Toshiba brings new Portégés, Tecras to US

Toshiba today quickly followed up its Canada-first notebook launches with their American equivalents. The Portégé lineup gets three updates that include the R600, its ultra-lightweight 12-inch portable that weighs 2.4 pounds while still carrying a 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo, an internal DVD burner and up to a 128GB solid-state drive for storage; the upgrade further boasts a better LED-backlit, transflective display suitable for use outside. Prices start at $2,099.

Shifting to the Portégé M750 brings a full-power, 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo to the company's familiar convertible tablet design. It too carries a 12-inch LED-backlit display and a built-in DVD burner. Prices start at a slighly higher $1,699 versus the $1,599 outgoing model but start off with a faster 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard disk.

The Portégé A600 stands as Toshiba's ultraportable for the average user and costs $1,399 while still weighing a comparatively light 3.2 pounds. Even so, it keeps a 12-inch LED-lit screen and the 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo of the R600 while saving costs through the use of a regular 160GB notebook hard drive. The lone configuration comes with 3GB of memory.

In the Tecra range, the 14-inch R10 is considered thin-and-light by Toshiba standards, measuring 1.13 inches thick while weighing 4.4 pounds. It's also considered one of the fastest with a small-profile 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, 3GB of memory, a 7200RPM 160GB hard drive and Quadro NVS 150M video eliminating some of the bottlenecks of notebooks in its class. It sells for $1,549.

The 14-inch Tecra M10 and 15.4-inch A10 are Toshiba's most straightforward updates and get the same 2.26GHz processor and Quadro graphics as the R10, but reduce their prices to $1,299 (M10) and $1,499 (A10) by using regular-sized processors and thicker cases. Each can also be custom-ordered for less online by reducing the memory and storage to as little as 1GB and 120GB respectively.

Filed under: computers
Other story tags: Intel, Core 2, Toshiba, Centrino 2, Portege, Tecra