BenQ unveils R43 designer notebook

BenQ drew attention to its notebooks on Monday with the Joybook R43. The company's 14-inch portable is tailored to get attention with a unique, laminar film band on the lid of the all-black system that includes a pattern meant to recall a city skyline at night. In the dark, points of light on the back and blue status lights reinforce the effect, BenQ says. Travelers conscious about their data also have access to a unique QData Trove feature that automatically creates a disk image of the system through a keyboard shorcut, allowing them to copy a single file to an external drive to keep it safe.

The system starts with a 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo, a minimum 512MB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, and a DVD/CD-RW combo drive. Though prices are not specified, more advanced versions can include as much as 2GB of memory as well as a 160GB hard drive and a DVD burner. Certain models also have Bluetooth, BenQ says. The R43 ships first in China next month but will be available in other areas in the next few months.