Toshiba Ships First Laptop With a 512 GB SSD

When it comes to portable computing, nothing beats a slim and light notebook with long battery life. When it comes to storage solutions, nothing beats a solid state drive. Put those two together and we have the new Toshiba Portégé R600-ST4203.

At CES Asus showed off the world’s first laptop with a 512 GB SSD – but that was just a showing. Toshiba’s beaten the rest of the industry to the punch by actually shipping it.

The Toshiba Portégé R600-ST4203 packs all the usual laptop bits with C2D SU9400, 3 GB RAM, etc., but what we’re really interested in is that 512 GB SSD that it packs inside. The 12.1-inch form, 16:10 display, 2.46 lbs weight, and 7.53 hour battery ratings don’t hurt either. (Curiously, the Japanese counterpart to this laptop lists a 12 hour battery life.)

It’s not cheap at $3,000, but hopefully SSD prices will fall and we’ll see more competition in this space to pave the way for affordability.

[We actually had the chance to play with another Portégé R600 but without the SSD. In all honesty, we think it's really flimsy. The screen feels like it's going to break in half at any moment and the body parts don't close together in a very flush manner. Even the screen's joints are poorly done. Overall, the build quality is so bad that even a notebook half this unit's cost can do far better.

SSD or no SSD, the R600 is not worth $3000 even by a stretch. -Tuan]

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • eklipz330
    whoa this is less news and more about what you think, aka blog.

    of course new ssd technology is gonna be expensive, new anything is expensive until priices come down
    Reply
  • tayb
    eklipz330whoa this is less news and more about what you think, aka blog.of course new ssd technology is gonna be expensive, new anything is expensive until priices come down
    I think the "news" part might have been the fact that Toshiba has shipped a laptop with a 512GB Solid State Drive.

    I might be mistaken though.
    Reply
  • stlunatic
    Unbiased news!

    *cough, cough*
    Reply
  • rooseveltdon
    lol and thus it begins,the journey away from HDD and into SSD,destiny shall no more be limited by two,four or even six cores and even the most enthusiastic of fans will soon trade wonder for reason.....and then windows will crash.....again....
    Reply
  • tipoo
    3000 is alot to spend on a laptop (IMHO), but with a 512GB SSD that sounds very reasonable.
    Reply
  • doomtomb
    eklipz330whoa this is less news and more about what you think, aka blog.of course new ssd technology is gonna be expensive, new anything is expensive until priices come downTom's Hardware writers often write like this is a blog instead of treating it like the news. I don't think I'd ever spend 3 grand on a laptop but considering it is the first with a 512GB SSD, I'm not too shocked. Just wait for the prices to come down.
    Reply
  • lire210
    why do the japs get better stuff then us yankees ooooooooo i can say that i am a redsox fan i am not a yankee.....or it could be the japs goverment don't care if toshiba lies hahhaha.
    Reply
  • lire210
    o yeah i am not trying to use japs as a slur I love japanese people but it is longer to say japanese then japs.
    p.s. why are all japanese not fat woman hot? don't know but boy do i care woot.
    Reply