I have fond memories of the Toshiba Satellite Pro models that had the battery charger built into the laptop. The power cord was the same figure eight lead that you could find powering radios and other home electricals. If you worked in server rooms, meeting rooms, your own desk, at home or in the field, the lack of power brick was a huge bonus.
The desktop models 'failed' but look how advanced some of them were:
Here you get a remote control and a home media centre that I wouldn't mind having today!!! It is like a desktop version of what a mobile phone offers, functionality wise.
Another Toshiba special were the Portege tablets that they brought out before iOS/Android tablets redefined what a tablet computer was. One had to pretend that the pen input was viable, pen to text was theoretically possible but not what you would use. Superb engineering including a 12" 1400x1050 screen and their own HDD.
Another retro Japan favourite is the Canon BN22. This was a laptop with a printer built in. There were models of laptop + printer than what made it to the UK market, the first one failed to find a niche in the UK and there were none coming to the UK after that, in Japan the concept was updated with the times into the Windows 95 era. I can remember seeing a Canon BN22 and being genuinely awed. It had the same form factor of laptops of the era, i.e. ungainly with the keyboard at the front. The space at the back had a printer sneaked in and the paper path went from the front to the back of the machine. Looking back the dimensions of this machine were a bit nearer what you would expect for a printer rather than a laptop.
This may be a regional issue, but where I worked about a decade ago resold toshiba laptops as part of an equipment package (medical imaging). I'd ring up support to ask where I could find some documentation (I worked in support) and they'd refuse to talk to me without paying $55 first. Not even calling for troubleshooting help. '$55' or 'sod off' (paraphrased) were the options.
They were very nicely spec'd machines, but I'd never recommend a Toshiba based on the support experience. Hopefully they improved over the years.
I have a Japanese Toshiba KIRA V63 (only sold in Japan, for some stupid reason). It's a great machine and quite cheap for it's specs. I bought it for battery life (I can do a whole day of programming on a single charge in Linux), but it has good performance as well. I've been very pleasantly surprised at how well the Intel 5200U has performed. Also at only 1.2 kg, I can easily stick it in my bag and carry it with me anywhere I go.
I've seen on the news that Toshiba plans to shut down its laptop division in the near future. Some people have told me that it isn't 100% for sure, so I'm hanging on to some hope. I've been looking at offerings of other Japanese makers (I live in Japan) and there is nothing else comparable. I'm not sure what I'll do when I need to replace this one. Toshiba has been my go to maker for the last 10 years or so because virtually everything they make "just works" on Linux.
>Toshiba has been my go to maker for the last 10 years or so because virtually everything they make "just works" on Linux.
This is honestly a pretty shocking statement for me, because Toshiba has long been my go-to example for the worst-case scenario of installing Linux on laptops. I have never once had a Toshiba laptop that "just worked" out of the box with Linux. Whether it was power management, display drivers, or wifi, there was always something that was broken out of the box and needed to be fixed. Heck, I have a Toshiba A305 for which Linux still doesn't have proper power management drivers, even though the laptop is about a decade old.
When people ask me about Linux on laptops, I say that they should go with either Lenovos or (more lately) the new Dell XPS models. Never Sony, never Toshiba. I've never heard of anyone having a good experience installing Linux on laptops made by those two manufacturers.
One of the reasons I went with them was that besides being famous for making good laptops, was that they had a dedicated Linux web site and forum for supporting Linux on their laptops.
Interestingly, my first Toshiba laptop was whatever the Canadian equivalent of the A205 was in 2007. No problems other than it needed a custom driver for the wifi (which eventually made its way into the kernel).
Toshiba used to maintain a webpage on their Japanese site that listed what worked and what didn't in Linux for all of their models. It also listed any custom drivers that it might need. It's the reason I switched to Toshiba originally. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be there any more (or I can't find it). Last time I looked at it, every single modern model had no problems. When I bought the K63, the trackpad didn't work properly (I bought it days after it was first released), but they said that a driver was being updated on that page. Sure enough, about 2 months later it was fine.
It's a moot point now I suppose since they are apparently leaving the business.
I had a Toshiba Tecra M11-17z and it worked flawlessly with Linux. Before I bought it, I made sure that the Wifi, Graphics etc were Intel and not some iffy RealTek/Broadcom nonsense.
The first boot after it arrived (to check it was working before I installed Arch) took an hour, it downloaded updates to the vast array of crapware that came bundled and did all sorts of other 'customisations', truly awful. Look at the bundled software list on the link below, it actually makes me feel sorry for Microsoft.
Similar experience here. They are the Toyotas of laptops.
My little Toshiba has been very reliable, runs Linux perfectly.
I would never buy anything else so I hope they manage to restructure so their talent survives. It is increasingly difficult to get quality products these days. More and more it is a choice between constantly breaking crap and unaffordable. It's in cars, houses, everything.
http://articles.latimes.com/1989-11-07/business/fi-1099_1_co...
I have fond memories of the Toshiba Satellite Pro models that had the battery charger built into the laptop. The power cord was the same figure eight lead that you could find powering radios and other home electricals. If you worked in server rooms, meeting rooms, your own desk, at home or in the field, the lack of power brick was a huge bonus.
The desktop models 'failed' but look how advanced some of them were:
https://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/1996_09/pr1101.htm
Here you get a remote control and a home media centre that I wouldn't mind having today!!! It is like a desktop version of what a mobile phone offers, functionality wise.
Another Toshiba special were the Portege tablets that they brought out before iOS/Android tablets redefined what a tablet computer was. One had to pretend that the pen input was viable, pen to text was theoretically possible but not what you would use. Superb engineering including a 12" 1400x1050 screen and their own HDD.
Another retro Japan favourite is the Canon BN22. This was a laptop with a printer built in. There were models of laptop + printer than what made it to the UK market, the first one failed to find a niche in the UK and there were none coming to the UK after that, in Japan the concept was updated with the times into the Windows 95 era. I can remember seeing a Canon BN22 and being genuinely awed. It had the same form factor of laptops of the era, i.e. ungainly with the keyboard at the front. The space at the back had a printer sneaked in and the paper path went from the front to the back of the machine. Looking back the dimensions of this machine were a bit nearer what you would expect for a printer rather than a laptop.