Toshiba today launched an across the board revamp of its entire notebook range including a major upgrade for the Qosmio AV notebook in the form of the G40, a dedicated gaming machine dubbed the Satellite X200, and the truly compact and innovative Portege R500 with a solid state 64GB drive.

Mark Whittard, general manager of Toshiba ISD, said, Toshiba's desire to differentiate itself in the mobile market through technological innovation remained as strong as ever and the new line up reflected that. He also said, that an obvious shift was taking place in the notebook market with a greater emphasis on style in addition to pure productivity. Whittard attributed this to the fact that notebooks were increasingly being seen as personal devices and that in a high-employment environment, companies saw the provision of desirable tech tools as a way of attracting and retaining good employees.

Qosmio G40

A giant amongst notebooks, the G40 boasts a full 1920 x 1200 high-definition 17-inch widescreen capable of 1080p display. It comes with twin digital TV tuners (DVB-T) and can record programmes to both its twin 200GB hard drives and world-first built-in HD DVD recorder.
Dolby virtual surround sound is provided via four Harman Kardon speakers and an HDMI port allows for full 5.1 audio and high definition video output.
A dedicated circular AV controller resides to the right of the keyboard and a remote is also provided if you're doing your viewing from a distance.
A top spec means the G40 is no slouch and it also has a microphone and 2-megapixel camera for VoIP.
Suggested retail is $5999.

Portege R500

The R500 represents the state-of-the-art for notebook innovation. Weighing only 999g and just 19.5mm thick, the R500 absolutely packs in the technology. A 12.1-inch transreflective LED backlit screen is made to be viewable in direct sunlight outdoors with just the touch of a button, and this machine will do a full 12.5 hour day running Windows Vista before its 6-cell battery needs charging. The keyboard is spill-resistant and the DVD drive is protected by the ribbed magnesium alloy chassis.
The R500 is also available with a 64GB solid state drive, which offers longer battery life, faster boot times, faster read-write, less noise, less heat and greatly enhanced resistance to bumps and knocks.

At present, the solid state drive option represents a $1000 premium on the R500 as compared to the HDD option, but prices are predicted to drop as volumes increase, and Mark Whittard also believes we will see solid state drive sizes of up to 200GB by the end of next year.
The HDD R500 is to retail at $4027 and the SSD model is $5040.

For further information visit toshiba.co.nz