ArchiveOriginally published 2009

Toshiba Qosmio X500: The 18-Inch Gaming Laptop, Revisited

In late 2009 this site reported the launch of the Toshiba Qosmio X500, an 18.4 inch gaming laptop finished in red and black that weighed about as much as a small suitcase. It was a statement machine from a company that, within a decade, would leave the laptop business entirely.

What the X500 was

The Qosmio range was Toshiba's multimedia and gaming line, and the X500 was its largest member. The specifications that made the news were the 18.4 inch full HD screen, a quad-core mobile processor from the first generation of that family, a mid-to-high-end dedicated graphics chip, two drive bays that allowed a fast drive for the operating system and a large one for storage, and a Blu-ray drive at a time when that was still exotic in a laptop. The styling was as loud as the fans: glossy red and black panels, a red-backlit keyboard with a full number pad, and speakers above the keyboard tuned by an audio brand. The Q930S variant covered here refreshed the processor and graphics in 2010.

The colour-changing Qosmio T750

This site also covered a stranger Qosmio: the T750, sold mainly in Japan in 2011, whose lid finish shifted colour with the viewing angle and lighting, marketed as the first colour-changing notebook. It used a layered coating rather than anything electronic, so the effect was closer to a car paint than a display. It was a reminder that Toshiba's consumer laptop division, at its peak, was willing to try almost anything on a lid.

What became of Toshiba laptops

Toshiba had been making portable computers since the mid 1980s and was one of the biggest laptop brands of the 1990s and 2000s. Falling margins in consumer PCs, a corporate accounting scandal in 2015 and losses elsewhere in the group led the company to withdraw from consumer laptops in Europe and North America in 2016 and refocus on business machines. In 2018 a majority of the PC business was sold to Sharp and renamed Dynabook, the name Toshiba had used for its laptops in Japan since 1989; the remaining stake followed in 2020. Dynabook continues to sell business laptops, but there is no Qosmio, and no 18 inch gaming machine, in its range.

Why the category survived when the brand did not

The X500 belonged to the desktop-replacement class: laptops that never leave the desk but are technically portable. In 2009 that category existed because desktop parts were far faster than mobile ones. It survives today for the opposite reason: mobile chips are fast enough that a large laptop can genuinely replace a desktop for gaming or creative work, and buyers pay for the option of moving it occasionally. Modern 17 and 18 inch gaming laptops are lighter, quieter and enormously faster than the X500, and they still look, from across a room, like its descendants.