought forward. That way the 5% of units (or 3%, or whatever the industry average is these days) which are considered faulty are not represented in the reviews.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?