Italian motorcycle company Ducati has a strong brand name. The brand is associated with luxury too. Ferrari and Lamborghini placed their brands on notebooks in the past, but this is the first time I’ve seen an automotive company stick their brand on a camcorder. Toshiba is putting the Ducati brand on the S10 camcorder. The camcorder is white with red accents and the Ducadi logo on the LCD. The LCD is 2.5″ and can record in 1080p resolution. The sensor of the camera is 5 magepixel and there is a 4GB memory card that saves the video. The 4GB can hold about 60 minutes of recording. Price is not yet known.
Earlier this week Toshiba announced a new set of hard drives that are 2.5″. The 640GB MK6465GSX 5400RPM will run for about $179.99 and will be available in the following colors: Vivid White, Liquiid Blue, Komodo Green, and Rock Red. Some of the other external hard drives sizes with these cool-colored cases will be 500GB, 320GB, 250GB, and 160GB.
Shan Sadiq | July 19, 2009 | 279 views | Comments Categorized under Toshiba
Toshiba’s HD DVD is a failed format. HD DVD lost and Blu-ray won the high definition disc wars. HD DVD never caught on with movie studios, retailers, or consumers. Toshiba withdrew the format in February of 2008.
Toshiba has now swallowed its pride and announced that it will start manufacturing Blu-ray players.
Historically, Toshiba has done very well in the DVD player business. Toshiba was considered one of the top brands when it came to DVD players. So there is no way the company would stop producing DVD players. The Blu-ray market is steadily growing and doing very well. It would make little business sense for Toshiba to ignore the numbers and market.
According to Blu-ray Disc Association chairman Andy Parsons, Blu-ray is now main stream. Players can be found for a few hundred dollars at most consumer electronic stores. The format has already achieved a 50 percent market share in Japan.
Laptop Magazine has just tested and reviewed the Toshiba mini NB205 netbook and it turns out that it “breaks the mold.” One of the reasons why the NB205 gets credit is because there is only so many things that a manufacturing company can do with a 10″ to make it stand out.
The specs of the Mini NB205 include an Intel Atom processor, 1GB RAM, Windows XP Home, and 8.5 hour battery life. The price is about $399. The lid of the notebook is available in Royal Blue, Posh Pink, and Frost White. The rest of the finish is in silver. Later on Toshiba will offer a $349 price for a Black Onyx color.
Another way that the Mini NB205 stands out is because of the metal island keyboard. This is a pretty similar structure to how Apple has their keyboard setup on MacBooks and iMac keyboards.
Amit Chowdhry | May 10, 2009 | 285 views | Comments Categorized under Toshiba
Toshiba has reported a record annual loss this past week which is putting them in a position to cut thousands of jobs. On Friday, Toshiba reported a 343.6 billion yen net loss for the year that was ended in March. The year before, Toshiba had reported a 127.4 billion yen profit. This was Toshiba’s biggest loss ever and it is the first time they had a loss in seven years.
Toshiba, the 5th largest PC manufacturing company, has seen their annual sales drop 13%. This converts to about 6.65 trillion yen. The reason for this sales drop is because of their business becoming weaker in areas such as digital equipment and consumer electronics. The company has blamed the shrinkage in the overall market caused by the global recession.
The company believes they will have losses for one more year and then will see sales climb again as the mobile phone industry is strengthening. The company will be slashing costs in areas such as R&D, personnel costs, and other investments.
Amit Chowdhry | April 30, 2009 | 427 views | Comments Categorized under Fujitsu, Toshiba
As many of you all are aware, Fujitsu will be transferring their hard drive business to Toshiba. A new division of Toshiba will be created to take over Fujitsu’s business called the Toshiba Storage Device Corporation. After that, Fujitsu’s manufacturing plants will be called Toshiba Storage Devices Philippines and Toshiba Storage Devices Thailand. Toshiba Storage Device Yamagata Corporation will then take over Yamagata Fujitsu Limited.
Toshiba Storage Device Corporation will handle the R&D of the hard drives and the Toshiba parent company itself will do all the marketing. About 80.1% of Toshiba Storage Device Corporation will be owned by the parent company by July 1. This leaves Fujitsu with 19.9% shre for the time being. But in December 2010, Toshiba will take over the whole storage device division.
Toshiba has another another laptop to their S300 arsenal. This new laptop is the Pro S300-EZ2521. But I’m not going to sugarcoat it, the specs are pretty average.
Even though it is rumored that Toshiba was considering taking over SanDisk, the Japanese electronics company will be seeing their CEO step down in June. Toshiba is currently facing record losses and may need additional capital to keep running.
Toshiba’s current CEO Atsutoshi Nishida, 65, will become chairman. The head of the infrastructure systems group at Toshiba Norio Sasaki, 59, will become the CEO as long as shareholders approve. Tadashi Okamura, the current Chairman of the company will become a board adviser.
When Nishida became President in 2005, he had really opened up the company’s wallet. For example, Toshiba bought a majority ownership in Westinghouse in 2006 for $3.7 billion. Last month the company agreed to buy out Fujitsu’s hard drive business. The company also invested billions in flash memory chip production under Nishida’s watch.
These financial transactions caused the company to become overstretched. But investors expect Toshiba to raise additional funds by issuing new shares in the near future.
Samsung Electronics and Toshiba are rumored to be making a bid to buy out memory drive company SanDisk. The rumors originated from EETimes. Both are making simultaneous bids. Last year Samsung made a hostile takeover bid for SanDisk, but ended discussion without making an agreement.
Toshiba is currently a partner in manufacturing flash storage with SanDisk already. Toshiba is also a current shareholder in SanDisk.
Jim Handy, an analyst with Objective Analysis believes SanDisk won’t be acquired because the company is reportedly seeking $60 per share for a buy-out. Samsung is said to be only offering $25 per share.
O2 in Germany will be the exclusive carrier for the Toshiba TG01 smartphone according to a press release. As of right now, the TG01 is the world’s thinnest smartphone. It runs on Windows Mobile and has a 4.1″ 800×480 touchscreen display. The TG01 has GPS and 3G built-in. The phone was introduced at this past Mobile World Congress event. The phone will be available in Germany in Summer 2009.
Toshiba has announced that they have unleashed three products in their Portégé line of Tablet PCs. The Toshiba Portégé M750 model has Intel Core 2 Duo processors. The tablet PCs have LED backlit displays and standard WiFi. The Toshiba Portégé M750-S7211, Portégé M750-S7212 and Portégé M750-S7213 have 2GB of DDR2 memory, 160GB hard drives, and a 12.1″ XGA display. All of these tablet PCs have a digital pen input.
Webcams and Bluetooth are built-in. The Toshiba Portégé M750-S7211 is $1,279, the Portégé M750-S7212 is $1,699, and the Portégé M750-S7213 is $1,799.
“Administrators, teachers and students can feel confident with their computer purchase as Toshiba delivers the Portégé M750 with full performance processors, upmost security, functional features and generous warranty coverage,” stated Carl Pinto, VP of Product Development & Marketing at Toshiba. “Additionally, the Portégé M750 series is among the greenest available with its EnergyStar 4.0 and RoHS Compliance and its Gold EPEAT rating.”
