It seems that a certain proportion of the laptop-buying public won’t rest until they have the lightest notebook on the market, and it is with some delight, no doubt, that our pals over at infopockets.com have discovered the 1.72 pound Toshiba Portege R500-S5007V.
First things first – and we know it’s the question everyone will be asking, and the
answer is an unequivocal yes! “Apple’s MacBook air clocks in at 3 pounds and Lenovo’s Thinkpad X300 is still 1.21 pounds heavier than the Portege at 2.93 pounds”. So there you have it – and we’re saying nothing.
Of course, such demure laptoppery (I’m inventing words here) comes at a price,
and “if consumers opt for the “world’s thinnest widescreen,” at.77 inches, the notebook comes with an integrated DVD-SuperMulti drive. However, if you want the ‘world’s lightest widescreen’ you will have to live without the optical disk drive.”
The Toshiba Portégé R500 has been shouldering its way firmly into the blogosphere over the last few weeks, with a whole heap of reviews and opinion generated about the slimline notebook. As reported on Talk Toshiba itself, the 12.1” screen, and the 7-8 hours battery life have received particular plaudits from a number of bloggers – with forum posters speculating on exactly how the Portégé shapes up against the Macbook Air (rather well as it turns out).
Therefore, being a blog of the people – we’ve been chatting to Toshiba, and can proudly announce that we will soon be in the position to offer some sparkling Portégé R500 laptops for you to trial. Whether you’re having computer problems yourself and need a stand-in device, or are puzzling over whether to buy an R500 or one of its rivals – do give us a call.
All we need is for you to post your feelings about the device, be it good or bad, within Social Media space – so if you’re interested, just email us details of where you are active online (blogs, forums, twitter, pownce, facebook, YouTube – whatever) and we’ll let you know if we can help. It would be great to hear your opinion!
Also, just to whet your appetite, take a look at this trailer for the notebook itself…
Over in the Digital Spy forum, there is praise for the Portégé R500. alanwarwic came up with the ‘walks on Air’ epithet, another in the long list of fans who reckon that Toshiba’s latest beats the new super-thin offering from Apple.
FlatulentBadger (surely the best forum name ever?) looks at a list of the specs for the R500 and says ‘Now that is what the Macbook Air SHOULD have been’. He reckons that Apple have slipped up by not including features that Toshiba packed into the R500 such as the 12.1” screen, and the 7-8 hours battery life on one charge.
vinba has the last word, though, mentioning that the several he has in his office work extremely well, ‘nice machines, very light’. The big plus point for him is the ability to carry the laptops around easily; ‘in terms of portability and design, first class’. That is why he is a Toshiba customer and will continue to provide his staff with Portégés, not Airs.
Over at Register Hardware, Tony Smith has had the Portégé out of the box for a test run, and it’s safe to say he’s suitably impressed. Straight off the bat he lays into the closest competitor, Apple’s MacBook Air (no optical drive? Why?), saying that the ‘featherlight’ Toshiba beats it hands down.
He admits that the construction isn’t as sturdy as it could be, for example, the screen only being hinged at either corner. As he points out, though, this gives the laptop ‘the ability to absorb knocks and bumps’.He says the portability of the machine more than makes up for the lightweight construction, though. After all, the main selling point of this device is its weight and any sturdiness that exists in other machines naturally adds to the strain on your shoulder as you lug it round. Toshiba have produced in the Portégé a laptop that ‘you can carry in your hand all day’.
Tony’s in-depth four page review goes into great detail about every aspect of the machine and is well worth a read if you’re caught in two minds about buying a lightweight laptop. Just remember that the Portégé does include a built in, ready to go optical drive and performs exceptionally well. So well, in fact, that Tony says the portability and ‘decent computing experience’ make the Portégé ‘a winner’.
Sur groups.googleBobbyFconstate qu’un lecteur de disque logique supplémentaire apparaît sur son portable Toshiba Lecteur CD (F:) . Or il n’est associé à aucun lecteur
physique, puisque ce dernier apparaît déjà sous
la lettre E : Lecteur DVD RW
(E:). Comment peut-il supprimer ce lecteur pour pouvoir reattribuer la lettre
d’unité F ? Il n’arrive qu’à la cacher pour l’instant avec Vista Manager.
Sur forum.ubuntu-frClaude37 a installé la version 7.10 sur son portable Toshiba et l’éclairage de l’écran reste résolument sombre. Il n’avait pas ce problème avec la version précédente de Ubuntu.
Il n’a pas trouvé de menu permettant de régler cet éclairage.
Il a bien un bouton du clavier permettant de le gérer mais il reste inopérant.Une astuce pour Claude37 ?
Le groupe diversifié japonais Toshiba a annoncé lundi la construction d’une importante extension de son centre d’ingénierie pour la conception de centrales nucléaires en banlieue de Tokyo, une installation qui devrait à terme employer plus de 3.000 personnes.
“Nous voulons ainsi répondre à des besoins croissants nés de la réactivation des programmes nucléaires qui entraîne la construction de nouvelles centrales et une augmentation de la demande de services de maintenance”, a justifié le groupe dans un communiqué.
Les nouvelles installations seront notamment équipées de systèmes de conception assistée par ordinateur en trois dimensions (CAD), d’outils de simulation de pointe et de supercalculateurs, le tout étant relié par un réseau interne à très haut-débit archi-sécurisé, a précisé le groupe.
Toshiba, qui, outre les produits électroniques et semi-conducteurs, fabrique divers gros systèmes industriels, a acheté l’an passé le groupe de conception de réacteurs nucléaires américain Westinghouse.
Le groupe d’énergie et d’électronique japonais Toshiba a annoncé lundi l’achat de l’activité nucléaire d’une société sud-africaine, IST, afin de profiter de l’augmentation de la demande locale et d’acquérir son savoir-faire technologique.En achetant une entreprise locale, Toshiba et Westinghouse entendent faire campagne en Afrique du Sud pour y placer leurs réacteurs à eau pressurisée AP1000, et ne pas rester à l’écart du marché potentiel des modèles modulaires.
If you are an established forum member or blogger and want to get your hands
on a Toshiba notebook to test drive, contact us and we'll see what we can do to
help.
talk Toshiba is sponsored by Toshiba. Comments and opinions expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of Toshiba.