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Toshiba Portégé R600 Ultraportable Holds Its Own on Worst Notebook Launch Day Ever
Posted by Matt Buchanan at 1:10 AM on October 15, 2008
On basically the worst day of the year to launch a new notebook, Toshiba's ultraportable Portégé R600 actually holds its own, though not quite as comely as Voodoo's Envy, but you do get a bona-fide DVD-SuperMulti drive in the world's lightest computer with two spindles. The successor to Toshiba's formerly most awesome laptop, the http://gizmodo.com/tag/toshiba/r500">Portege R500, the R600 is only 1.08kg and 1.96cm thick. It feels unbelievably light, too, mostly thanks to the plastic shell, and was the most impressive laptop I saw in Toshiba's new lineup. Besides faster guts, one of the other major updates over the last generation is an LED-backlit display. But excellence isn't cheap—the R600 starts at $US2099.
It's tough to decide whether Toshiba is being incredibly intelligent or incredibly stubborn in their decision to back upconverting DVD technology instead of Blu-ray. I mean, they were certainly burnt - badly - by Blu-ray with that whole
Despite Microsoft denying any plans to develop a Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360 at least a million times now, rumours are surfacing that the company's already made one and just needs to decide on a release date. If X-bit Labs is to be believed, a joint-venture between Toshiba and Samsung has been contracted to manufacture external Blu-ray disc drives for Microsoft's game console. According to their market sources, the company is aiming at a $US100 to $US150 price point in order to compete with the PlayStation 3. 
Today Best Buy launched "Blue Label"—a new line of electronic products developed directly from customer feedback. Shockingly, Best Buy discovered that consumers wanted laptops with "longer battery life, a thin and lightweight design, an illuminated keyboard, more optimal screen size and superior warranty support"—so they enlisted the help of HP and Toshiba to create an exclusive product that conformed to these specifications. HP delivered the Pavilion dv3510nr Notebook PC with a thickness of 3.6cm, backlit keyboard, 4 hours of battery life and a 13.3" LED-backlit WXGA display. Toshiba's Satellite E105-S1402 is also part of the lineup, which is interesting because there was no mention of Blue Label when 
Sprint's Xohm WiMax network got 
We've already seen the SpursEngine teased in laptops, but Toshiba is becoming vocal about bringing the SpursEngine—the same technology found in the PlayStation 3 Cell processor—to standalone video cards in 4-core configuration. The first will come from Leadtek later this month for $US286, a 128MB card that can fit into a small form PC, and it will be followed in November by Thomson cards that will start in the high $US300s. SpursEngine cards have built-in MPEG2 and H.264 codecs which equal smooth video playback and the ability to uprez SD content on the fly. And at least Leadtek's offering sounds like a solid alternative to small media PC packed with integrated graphics. [
Toshiba's Super Charge Ion Batteries (SCiBs) have been
This strangely sexy (for a networked storage device) Toshiba wireless media server concept on show at CEATEC takes a novel approach to design; as wires disappear, the necessity for an unimaginative stack of home theatre equipment is diminished. The device is loaded with wireless capabilities, including Wi-Fi, wireless HDMI (presumably the 
Toshiba's Satellite E105 is almost run-of-the-mill as far as new notebooks go—Centrino 2, latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 4GB of RAM, integrated graphics (boo), HDMI out—but a couple of things make it stand out. What instantly struck me is that the silhouette—which you can see more of below—is obviously inspired by the MacBook Pro.
Sony and Toshiba announced that they had successfully shrunk the 65nm cell down to 45nm 
