Toshiba, the world's fourth-largest PC laptop maker, will end a six-year Intel-only deal and begin shipping its low-cost models with AMD's mobile CPUs.

The announcement follows on from the top-three players - HP, Dell, Acer - all using CPUs from both Intel and AMD.

Simple economics has forced Toshiba's hand, it seems, and AMD-equipped Toshs could account for around 20 per cent of total notebook sales, according to a report in the Nikkei business daily.

Merom and its derivatives may well offer more performance than their AMD counterparts, but, thanks to Intel's premium pricing, they're difficult to shoehorn into a £299 laptop.

On a related note, AMD's already outlined plans for its next-generation mobile architecture and we took a look at it here.