Toshiba denies it will exit the PC market

they have been for a while

given their level of customer support, and even sales support, I think they've been winding down for a while now and making sure they don't get repeat business is as good a way as any to guarantee an exit...

If not Tosh laptops then who's?

Lenovo? I don't think so...

Toshiba are Acer in all but name?

Always thought the latest Toshiba were Acer/Pegatron in all but name, either that or made by Quanta for Toshiba etc.

The classic 'real' 2005 era Toshiba Portege M100 12" Pentium-m Centrino Laptop, had such fundamental, strong design principles, many of which were important then as they are (copied) today.

Maganese Alloy casing, with seamless plastic part in the lid to hold wifi antenna.

Tiny screen bezel around the whole of the 4:3 1024x768 12.1" display. (bezel still smaller than nearly anything today)

Thick solid copper metal thermal fan, sitting in the back left side of the laptop, with venting to the side/back corner-tiny yet worked a treat.

Solid Alloy Framework-3mm to edges, either side of a full size laptop keyboard, covering the complete area in front of palmrest.

Nipple / IBM Style pointer, which meant you didn't have to move your hands from the keyboard to use mouse, when typing.

Large speakers sitting either side of the lower area of the screen, nearly packaged into casing.

Very thin Keyboard assembly with just the right level of travel, no compromise, unlike 'new macbook'.

Removeable Slimline Dvd Drive.

Best of all you could upgrade/replace Memory to 2GB, Battery, DVD with an HDD/SSD.

Upgrade IDE Hard Disk with an MSata SSD+Adapter.

The Centrino based 1.4GHz ULV Pentium-m was an efficient little power horse, especially if you added a secondary battery, in place of the DVD.

New laptops could learn a lot from it.

For me, it was the perfect condensed portable.

Not cheap though and let down by its Intel integrated graphics, that killed its upgradeability to running Win7 well. Win7 did run - just not without a Vista graphics driver fudge.

Toshiba brought itself down

Toshiba brought itself down with awful unreliable laptop designs, difficulty of repair, lack of spare parts, and no service manuals available to the public. This approach might have worked 20 years ago, when hardware repair was a more close world. But it is a recipe for disaster today.

"It says Toshiba would continue R&D..." Gimme a break! What R&D? Chipsets are standard, and so are processors, memory, network cards, hard drives and SSDs. What R&D needs to be done? Industrial design of a chassis with a consistent look-and-feel? Yes, but that is hardly R&D. Board design and layout? Outsourced.

Exeunt Toshiba stage left. Please!