Toshiba Announces New Portégé and Tecra Notebooks

Toshiba has announced three new ultra-portable Portégé notebooks and a new powerful Tecra notebook. Highlights of the new notebooks include a transreflective LCD screen on the Portégé R600, an affordable price on the Portégé A600, tablet functionality on the Portégé M750 and workstation performance on the Tecra R10.

All of the new Portégé notebooks feature a 12.1-inch WXGA LED back-lit display, but the Portégé R600’s LCD stands out as it uses a transreflective LCD screen. Unlike traditional notebook displays, transreflective LCD screens do not get washed out when used in bright outdoor conditions and they can even be used with the LCD backlight turned off. The Portégé R600 also features an Intel Core 2 Duo ultra-low voltage processor, a 6-cell battery for up to 9-hours of battery life and an ultra-light weight of only 2.4-pounds. The notebook comes configured with up to 2 GB of memory that is upgradeable to 5 GB, an Intel GMA X4500 graphics processor, an optional 128 GB SSD, a webcam, bluetooth, 802.11n and a DVD drive.

The new Portégé A600 may not have a transreflective display like the Portégé R600, but it is more affordable and it has essentially the same system specifications. The Portégé A600 weighs in at a slightly heavier 3-pounds and comes in only one configuration. It features an Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300 ULV processor, 2 GB of RAM and a 160 GB 5400 RPM HDD. The Portégé A600 also comes with a webcam, bluetooth, 802.11n and a 6-cell battery that provides enough battery life for up to 9 hours.

Next we have the Portégé M750 tablet PC, which features a heftier Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 processor, 2 GB of RAM that is upgradeable to 8 GB, an Intel X4500 graphics processor and a 200 GB 7200 RPM HDD. The system weighs 4.4-pounds with the DVD drive installed and the 12.1-inch indoor/outdoor display has both touch and pen inputs. The Portégé M750 also comes with a webcam, bluetooth, 802.11n and a 6-cell battery that provides enough battery life for up to 4.3 hours.

Lastly we have the Tecra R10 notebook, which is advertised as an affordable desktop replacement. The system features the powerful Intel Core 2 Duo SP9400 low voltage processor, a 14.1-inch WXGA LCD display and a Nvidia Quadro NVS 150M graphics solution with 128 MB of dedicated graphics memory. The system also comes with 8 GB of RAM that is upgradeable to 8 GB, a 200 GB 7200 RPM HDD, a DVD drive, a webcam, bluetooth and 802.11n. The Tecra R10 weighs 4.3-pounds and with its 6-cell battery it has a battery life of 4-hours.

The new Toshiba notebooks are currently available from the Canadian Toshiba website, with no dates yet announced for a U.S. release — it should only be a matter of time though. The Portégé R600 is currently priced starting at $2,399 (CAD) for a configuration without an SSD and the Portégé A600 is priced at $1,499 (CAD). Also, the Portégé M750 tablet PC is priced at $2,199 (CAD) and the Tecra R10 is priced at $1,999 (CAD).