On Tuesday, Toshiba introduced three new "ultrathin" laptop models: the 14 inch Satellite E45t, the 15.6 inch Satellite E55t and the 15.6 inch Satellite E55Dt. The 14 inch model will be available on August 4, 2013, exclusively at Best Buy stores, BestBuy.com and Toshiba Direct, whereas the 15.6 inch models will be offered in September at major retailers and e-tailers nationwide and direct from Toshiba.
While the specs weren't provided, Toshiba said that all three models will sport a sleek, durable brushed aluminum casing with Toshiba's modern Skyline design. They'll also be less than an inch thin and feature reinforced LED backlit keyboards. All three will even support 10-finger touch support, making them ideal for Windows 8 navigation.
According to the company, customers will have a choice of CPU options including AMD's A6 APU and Intel's fourth-generation Haswell processors. Laptops built with the latter chips will also include Dragon Assistant voice control technology, Intel Smart Response technology and Intel Wireless Display.
"Dragon Assistant on Ultrabook models leverages the power of speech recognition technology, giving users the freedom and flexibility to control applications using their voice," the company said. "Simply speaking, 'Hello Dragon', launches the assistant and allows people to search the Web, find content on their laptop, play music and movies, check and reply to email, update Facebook and Twitter, make Skype calls and even shut down, restart or put the laptop to sleep."
The upcoming ultrathin laptops will also include HDMI output, Ethernet and Wireless N or AC network connectivity (depending on the model), an SD card slot, two USB 3.0 ports (one with USB Sleep & Charge), one USB 2.0 port, and stereo speakers with DTS Studio sound. Battery life ranges from 7 hours and up, depending on the model and processor. Storage capacities will range between 500 GB and 750 GB.
"Thin is in. Our expanding line of ultrathins is designed to be more accessible to consumer looking for a thinner, more stylish PC that delivers the same class of performance and features as a traditional laptop—at a price point that is competitive with a traditional laptop," said Carl Pinto, vice president of marketing, Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Digital Products Division.
The only difference Toshiba pointed out between the 14 inch model and the two 15.6 inch models is that the latter group has a built-in 10-key numeric pad. All three have "HD" screens, although Toshiba didn't specify actual resolutions.
However, Best Buy is currently listing the Toshiba Satellite E45t-A4200 laptop for $699.99 USD (opens in new tab). The specs reveal that this particular model has an Intel Core i5-4200U "Haswell" processor (3 MB of cache), 6 GB of DDR3 memory (expandable to 16 GB), a 500 GB 5400 RPM HDD, Mobile Intel HD graphics, Intel Centrino Wireless-N 7260 LAN and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, 10/100 Ethernet, a screen resolution of 1366 x 768 and a built-in webcam. There's no optical drive, and it comes with Windows 8 64-bit.
Pricing for the 15.6 inch Satellite E55t and E55Dt models will be announced closer to availability, the company said.