Portege R500: World’s Skinniest/Lightest Notebook June 28, 2007

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As soon as I hear of a product with ‘world’s whatever’ attached, especially when it comes to skinny notebooks, I sigh inwardly and ask: ‘What have they left out this time?’

Happily, with the new Toshiba Portege R500, not a lot. Weighing in at an anorexic 1Kg, the R500 sports the first 7mm optical disk drive, a 120GB hard disk drive (HDD), a 12.1in widescreen trans-reflective LED display, which means it’s easier to read outdoors and lighter on the juice. The notebook is just 0.77in thin.

In terms of what else you get, it’s not that bad for a supermodel: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 1.2GHz and 1GB of Dram. Toshiba is even promising to lighten the R500’s load considerably later this year when it swaps out the HDD for a 64GB solid state disk drive which will bring it in at just 779g.

Based on configuration it will also have a claimed battery life of between 7 and 12.5 hours, which is good whatever way you look at it. The HDD version will cost £1100, ex VAT, from July. -Martin Lynch

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