Toshiba 15.6" Quad-Core Laptop

“I got this one when I pledged my sorority.”

And that, dear readers, was the perfect finishing touch…

Folks who have purchased previously - any real-life reports of battery life? Are batteries replaced during the refurb process?

I’ve purchased two recent refurbs, an HP and this Toshiba. Both came in a plain brown box with only the computer and a power supply in the box. They seemed to be from the same source. Both laptops were spotless, but you’re not going to convince anyone that they are retail packaged.

RE: Battery life, I haven’t run mine enough off-charger to let it die, but my experience would be at least 4 hours, so the battery isn’t toasted in mine. That doesn’t mean much since every refurb would be different.

> Resolution: 1366 x 768

Dammit, why are laptop manufacturers married to these terrible screens? This resolution is embarrassingly bad on a 15.6" screen.

A comment about a topic that usually comes up - reinstalling:

In the past, Windows machines had a product key on a sticker on the device. Aside from the issue that eventually it would wear out and be unreadable, the bigger issue was that the key was a specific OEM key. That meant you couldn’t use the key with anything other than the OEM install disc, if they even provided one for you.

With Windows 8 devices, you don’t have a sticker anymore. The key is in the hardware. That means you can use any Windows 8 disc to install or reinstall onto the device. Even if you want to torrent a disc, your device is licensed to use Windows 8.

On this laptop, you are just getting the Windows 8 standard edition. If you want to upgrade to Professional, you can buy a product key or buy a full media kit with key and DVD and Add Features to your install.

And here’s the product support page for drivers:
http://support.toshiba.com/support/driversResults?freeText=3575614

i would not be “gifting” it as new but simply wanting it not to look used when he gets it. it would be for my nephew and he needs something cheap for school and i just dont want to give him something that looks used out if the box but its not technically a gift…so knowing its a refurb is not big deal.

My experience with the A10-4600 and A8-4500 laptops has been similar–much better than a 2nd or 3rd-gen Intel-based laptop without dedicated graphics, but you will be using the games’ low-to-middle graphics settings for playability (read: frame rates >15 or 20 fps).

Not a bad deal, the refurb products I’ve purchased in the past from Woot have arrived like new and they are all still working fine

I work for a technology networking company and we quit dealing with Toshiba for the exact same reason. And spare parts were always on backorder for months.

I’m In. Wife needs a new laptop and the specs were too good to ignore. A bit concerned about the “refurb” deal but woot has always been good to me. She just got a new gig so this is a congratulations gift. Hope she digs it…

I was just looking at this for my dad. The drivers for Windows 7 don’t really seem to exist. A Google search shows that the NIC drivers are the hardest to get working. I know that I can make Windows 8 look a bit like Windows 7, but I don’t really feel like remotely supporting Windows 8 when I don’t even use it yet.

As for “sidegrading” to Win7 – experience has shown that newer hardware may not have appropriate drivers available, especially for manufacturer specific hardware. Ran into this with HP, Sony, IBM, and Toshiba laptops.

Under the hood, Win8 is fantastic (from a Geek persective). Dumping the Metro UI is easy enough.

We really like Toshiba laptops - have had both HP and Toshiba over the past 15 years and oldest Toshiba’s still run fine. Not so for the HPs.

Saw the $365 price and thought it looked like a decent new price - but then saw Refurb and Woot warranty.

That means the laptop was not ‘remanufactured’ by Toshiba and is not warrantied by Toshiba.

You have no way of knowing whether the refurb company did anything other than box up the laptop and send it to you.

Could be a great laptop - but have you a lower confidence level due to the above. I’d expect a lower price given these conditions.

We (my company) purchased this laptop a few weeks ago from Woot and I have spent the last 2 days getting it upgraded to Windows 7. The Ethernet driver was indeed the biggest pain to get a hold of but I managed to find a working driver. The card reader and video drivers were also a bit tricky to find. Just use the following links and you should be up and running in no time.
Ethernet Driver:
http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/downloads/tc50131900d.exe

Card reader driver: http://support1.toshiba-tro.de/tedd-files2/0/carc-20110323160318.zip

Video driver: http://www.filehippo.com/download_ati_catalyst_vista_64/tech/ (terrible website the download link is in the upper right hand corner)

Chipset driver: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/raid_windows.aspx#2

I downloaded the wireless network card driver from Toshiba’s website through trial and error and came up with a working driver after a few tries. The wireless network card is a Realtek RTL8188CE so a google search might be quicker.

That is all the advice I have. Once I finally got all of the drivers installed it turned out to be a pretty quick computer. I have been happy with it overall.

Cool. Thanks for the info. Knowing that it’s possible to get Win 7 running, puts me a bit at ease. I can pass it on to him to decide if he wants it. It seems like a decent deal to me, vs the crap on Craig’s list.

Well, good news for you, then, because this laptop is not warranted by Toshiba! :wink:

I’ll also comment that I found the sleep-and-charge feature more useful than I originally gave it credit for. Being able to charge my phone through the USB port while the computer is closed up means one less power outlet taken up.

I have the Tosh S855D-S5120 (just to be sure) and to boot Chrome OS from USB I had to:

  1. Hold down the F2 key at power up to get to the BIOS.
  2. Head to Advanced, System Configuration, Boot Mode, and change to CSM Boot (look, why is on the web?)
  3. Back to the top menu, Boot and tap the down arrow to ODD than F6 to move it to the top.
  4. My Chrome Android-x86 OS is in the ODD.
  5. Save and Exit.

It seems to boot but both Live and Vesa mode land me at the root@x86:/ $ prompt.

But you as a developer would have fun figuring out why it didn’t continue to the full GUI.

Same setup with a Live Puppy Linux booted fine.
Bob

I bought one a few months back and was very impressed. It arrived in pristine condition, no scratches or marks of any kind, you’d never know it’s a refurb. The only thing I don’t like about it… it came with Windows 8. I hate Windows 8! Unfortunately everything new comes with Windows 8.

I got one of these from here a couple of months ago - it looked brand new. They are manufacturer refurbs. Awesome laptop - I loaded Battlefield 3 and played on good settings with no video lag.