The original Toshiba Thrive 10-inch tablet impressed us with its support for full-size ports and the fact that we could remove its battery and swap in a new one. Features that are still unmatched in mainstream tablets.
The 7-inch version is here now, but with its smaller form factor can it possibly offer the same experience? Probably not, but you should check out the full review anyway.… Read more
How low can ultrabooks go? How about $699.
Let there be no doubt that Toshiba is setting the pace for ultrabook pricing so far. After debuting at $799 last month, the Portege Z835 is now down to $699 at Best Buy.
"They have a $200 instant rebate this week that brings it down to $699. I think it's surprising. It could be to spur sales. It could be to get people's attention. But it's a smart move and by far the most affordable ultrabook option right now," said Deron Kershaw, an analyst at Gap Intelligence. (Note that the $799 price only lasted for about a week when Toshiba introduced the Z835 in November. For the most part, it's been priced at $899--thus the $200 discount.)
The only major rivals even close right now are Acer's Aspire S3, which is priced just under $900 at Best Buy, and Hewlett-Packard's Folio 13, priced at $899.99.
Ultrabooks, for the uninitiated, are ultralight Windows laptops that compete with the increasingly popular, and more expensive, MacBook Air. … Read more
Tablet buyers looking for a compact 7-inch model now have yet another choice.
Toshiba is now selling the 7-inch version of its Thrive tablet at a price of $379 for the 16 GB model and $429 for the 32 GB model.
First announced in September, the 7-inch edition is the new baby brother to the 10-inch Thrive, which debuted this past July. The specs for the 16 GB and 32 GB models are virtually the same.
Arriving in the nick of time for the holidays, the Thrive 7 offers a 7-inch high-resolution 1280x800-pixel widescreen display. Powered by a 1 gigahertz … Read more
Toshiba's new Excite tablet will just miss the holiday season, reaching consumers sometime in January.
The Excite's product page on Toshiba Canada's Web site is promoting the new tablet as a holiday gift even though it won't arrive until sometime next month.
As the follow-up to Toshiba's 7-inch and 10-inch Thrive tablets, the Excite will offer a 10.1-inch 1280x800 LCD display with LED backlighting. Powered by a Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 1.2 gigahertz processor, the Excite will be equipped with Android 3.2 Honeycomb.
A 2-megapixel Webcam will face front, while a 5-megapixel … Read more
Intel is not providing a $100 subsidy on ultrabooks, the company said today, contradicting an Asia-based report.
In that report, Taipei-based Digitimes asserted that Intel is offering a $100 subsidy for ultrabooks, which, in turn, will allow manufacturers to drop prices aggressively on the ultraslim laptops.
"There is no $100 subsidy for ultrabooks," Bill Calder, an Intel spokesman, told CNET. "The report from Digitimes was false," he said.
Intel does offer various marketing incentives as a normal course of business. An example of an Intel co-marketing campaign includes Intel Inside, where Intel provides some advertising dollars … Read more
The latest report on ultrabooks from Asia is the typical mix of odd assertions, gossip, and a smattering of speculation that could be categorized as news.
Tuesday's Digitimes report says, "Acer, Asustek Computer and Toshiba are expected to lower retail prices for ultrabooks to below US$1,000 by the end of 2011."
Let's see, we're well before the end of 2011 and already we have three ultrabooks priced under $1,000. The HP Folio 13 starts at $899, ditto for the Toshiba Portege Z835 (Model: Z835-P330--which was priced briefly at $799), and the Acer Aspire S3 (… Read more
Best Buy, Amazon, Verizon, and Dell launched Cyber Monday deals featuring discounted laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
Best Buy is calling its sale "Cyber Week" and puts Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard, and Toshiba laptops at the top of the list on its launch page. All three come with Windows 7 Home Premium.
Best Buy laptops listed on Cyber Week page:
Lenovo, $299.99: Model: 1450ABU. 15.6-inch LED-backlit display, AMD dual-core E-450 accelerated processor, 4GB memory, 320GB hard disk drive, and optical drive. HP Pavilion, $349.99: Model: g4-1229dx. 14-inch LED-backlit display, Intel dual-core "Sandy Bridge" Pentium B950 processor, 4GB memory, 500GB hard drive, and optical drive. Toshiba - Satellite Laptop, $379.99: Model: C655-S5305. 15.6" LED-backlit display, Intel Sandy Bridge Core i3-2330M processor (2.2GHz), 4GB memory, 320GB hard drive, and optical drive.Having reviewed the first four ultrabook laptops to hit stores, and spent some hands-on time with a just-announced HP version, it's clear Apple's dominance of the superthin laptop category faces a serious challenge.
Acer, Asus, Toshiba, and Lenovo all have impressive systems, all under 18 millimeters thick, and all with second-generation Intel Core i-series processors and solid-state drives (SSDs). The key is that these 13-inch laptops start at $799, while the 13-inch MacBook Air starts at $1,299.
That said, stack all of these systems together on a table and we'll still pick the Air for general everyday use, as long as price is no object. To date, no one has matched the multitouch trackpad experience of the MacBook, along with its excellent keyboard, and simple sleep/hibernate quick-start states.
But, if you're looking for the best value based on system specs, the field is suddenly wide open.… Read more
With Apple likely forgoing optical drives across all or most of its MacBooks, and ultrabooks doing the same, it's no surprise that the venerable whirring drive will spin away, albeit gradually, into obscurity.
Next to go driveless at Apple is the 15-inch MacBook Air. 9to5Mac says Apple almost brought out a 15-inch Air in late 2010 (but didn't because of a problem with the hinges). Apple now has plans to make this happen next year when Intel's graphics-centric Ivy Bridge processor ships.
Ultrabooks will do their part to hurry the otherwise slow demise of the optical drive. … Read more
At an Intel Capital conference this week an Intel executive spelled out how and why the market will transition to ultrabooks over the next few years. In a word, ultrabooks need to be "cool."
Intel is driving the PC industry to ultrabooks with a $300 million ultrabook fund--principally for hardware development--and a second fund announced this week, the $100 million AppUpSM Fund, targeted at applications for future ultrabooks.
Erik Reid, the general manager of the Mobile Platforms Division at Intel's PC Client Group, detailed Intel's thinking in a session at the Intel conference this week in Huntington Beach, Calif.
The coolness factor: "Users want something that's cool," said Reid. Intel research shows that when people see an ultrabook they think that "it must be better engineered because it's thin. It's harder to make a thin device than a thick device. It's more forward-looking." … Read more
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