June 29, 2008 In the world of laptops slim is definitely in. Toshiba’s Digital Products Division has announced the addition of a 128GB Solid State Drive (SSD) to the latest incarnation of its Portégé laptop series. The 2.4 pound Portégé R500-S5007V with a 128GB SSD is billed as the world’s lightest laptop, beating the much hyped Macbook Air, which weighs in at 3 pounds and, unlike the Macbook Air, even manages to include a built-in optical drive into a unit that measures as thin as 0.77-inches. This does mean that the Macbook Air 0.76-inch high Macbook Air retains its world’s thinnest title and it does feature a slightly bigger display – 13.3-inches to the R500’s 12.1-inches.
While the inclusion of the SSD plays a major part in the R500’s low weight and profile, the SSD also offers the advantage of no moving parts to give greater reliability, durability and system responsiveness. And by utilizing the industry’s largest solid state drive capacity of 128GB the drive also provides ample storage space for computing on the go. The other major contributor to the Portégé R500 series thin profile comes courtesy of Toshiba’s proprietary High Density Mounting Technology process, which enables dual-sided motherboard component mounting. This innovative technology produces a motherboard that is one-third the size of a mainstream 15.4-inch notebook’s motherboard, while still providing users the same functionality.
The Portégé R500 series incorporates the world’s first widescreen 12.1-inch transreflective LED backlit display for enhanced outdoor viewing. Indoors the LED backlit display functions normally, while outdoors the transreflective screen lets the sun’s light pass through and reflects it out so users can switch off the LED backlighting while outdoors and decrease overall battery consumption. For the security conscious the Portégé R500-S5007V also incorporates Toshiba’s EasyGuard Technology including advanced encryption, multiple level passwords and a fingerprint reader to help prevent theft, and protect against unauthorized access to the users system.
The Portégé R500-S5007V also gives users a full work day of normal computing on a single charge. To achieve more than eight hours of battery life Toshiba subjected key system components to meticulous energy efficiency evaluation. Key Portégé R500-S5007V components use low power consumption technology including both the 128GB SSD and an ultra low voltage processor. Like all new Toshiba notebooks the R500 series are RoHS-compatible, effectively reducing the environmental impact by restricting the use of lead, mercury and certain other hazardous substances.
The Portégé R500-S5007V’s recommended configuration, which includes an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor U77006, 2048 PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM8, 128GB Serial ATA solid state drive, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 9509, 8xDVD-SuperMulti (+/-R Single Layer) drive, Intel Wireless Wi-Fi Link 4965AGN10, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR and 12.1-inch diagonal widescreen high brightness 1280 x 800 (WXGA) Transreflective backlit LED display, carries a MSRP of US$2,999
Complete specs for all Portégé R500 Series models are available at Toshiba.
