Toshiba laptops seemed to have disappeared from American retailers in recent years, but they’re finally coming back with a new name. From here on out Toshiba’s America computer business will be called Dynabook, and it’s going to be launching a shit ton of laptops.
But where the hell has Toshiba been? In 2015 a $1.2 billion scandal rocked the company leading to the resignation of the CEO, two former CEOS, and multiple other high-level employees. By 2016, it was looking for a $2.5 billion line of credit to keep afloat. Laptops and TVs weren’t quite the priority for the nearly 150-year-old Japanese tech corporation.
Then last year it finalized the sale of 80.1-percent of its PC business to Sharp. The new business is Toshiba, but not Toshiba, because it’s also owned by Sharp. Confusing isn’t it? That’s why it’s now called Dynabook.
Less confusing!
Dynabook will still honor warranties on Toshiba computers you have, but going forward these laptops will have Dynabook branding. And there will be a lot of laptops. By my count Dynabook will launch 11 different laptops, plus an AR headset made in collaboration with Vuzix.
The laptops, seem to primarily be enterprise devices meant to be sold in bulk to businesses. They range in price from $600 to $2,000 and are equipped with standard stuff like 7th and 8th Gen U-series GPUs from Intel, solid state drives, and fingerprint readers.
But, at least at a glance, they’re hardly innovative devices. Instead, they look almost like Toshiba simply picked up where it left off in 2016: Stylized aluminum lids, gaudy two-tone color schemes, big honking bezels, and in some cases, DVD drives and serial ports.
I don’t know if relaunching a brand with serial ports, disc drives, and really lame stylings is exactly the best move, but more big brands making laptops is usually a good thing, and Toshiba did spend three years not making laptops in the U.S. Things could turn around!
We’ll know more as this laptops, and future Dynabook devices, become available and we can get our hands on them for review. For now, you can check out the Dynabook website...at us.toshiba.com.