Toshiba and SSDs: Demand, Capacity Will Rise, Costs Will Drop
April 25, 2008
Putting aside some of the comments made by Seagate’s CEO earlier this year, Toshiba happens to see a huge market potential for flash-based Solid State Drives (SSDs).
The President of Toshiba Semiconductor, Shozo Saito, recently said that he believes that by 2011, at least 25% of all notebooks will have SSDs, and that he expects the market to grow an average of 133% over the next several years.
He mentioned that costs should come down while capacities go up, and that Toshiba is working on some of the issues regarding SSDs, namely concerns about rewriting data:
“If data is efficiently concentrated and stored in caches in an effort to reduce the frequency of rewrites, rewrites on SSDs can be reduced to a number far below 10,000 times in five years, even for heavy PC users.”
SSDs, because of their light weight, durability, and lowered battery costs, are turning out to be important to ultraportable laptops, and are being used in high-end laptops, from the MacBook Air and ThinkPad X300 down to the $400 Asus Eee PC.
Article: DailyTech
Lenovo ThinkPad X61 Tablet and Solid State Drives
April 23, 2008
Not sure how long Lenovo has been offering this, but in addition to offering flash memory-based Solid State Drives (SSDs) on their 13.3-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X300s, they are also offering 64GB SSDs for their 12.1-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X61 Tablets (non-widescreen), as well as some ThinkPad T61s.
These are not being offered on their non-Tablet ThinkPad X61.
The advantages they list:
- Faster boot times
- Faster application load times
- Lower power usage
- Less heat production
- Greater durability
- Quiet operation
Cost of those advantages: $1030 (USD) on top of the base price.
Read: Lenovo and Soild State Drives (US)
Toshiba Satellite Pro Line-Up Announced
April 22, 2008
A couple of people emailed us that Toshiba has apparently announced their full Satellite Pro line-up. The Toshiba Satellite U400 / U405 have already been released, with U405 models available at Amazon and Best Buy.
Just over a week ago, a new model, the U400-S1001X showed up at Amazon with the following specifications:
- Windows XP Pro
- 1GB Memory
- 160GB Hard Drive
- Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 (2.1GHz)
Several weeks prior to this announcement, two Toshiba Satellite U405 models were made available in the US - U405-S2820 and U405-S2830. This has more to do with the announcement of the Satellite Pro line-up, including the 14″ and above laptops.
Note: This covers Satellite Pro - as far as the U400 and U405, they seem to be lumped together.
Read: Toshiba Satellite Pro
Toshiba Satellite U405 Review (NotebookReview)
April 21, 2008
Following the LAPTOP Magazine review of the Toshiba Satellite U405, NotebookReview.com has published Jerry Jackson’s review of Toshiba’s latest 13.3″ consumer laptop.
Jerry reviewed the U405-S2830, which is loaded with an Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 (2.1GHz), 3GB of memory, and a 250GB hard drive (this particular model can be found at Amazon for $1099.99 - the S2820 while quite a bit cheaper, has less memory and a slower hard drive).
The U400/U405 was quite a bit of an upgrade over the U300/U305 series (not just CPUs either, but the design as well), and has received a glowing review from Jerry, including an “Editor’s Choice” award for April of 2008:
The Satellite U405 is quite possibly the best 13-inch consumer budget notebook we’ve seen to date. Sure, the current configuration doesn’t offer dedicated graphics for playing the latest 3D games, but the U405 is the most balanced overall package we’ve seen in quite a while.
Review: NotebookReview.com
Toshiba U405-S2830 Review (LAPTOP Mag)
April 18, 2008
LAPTOP Magazine has publised one of the first reviews of the latest 13.3-inch model in Toshiba’s Satellite line, the Toshiba Satellite U405.
The model reviewed is the U405-S2830, which has 3GB of memory versus 2GB and an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz T8100 CPU versus the 1.83GHz T5550 of the U405-S2820. The price is around $200 (USD) more as a result (the model reviewed here was $1149).
They discuss the redesign of the U405 (versus the Toshiba Satellite U305 it’s replacing) as well as some of the upgraded features (LED lighting for some of the keys, etc. and give it a rating of 3.5 out of 5.
Review: LAPTOP Magazine
Toshiba Dynabook CX Announced
April 17, 2008
Today, Toshiba announced it’s latest 13.3-inch ultraportable, the Toshiba Dynabook CX . It could be a replacement for the Toshiba Dynabook SS M40 and a professional counterpart to the Toshiba U405.
It’s powered by either an Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 (2.1GHz) or an Intel Celeron 550, has 2GB of memory (up to 4GB on some models), and has an LED-backlit display on the high-end model. It has a 160GB SATA drive (SSDs will probably be optional later on).
Even with the internal dual-layer DVD writer, it’s around 1-inch (25.4mm) thick with the LED backlit-display, and weighs in at just over 4 lbs (1.9kg)
It looks to be available later in April in Japan, with prices starting around 1230 Euros (about $1951 USD). What the model will be called elsewhere in the world is unknown at this time.
Source: Akihabara News
Press Release: Toshiba.co.jp (Japanese)
