Best Toshiba models of the past

I need to buy a cheap older notebook (Pentium II/III/M), and I'm considering Toshiba and IBM. There's lots of information about Thinkpads on the Internet, but very little about Toshiba history.

For example, the consensus seems to be that the Thinkpad 600 had the most sturdy construction and the Thinkpad T23 is considered one of the most reliable laptops ever built, followed by T42. There are also some known issues about them, like the loose GPU problem on T4x, the inductor problem on T23 and various problems with other models.

Concerning Toshiba, all I've managed to find out is that the quality was superior before 2000 maybe because during that time Toshiba was made mostly in Japan, and that early model Satellites had a reputation among longtime Toshiba owners as being virtually indestructible. But what would you say were the high points in Toshiba notebook history? Are there any better models that stand out? Any known issues I should be aware of?

 

I'm real partial to the old Satellite 5200/5205 series. None of the newer Toshibas seem to have the same character and general state of awesomeness. When it came time to upgrade to a newer Toshiba I bought a ThinkPad instead.