Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Toshiba Italy has announced the availability of the Portege M800 notebook in all of Europe sometime in during Q3 of 2008. Sporting a stylish design with white pearl finish, Toshiba is marketing this product towards business professionals who are always mobile, as attested by its light weight, which is a little less than 4.5-pounds.

Like the other Toshiba Satellite laptops, the Portege M800 was also treated with Toshiba’s Fusion design that provides for a smooth and slightly rugged exterior finish. Now, here’s the skinny on the other features of the M800; a 2GHz Core 2 Duo T5750 processor, 1GB RAM, 13.3-inch WXGA display with a 1280 x 800 resolution, 250GB SATA hard drive, Super multi-DVD and running Windows Vista Home Premium.

Product [Notebook Italia]

Although we have previously mentioned Toshiba’s face recognition technology in our coverage of the Satellite A300 and M300 and P300, it is only now that Toshiba is officially promoting the said feature. Toshiba has employed this technology to provide Satellite owners an additional way of securing their dear Toshiba machines from unauthorized users. The technology grants or denies access to people who might use the laptops depending on whether they are registered users.

To use the face recognition technology to secure their laptops, users need to have their face profiled by the laptop’s webcam during a short setup process. Once profiled, the laptop’s webcam would use this to reference people who are about to use the laptops as recognized by the laptop’s webcam. If a user’s face has not been profiled before, then the laptop would deny them access to the machine.

MORE »

Its always important for a company to keep the product line-up fresh and lately Toshiba is trying to do this with their Satellite Pro series, by adding nice, new features and giving their laptops an overall boost.

Basically, the L300 and L300D will remain the starting laptop and every laptop on from there will be a little more advanced. You can choose to have an Intel Core 2 Duo in the L300 or the AMD Turion 64 X2 in the L300D. Screenwise, they both offer a 15.4-inch display. Now, a $699 L300D sports a 1.9GHz AMD processor, 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive. A $799 L300 boasts a 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor and a 160GB hard drive. Both of these laptops look really good, but to me, the L300 might be a little bit better of a deal. 

MORE »

It looks like the Toshiba Portege R500 is getting all beefed up with a new 128GB solid state drive. Weighing in at less than 2-pounds, the newly updated Portege is expected to cost more than its present $3,000 price tag.

Additional features include a chip upgrade to a 1.33GHz U7700 processor from the current 1.2GHz U7600 Intel Core 2 Duo. The Portege, being one of the lightest laptops that actually has an internal DVD writer also comes with a PC card slot, Firewire port and has three USB ports. The R500 also has a 12.1-inch display with a 1280 x 800 resolution, 2GB of RAM, Bluetooth connectivity, Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics and of course Wi-Fi.

The Toshiba Portege R500 currently ships only with Windows Vista Business edition, which is a major downfall for many, we can only hope they decide to offer an option to have Windows XP instead. 

Via [Gizmodo]

Toshiba has added a new notebook to its product catalog, the Portege R500-12Q. The new Toshiba notebook is being touted by the company as the world’s lightest notebook weighing just a mere 2.15-pounds (by standard notebook weight, which pretty much is light indeed). Toshiba is also brandishing the Portege R500-12Q as the only notebook with the slimmest optical drive at 7mm, the world’s first notebook with the transflective LED 12.1-inch widescreen display and one of the world’s thinnest notebooks at 0.76/1.0-inches in height.

Aside from being the first in so many notebook aspects, it will be important to note the Portege R500-12Q is packed with a whooping 128GB SSD. In simple terms, that’s tons of storage capacity for a notebook of this caliber. Other features of the Portege R500-12Q include; Core 2 Duo ULV U7700 processor, 2GB RAM, dual-layer DVD writer, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and pretty much other standard notebook fare.

The Toshiba Europe site did not specify pricing information yet for this new notebook baby. The “where to buy” link is not pointing to anywhere as well.

Product [Toshiba] Via [Engadget]

Toshiba has started shipping its new 14.1-inch Satellite M300 laptop. With a retail price starting at $949.99, users can choose between the M300-S4822 or the M300-S4826.

With the slew of new laptops recently launched by Toshiba, I’m beginning to believe that it is the company’s way of introducing its Fusion finish that is bonded directly into the chassis of the laptops. Like the previous models recently released by Toshiba, the Satellite M300 also features the Sleep-and-Charge USB ports and the LED-illuminated “Feather Touch” multimedia command keys. 

MORE »

Toshiba has announced that it is now shipping its new A300 series laptops with three models to boot – the A300-S6845, the A305-S6839 and the A305D-S6831. These models boast of Toshiba’s new Fusion design with horizon pattern which is blended with the laptops’ chassis.

The three laptops are equipped with Toshiba’s Sleep-and-Charge USB ports, LED-luminated “Feature Touch” multimedia command keys, and built-in webcam with Toshiba’s facial recognition software.  Plus the laptops come equipped with a 15.4-inch widescreen TFT LCD with a native resolution of 1280 x 800.
Aside from these similar features, the three laptops feature their respective technical details which also determine their unit prices.

The Satellite A300-S6845 retails for $1,299.99 and is equipped with 2.10GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 3GB of RAM, and a 400GB hard drive. The Satellite A300-S6839 retails for $1,149.99 and has a 2.10GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 3GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive. And finally the Satellite A305D-S6831 retails for $949.99 and has a 2.2GHz AMD Turion X2 Dual Core Technology processor, 3GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive.

Product [Satellite A300] Read [Business Wire]

Fancy spending the afternoon talking at your favorite living room devices? Toshiba’s new robot might be able to let you do just that. With a name that’s inspired by the Italian term “Poco a poco,” which means little by little, the Toshiba Apripoco will enable you to wireless communicate with most remote-controlled devices by using simple voice commands. It was designed to learn how you use your devices “little by little,” hence the name. With a little time, it should be able to tell whether you’re turning on the TV or turning up the AC. And will turn on (or off) the corresponding device accordingly.

MORE »

Toshiba has unveiled two new powerful gaming laptops, the Satellite X205-SLi5 and the X205-SLi6. Both laptops are powered by Intel’s 45nm processors and offer NVIDIA SLi technology that is sure to delight hardcore gamers.

Both models of the X205-SLi laptops feature HDMI ports to allow gamers to play games on their 1080i high-definition HDTV display. For added excitement, Toshiba has thrown in an S/P DIF output port that gives 5.1 stereo surround sound when combined with Dolby Sound Room technology. The two Toshiba laptops come with Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 3GB RAM, 320GB-400GB hard drives that run at 7200 RPM, DVD multi-drives, wireless gaming features with Bluetooth V.20+EDR technology and a 1.3-megapixel webcam.

The X205-SLi5 and X205-SLi6 will sell for around $1,999 and $2,499 respectively. Ready to shell out that amount of money for your gaming pleasure?

Read [Toshiba Direct]

Toshiba has started shipping its new desktop replacement laptops, the Satellite P300 series with two models, the P305 and P305D. Both laptops sport a unique Fusion design which is embedded into their chassis. This, according to Toshiba makes the Satellite P300 laptops visually stunning and durable.

The Satellite P300 series is the first of Toshiba’s laptop which sports the sleep-and-charge USB port which allow portable devices to charge up even when the laptop is shut off. The Satellite P300 laptop series also comes packed with a webcam built-in facial recognition software.

Now, for the usual goodies, the Satellite P305 sports an HD 17-inch diagonal widescreen Tru-Brite display, LED-luminated “feather-touch” command keys, Harman Kardon stereo speakers, 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 3GB RAM and a 320GB hard drive. While the Satellite P305D also has the same LCD, command keys, speakers but comes with a 2.1 GHz AMD TurionTM 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology processor, 2GB RAM and a 250GB hard drive. The P305 and P305D are currently available and retail for $999 and $1,049 respectively.

Read [Toshiba Direct]