Toshiba revamps Satellite Pro notebooks for 2008

Toshiba this morning gave the same attention to its Satellite Pro notebooks that it did for its new Satellites. Hoping to jumpstart interest in students and pro users, the company has launched five new models with both a redesigned look and new internals. The L300 and L300D serve as Toshiba's baseline with either Intel Core 2 Duo (L300) or AMD Turion 64 X2 (L300D) dual-core processors and a 15.4-inch screen while offering just the essentials; systems start at $699 for an L300D with a 1.9GHz AMD chip as well as 1GB of memory and a 120GB hard drive, scaling up to a 2GHz Core 2 Duo and a 160GB disk in the $799 L300.

Two small portables help start the new line. The 13.3-inch U400 and 14-inch M300 are both designed for more serious users that want both extra features as well as smaller size, and start with a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo and a 1.3-megapixel webcam; the larger M300 is Toshiba's starter at $999 with 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive, while the smaller but denser screen of the U400 boosts its price to $1,049 without changing the specifications.

One desktop replacement model, the L350, is skewed towards a more upscale audience than its normal Satellite equivalent with the same 17-inch display and extended keyboard but an emphasis on higher CPU performance: it jumps to the same 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo as most of the other Satellite Pros launched today and comes with 2GB of memory along with the 160GB hard drive common to most of the new systems. It sells for $1,099 and should be available immediately along with the other high-end systems.

L300 and L300D

U400

L350