Toshiba Officially Exits the Laptop Business

[AleksandarK]

Toshiba, a Japanese technology company, has announced last week that is exiting the laptop business in full. In 2018, Toshiba has sold 80.1% of its shares in Dynabook Inc. to Sharp Corp., Japanese company as well, just focused on electronics manufacturing. In the press release issued on August 4th, last week, Toshiba has transferred the remaining 19.9% of shares in Dynabook to Sharp and thereby has officially left the laptop business. "As a result of this transfer, Dynabook has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sharp.", says the Toshiba press release. This is one end of an era, as Toshiba has been manufacturing laptops from 1985, until this day in a way. This is one last goodbye to Toshiba, your laptop legacy will be remembered. If you were/are an owner of a Toshiba laptop, tell us about your experiences in the comments down below.


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[Vayra86]

Yep. Own an early Satellite, and it STILL WORKS. And even if it fails someday, its a perfect blunt weapon.

Had a Toshiba laptop later in the day which was more consumer'y (piano gloss and all) and it, unlike ALL laptops bought after that, STILL WORKS.

YMMV, but I'm really sad they don't make them anymore. Toshiba is really underrated, they brought some great IP and quality was always a thing.

 

[remixedcat]

Toshitta - good riddance. Not japan Quality but chinese hi kwa

 

[Deleted member 181753]

Had for years many an Satellite 15.6 inch with T5500 core 2 duo 35 watt.
run even windows 10 without hiccups.
great display but mediocre design and very, very stable had to sell it for over 30 euros.

The best display ever i had on a laptop and i had a few, fujitsu-siemens pentium 3, Asus T7500 35 watt, hp elitebook intel 8600P 25 watt, acer gemstone 5920g T7300 35 watt just to remember a few 3 or 4 of them i offered them to persons who need them. the rest i sold them to reinvest in something new.
But still the best display ever i had was in the Toshiba Satellite amazing, i will remember always and i had to sell it late 2016 and my acer 5920g in february 2017 since i was dependent of windows xp but also the fact that the Satellite cpu T5500 was consuming 35 watt or 44 watt the whole laptop a lot for me (i am very, very power consumption addicted and performance efficiency)

For who don't know Toshiba has made one of the very best Laptops ever the most durable ones !

 

[blobster21]

What's left of the former Toshiba company now that they had to spin off:
-their Light division
-their CCD sensors branch
-their household appliances branch
-their NAND flash memory branch
-their medical & industrial camera branch
-their laptop division

....and failling to fullfil their agenda on the nuclear branch as it seems too

 

[TheLostSwede]

Yep. Own an early Satellite, and it STILL WORKS. And even if it fails someday, its a perfect blunt weapon.

Had a Toshiba laptop later in the day which was more consumer'y (piano gloss and all) and it, unlike ALL laptops bought after that, STILL WORKS.

YMMV, but I'm really sad they don't make them anymore. Toshiba is really underrated, they brought some great IP and quality was always a thing.

True to some extent. Their professional line of notebooks were quite good, but most of their consumer models were plasticy crap.

What's left of the former Toshiba company now that they had to spin off:
-their Light division
-their CCD sensors branch
-their household appliances branch
-their NAND flash memory branch
-their medical & industrial camera branch
-their laptop division

....and failling to fullfil their agenda on the nuclear branch as it seems too

A brand licensing company? Much like Phillips.

 

[m9eyNqp9]

I have a Toshiba-branded laptop with a monochrome screen that runs Windows 3.1. That laptop still works in much the same way that any laptops purchased by me after 2010 don't.

 

[Rictorhell]

I've never owned a Toshiba laptop but I've seen several used in libraries and restaurants by various people over the years. I'm very picky about computer hardware and design aesthetic and that bold "Toshiba" logo on the back of the laptops never appealed to me. I've known a lot of people over the years that always purchase the "most affordable" computer hardware available, when shopping, and I get that, but computers are always the area where I feel like every dollar I spend, in general, is put to good use, so spending more upfront has always translated to saved time and less headaches months and years down the road; in my experience anyway.

So many times when I've used a computer or a laptop a friend or relative purchased, because it was cheap or on sale, the experience has been agony, to say the least.

I do have a Toshiba lcd television that I purchased in 2013 which is still running perfectly, years later.

 

[Vayra86]

True to some extent. Their professional line of notebooks were quite good, but most of their consumer models were plasticy crap.


A brand licensing company? Much like Phillips.

Yeah plasticy absolutely, but still rock solid in my experience. Though that's N=1 in the case of consumer lappys

People also seem to forget they invented a great audio cable, TOSlink, which is still widely used.

 

[Deleted member 181753]

Yeah plasticy absolutely, but still rock solid in my experience. Though that's N=1 in the case of consumer lappys

Indeed strong plastic.
Today plastic is bending like beckham, still i know a little thing about plastic as i worked 2 year at Games Workshop UK main branch lenton ng7 2ws.
The Warhammer 40,000 figurines where strong or weak depending by setter as in laptops manufacturers some they choose less material that is making the plastic to bend under low pressure, and this is wrong as the material is not expensive and can easy make a case strong and robust and not breakable.
I don't know why some manufacturers do choose cheap dosage for the case parts, maybe the reason is the big mc that creates the plastic cases consumes a looot's of watts and i mean literally thousands of watts.

 

[Caring1]

I was recently given a Toshiba Satellite C50 laptop, and it works great still.

 

[Vayra86]

Indeed strong plastic.
Today plastic is bending like beckham, still i know a little thing about plastic as i worked 2 year at Games Workshop UK main branch lenton ng7 2ws.
The Warhammer 40,000 figurines where strong or weak depending by setter as in laptops manufacturers some they choose less material that is making the plastic to bend under low pressure, and this is wrong as the material is not expensive and can easy make a case strong and robust and not breakable.
I don't know why some manufacturers do choose cheap dosage for the case parts, maybe the reason is the big mc that creates the plastic cases consumes a looot's of watts and i mean literally thousands of watts.

I believe that plastics are graded down as they are recycled. Meaning, a plastic figurine eventually becomes a coke bottle, and then returns in its weakest shape as a plastic bag (and again as an even weaker bag, say those for veggies). And each is progressively cheaper.

So using lower grade plastic is definitely a cost cutting measure that companies will see on their balance sheet. Especially if you have to have metric tons of it all the time. its still based on byproduct of other stuff so its not unlimited in supply.

But.. cool job man. I recently set up my painted models again in the room for nostalgia's sake

 

[Tardian]

I worked in a leading-edge government job in the late 1980s and was able to use at work and home (on loan) for important jobs a Toshiba T5200 "laptop". It was in my use very reliable and I wrote papers for university that were given top marks along with reports that cost people a heck of money. So I am very sad Toshiba is leaving the business,

 

[remixedcat]

What's left of the former Toshiba company now that they had to spin off:
-their Light division
-their CCD sensors branch
-their household appliances branch
-their NAND flash memory branch
-their medical & industrial camera branch
-their laptop division

....and failling to fullfil their agenda on the nuclear branch as it seems too

RCA is not RCA at all nowadays either... just 3 letters that happen to match and the same logo. Nothing is the RCA feel. At least the new aiwa replicates a lot of the feel like the product design and a little of the quirkiness. now the last sony owned AIWA (the one with the alien like logo) was not the same aiwa and even though some improvments were made the logo scared ppl off and the design wasn't there. Wasn't as stylish and high end it was just wow factor only. The rebrand that joe born did hits good, 80% good. Still needs to have the cute little slot machine game in standby mode if they have a more complex display than the EXOS9s LOL. I wish they'd hire me. I worked for the original for a while on retail intelligence stuff and I would love to help with UX/UI and such. I know the original very well.

 

[Argentrx]

back in 2009 i bought a 17' laptop toshiba core2duo for £150 ex repair from pc world.....lasted me a good 5 years but afterwards the graphics chip failed. Was originally £799 or similar, long time ago

 

[Turmania]

My laptop, year 2008 paid over 2500 usd. Best, display still to date but was ugly to look at. It had bronze colour cover. Lasted me food 6 years. Still with me, it should still work.though have not tried it for 6 years.qood quality laptop.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Toshitta - good riddance. Not japan Quality but chinese hi kwa

Oh...I can't agree with that. I have had many a Toshiba laptop and rarely had any issues with them. Plus, they were unusually upgradable! I miss the Toshiba of yesteryear..

 

[AOne]

I was a huge Toshiba fan in the past. All my office laptops were from them. Most of them still work. My first i7 Toshiba is still operational, after been used by me, tortured by my kids when they were still toddlers, being puked all over, washed in the sink, crashed, smaked and so on for 12+ years. And it works. They even play Borderland 2 on it when making a game party. I was so disappointed when they stoped selling laptops few years back.

 

[sam_86314]

I have a Satellite P55W that worked great for a while until it suddenly wouldn't work on battery power. The battery shows 100%, and all health checks show that the battery is okay, but the moment I unplug from the charger, it shuts off. Never had an issue like this with any other laptop.

 

[Fleurious]

Wish I could find my old Toshiba 286 laptop. I’m sure it still runs fine wherever it is. Wouldn’t mind playing some Chopper Commando on DOS.

 

[ssdpro]

I'll add to the chorus of those that own a Toshiba laptop. It is a 2014 Haswell-based model and still works great with a screen and SSD upgrade. The IPS screen was an easy swap and people still say it is the best PC notebook screen they have seen. It is still adequately fast, has 8GB memory, an i5-4288 with iris 5100 and nothing wrong with it at all. No errors, no broken parts, great build quality and easy to upgrade. Toshiba had great engineers but couldn't manage a ham sandwich.

 

[Hemmingstamp]

3 years ago, and after some careful negotiation, I managed to get my other half to give up the Toshiba A100 Satellite Pro with Harmon Kardon speakers we purchased back in the summer of 2007. It was used daily, and apart from the plastic starting to fall apart it never once gave any trouble.
It was well built and weighed a ton. Cost around £700 if memory serves me well.
Sad to see them go from the market.

 

[TechLurker]

Between me and my family, we still have 4 ancient Toshibas in mostly working condition (barring a dead USB port ). I have two of those old Toshiba "Fusion Finish" laptops that they marketed to College students around the 2010s with Vista originally installed. The ones with the glossy, stylized art for the upper half of the chassis (including the ports). One of them was a large 15" with the flame red/orange finish, and the other was a 12" Satellite with a glossy, "50 shades of grey" smoke/swirl finish. Both came from Best Buy. My family's first laptop was a Toshiba with XP on it, and it still runs. My sibling also had another Toshiba, though her's was a 15" Satellite with a generic glossy grey top and black case.

It's a shame they've exited, but their laptop quality had gone downhill for quite some time. Same as what happened to Sony Vaio (loved their XP and early Vista/Win7 models).

 

[capdauntless]

I still have my Toshiba Satellite A10 with the notorious furnace of a CPU the Pentium 4 M running at 2GHz. It still runs today and got me through college quite nicely. Their quality has suffered over the years but back in the day they were who you went to when HP and Compaq were competing to build the cheapest junk out there.

 

[TheUn4seen]

True to some extent. Their professional line of notebooks were quite good, but most of their consumer models were plasticy crap.

Plastic crap as they were, I still have the Satellite 110 from, I think, 2007. It has a 32bit CPU (T2700), we use it for weird legacy software which has problems even being run on a 64bit CPU. It was thrown around over the years and not really cared for, but it works with no problems and looks surprisingly good - not even a crack after being dropped on concrete floor numerous times. I've seen Thinkpads from the same era which couldn't survive in the same conditions for that long
The Portege line is one which I remember very fondly. They seemed like Thinkpads built to look more consumer-friendly.
Toshiba is shedding a lot of business lines lately.