Toshiba has Left the Laptop Market

[zeusthemoose]

Summary

 Toshiba has sold their remaining shares in their laptop business Dynabook. Dynabook was originally called Toshiba Client Solutions Co., Ltd and brought the very first mass produced laptop computer (the T1100) to market.

 In June 2018, Toshiba sold 80.1% of the company to Sharp but kept the remaining 18.9%. They sold because they were having difficulty selling products and needed money after an accounting scandal. However, this past week, Toshiba sold the remaining shares. As far as I can tell, the amount and reasons are still unknown.

 

Quotes

Quote

TOKYO—Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) hereby announces that it has transferred the 19.9% of the outstanding shares in Dynabook Inc. that it held to Sharp Corporation. As a result of this transfer, Dynabook has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Sharp.

Under the terms of a June 2018 share purchase agreement between Toshiba and Sharp, Toshiba transferred to Sharp 80.1% of the outstanding shares of Toshiba Client Solutions Co., Ltd (hereinafter TCS), then Toshiba’s wholly owned subsidiary in the personal computer business. That transfer closed in October 2018, and TCS changed its name to Dynabook in January 2019. On June 30, 2020, under the terms of the share purchase agreement, Sharp exercised a call option for the remaining outstanding shares of Dynabook held by Toshiba, and Toshiba has completed procedures for their transfer.

(Toshiba News Release)

 

My thoughts

 I have never heard of Dynabook previous to this. Looking at their website though, it seems that the majority of laptops they sell are pretty outdated. Based on that, I cant say I am surprised Toshiba is selling this portion of their business. Am I the only one whose never heard of Dynabook before or are they are small, mostly unknown brand?

 

Sources

 Toshiba News Release

 Tom's Hardware

 TECHSPOT

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

that's a shame. i have a toshiba laptop from 2010 lying around. it's been disassembled probably 5 times, has had the screen swapped with a display from a completely different laptop but by some miracle it fit, the screen itself is held together with tape and glue, it's missing it's battery, it's been dropped from a table by the previous owner on to a stone floor (the reason i had to swap the screen, the original one was smashed), etc... 

 

and yet, it still works just fine, i even made a review of it. 

 

[zeusthemoose]

1 minute ago, Ashley said:

i have a toshiba laptop from 2010 lying around

Now that I think about it, I have seen their old laptops that have Toshiba branding just none that have the new Dynabook name.

[Guest]

Used toshiba before Apple. Great laptops

[Techstorm970]

I haven't seen a Toshiba laptop in forever.  I've seen their SSD and HDD models though!

 

SSDs?  Love 'em!

HDDs?  OH GOD, MY EYES!!!  SHOW ME A SEAGATE BEFORE I GO BLIND!!!

[handymanshandle]

19 minutes ago, zeusthemoose said:

Summary

 Toshiba has sold their remaining shares in their laptop business Dynabook. Dynabook was originally called Toshiba Client Solutions Co., Ltd and brought the very first mass produced laptop computer (the T1100) to market.

 In June 2018, Toshiba sold 80.1% of the company to Sharp but kept the remaining 18.9%. They sold because they were having difficulty selling products and needed money after an accounting scandal. However, this past week, Toshiba sold the remaining shares. As far as I can tell, the amount and reasons are still unknown.

 

Quotes

 

My thoughts

 I have never heard of Dynabook previous to this. Looking at their website though, it seems that the majority of laptops they sell are pretty outdated. Based on that, I cant say I am surprised Toshiba is selling this portion of their business. Am I the only one whose never heard of Dynabook before or are they are small, mostly unknown brand?

 

Sources

 Toshiba News Release

 Tom's Hardware

 TECHSPOT

god I haven't seen Toshiba sell laptops at US retailers for years. Never heard of Dynabook either.

[zeusthemoose]

2 minutes ago, Techstorm970 said:

HDDs?  OH GOD, MY EYES!!!  SHOW ME A SEAGATE BEFORE I GO BLIND!!!

What do you have against their hdds? I have a 4tb x300 and it has been quite good.

[Techstorm970]

3 minutes ago, zeusthemoose said:

What do you have against their hdds? I have a 4tb x300 and it has been quite good.

I had one that was very slow (compared to the Seagate and WD drives I was used to) and started having problems after 2 years.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

13 minutes ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

god I haven't seen Toshiba sell laptops at US retailers for years. Never heard of Dynabook either.

they might sell more in japan because that's where they're based? random guess though. 

[handymanshandle]

Just now, Ashley said:

they might sell more in japan because that's where they're based? random guess though. 

that's possible lol

I just remember when they used to sell them here.

[DrMacintosh]

They probably sold their holdings because Toshiba Laptops just don't sell very well. At least in the states. Also the market for laptops has shifted a lot towards premium ultrabooks....and premium designs and materials is just not something that Toshiba had been known for. 

[mr moose]

Stupidly moot and almost irrelevant anecdote here, but the only Toshiba laptops I have had any experience with were either average or very sluggish for the given spec.  

 

 

[Tech_Dreamer]

please god, let lenovo be next.

[Commodus]

Wasn't really surprised. It feels like Toshiba started out strong, but eventually got beaten in the categories it once defined and never really figured out how to recover. Ultraportables were a particular sore point. The Portege line was nice... up until the MacBook Air and ultrabooks arrived, and Toshiba was no longer the most compelling pick for thin-and-light laptops.

 

I also can't help but think that Toshiba's obsession with giant desktop replacement laptops was an issue. Yeah, that chunky 17-inch Qosmio is fine if you just want a desktop that happens to move, but it's pretty lousy as a portable machine. The market moved to easier-to-carry designs, and Toshiba didn't do a great job of following.

 

Sharp is technically keeping the spirit of Toshiba alive, but this does feel like a further contraction of the Windows PC market. It's hard to survive if you're not a giant OEM like Dell, HP or Lenovo.

[leadeater]

10 hours ago, pinksnowbirdie said:

god I haven't seen Toshiba sell laptops at US retailers for years. Never heard of Dynabook either.

Same, not touched a Toshiba in a long time and also never heard of Dynabook. Wonder how that business is actually going, maybe they are big in some other market.

[kelvinhall05]

Heh, I remember playing Space Cadet Pinball on my mom's Toshiba netbook running XP.

 

 

I didn't realize Toshiba was still around though, I thought they stopped making laptops years ago...

[leadeater]

9 hours ago, mr moose said:

Stupidly moot and almost irrelevant anecdote here, but the only Toshiba laptops I have had any experience with were either average or very sluggish for the given spec.  

Toshiba used to be part of the TELA scheme for teachers, don't remember what it standard for it but it's the government purchasing scheme for laptops used by teachers. The chargers were crap and the cables kept splitting and fraying, horrible things, glad they got dropped as an option.

[yolosnail]

My friend still dailies her 1st gen Core i3 Toshiba notebook, it's the only computer in their house and is more than powerful enough for their needs. They're complaining about it getting slow so once I get a chance to pop over I'll upgrade it to an SSD and it'll be like a brand new machine.

 

I don't understand the obsession with everyone having to run a brand new machine, as long as it still works, why replace it?

 

My Main PC is a 2009 Mac Pro, sure it's not the fastest, but it's as fast as I need it to be, plus if I need to do anything more demanding I can just use my i7 9750H/2060 laptop.

 

[Commodus]

48 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Same, not touched a Toshiba in a long time and also never heard of Dynabook. Wonder how that business is actually going, maybe they are big in some other market.

Dynabook was a Toshiba laptop brand initially focused on Japan. With the whole Sharp handover it's been used more widely.

[BuckGup]

Toshiba laptops are shit anyways 

[spartaman64]

8 hours ago, Tech_Dreamer said:

please god, let lenovo be next.

why? their business laptops are some of the best but yeah i dont care for any of their consumer ones

[sub68]

9 hours ago, Tech_Dreamer said:

please god, let lenovo be next.

thinkpads are the most reliable laptops ever

there e series is junk but p and t series is pretty good

[TigerHawk]

My work laptop here in Canada is a Toshiba but after we updated the bios earlier this year/late last year, the boot up splash says Dynabook. This must of been coming for awhile cause these updates are circa late last year.

 

All of our Toshiba laptops now say Dynabook in the bios and the bootup logo, all models going back a few years now. It seems some of the bios updates did absolutely nothing but change the logo from Toshiba to Dynabook...........

[Helpful Tech Witch]

15 hours ago, Techstorm970 said:

HDDs?  OH GOD, MY EYES!!!  SHOW ME A SEAGATE BEFORE I GO BLIND!!!

What about a WD drive? 

[DeScruff]

Man I usually associate Toshiba laptops with Windows XP, just cause thats the last time I saw them in mass.

These days I know only 1 person who still has a Toshiba laptop, thats years old.