I apologize to my viewers for not updating my website recently, but my new Toshiba Qosmio X70-A Laptop died over a month ago, while attempting to update my its BIOS with Toshiba’s Flash Utility. I purchased my Toshiba Qosmio last July (2013). I was very excited to receive it because it came well equipped with:
- Intel 4th Generation i7 Processor
- 24 GB of RAM
- 225 GB Solid State Drive (SSD)
- 1 TB Magnetic Disk Drive
- Another Bay for an Additional Disk Drive
- 17” Display Screen
I couldn’t wait to start traveling the world and editing my pictures on my new laptop. However, my excitement was short lived. While in Greece I began experiencing the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). At first I blamed it on Windows 8 instability. I eagerly upgraded to Windows 8.1 to only to have BSODs crash my laptop even more frequently. While in Greece and Thailand it was difficult to communicate with Toshiba America, therefore I desperately applied, to no avail, every Toshiba Driver Update and Windows O/S patch as soon as they became available hoping to solve my problem. When I came to Puerto Rico in December I contacted Toshiba Customer Support (now there’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one) to have my BSOD problem diagnosed. I was told I would have to pay $165 to have my problem diagnosed remotely even though my laptop was covered by a 1 year parts and labor warranty. They failed to tell me that there was a local Toshiba Authorized Service Provider (ASP) only minutes away from me in San Juan who could have easily diagnosed my problem then, before it became worse. After my wife and I moved 2.5 hours away from San Juan, to the west side of the island in Mayaguez, I was notified by the Toshiba Service Center application that a new BIOS Flash Update was available for my laptop. Excitedly, thinking that my problems were finally solved, I downloaded the update and waited as it was applied. Half way through applying the BIOS Update my laptop simply turned itself off and refused to turn on again. That was on Wednesday, February 12th, 2014. I was devastated and immediately contacted Toshiba Customer Support, again. That is when I discovered that Toshiba America did not believe that Puerto Rico was part of the United States! They refused to allow me to send my laptop to their Service Depot in Kentucky, unless I first sent it back to an address in the Continental United States before sending it on to their Service Depot. After a series of frustrating conversations with Toshiba Customer Support I spoke a day later with a rarely helpful representative named Julie who told me that I had another, apparently simpler, option to take it to a local ASP in San Juan. The following day my wife and I loaded up the car and spent Valentine’s Day (Friday, February 14th) traveling 5 hours, round trip to San Juan to drop off my laptop at the ASP. Quickly next week the ASP told me that I had a bad motherboard that they were ordering a replacement from Toshiba under warranty. As soon as it arrived it would be up and working with all of my problems resolved. I optimistically waited. That was a month ago!
I’ve been regularly checking with the ASP (whose name I’m not providing because I don’t believe they’ve done anything wrong) to find out when my motherboard would arrive. He initially told me that it would arrive shortly, because the Toshiba site that he placed the order with kept giving him an optimistic estimated time of arrival (ETA) for my replacement motherboard. However, after a couple weeks, he began to notice that Toshiba kept showing an ETA for the current day. Every day he would check and every day the ETA would be updated to reflect the current date. He eventually interpreted this to mean that the part was on back order. If so, then why couldn’t Toshiba’s site just display that it was on back order and provide a realistic ETA.
After more than 3 weeks of this I called Toshiba’s Customer Support for another series of frustrating conversations. They were unable to help me track down my order or provide me with a realistic ETA because they didn’t have visibility into the ASP ordering system. They weren’t even able to find out the generally availability of my motherboard within their warehouse systems. When I asked to be connected with a supervisor I was told on multiple occasions that Toshiba Customer Support Representatives are not allowed to escalate calls to a supervisor and that they were the highest level of authority with whom I would be allowed to speak. They refused to connect me with any part of their organization that could shine any light on my motherboards ETA. I was told I would simply have to wait.
Toshiba’s refusal to accept responsibility for my laptops condition and the status of my replacement parts throughout my ownership experience has shown me just how veiled there warranty is. I paid $1,633.49 for my laptop that I have never been able to fully enjoy. I feel like my money has been wasted on a lemon that the company will never own up to. If you’re considering purchasing a Toshiba product, you should consider purchasing from someone else. Toshiba does not stand behind its products! Do Not buy Toshiba products, I never will again!.
