Toshiba Satellite C55-C5241 : Will this thing break? Anything Better For The $?

[EdwardERS]

Toshiba Satellite C55-C5241 15.6 Inch Laptop (Intel Core i5, 8GB, 1 TB, Windows 10, Black)

 

I like the key SPECS on this for the price of $450 + that California tax. I can live with the 1366x768 display because of the HDMI out. Poor speakers can be remedied by either the HDMI, external speakers or headphones. A backlit keyboard doesn't matter. The keyboard having sharp edges and having mushy keys doesn't sound too great, but that price right? If I'd be getting this it would be mostly for my father really. He doesn't play video games, but I want him to have something a step-up from a Celeron 2GB netbook that should have some legs with the better SPECS. It has a Broadwell i5-5200u with a MSRP of $281 alone according to the Intel website listing. The difference between this and the C55-C5240 seemingly is it shipping with Win 10 instead of 8.1.

 

I picked out this Acer C710-2055 Chromebook for my mom 2 years ago for about $270. It might actually have a similar build quality to the Toshiba I'm eyeing. It's been safe for her because of its limitations. With the Toshiba for my dad I'd happily be more hands on and I'd take it as a good chance to preview Win 10 before I upgrade my Win 7 desktop next year. I'm wondering if anyone can see warning signs from the Toshiba or if there's something better for under $500. I'm more worried about internal hardware failure than cosmetics.

 

[Mug]

Looks pretty sturdy and Toshiba tends to be pretty good.

 

Besides, it's all build in the same factory by the same enslaved Chinese children.

[Jamdog]

Unfortunately, those crappy hard drives are inevitable in any reasonably priced laptop. Otherwise it looks pretty good What do you plan on using it for?

[EdwardERS]

Unfortunately, those crappy hard drives are inevitable in any reasonably priced laptop. Otherwise it looks pretty good What do you plan on using it for?

He'd probably use it for banking, web browsing, netflix, youtube and making MP3 playlists. I could get him into the habit of hooking it up to larger monitor/tv for the right times. I'm sure we can figure something out to throw at the CPU.

[Jamdog]

He'd probably use it for banking, web browsing, netflix, youtube and making MP3 playlists. I could get him into the habit of hooking it up to larger monitor/tv for the right times. I'm sure we can figure something out to throw at the CPU.

That i5 will be excellent for that, you might want to spend £50 on putting an 120gb ssd in yourself, unless you need a lot of storage