Toshiba Portege R500: Solid State Drive

Toshiba Portege R500 Well, Toshiba has done what they said they would do – drop the weight of the Toshiba Portege R500 down to under two pounds (they are claiming 1.72 pounds / 0.78 kg) with the addition of a Solid State Drive (SSD) to their lineup. This definitely becomes one of the ultraportable 12.1″ widescreen laptops (if not the most ultraportable).

Unlike most Solid State Drives which are 16GB and 32GB, this one is 64GB.

Keep in mind that the weight of 1.72 pounds / 0.78kg is for LED-backlit R500 (R500-S5003) with the 3-cell battery, 64GB SSD, and no optical drive (with the optical drive, it probably hits close to two pounds).

Two new models have been added to their lineup. They use the same Ultra Low Voltage Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 CPU to keep things fanless (and with the SSD installed and the optical drive removed, that means no moving parts for a silent laptop with some extra battery life). It will be very interesting to see the battery life.

R500-S5003 :
– $2,699.00
– Windows XP Pro
– 1GB Memory
– 64GB Solid State Drive (SSD)
– No optical drive

R500-S5004 :
– $2,999.00
– Windows Vista Business
– 2GB Memory
– 64GB SSD
– Dual-Layer DVD Writer

It appears they are shipping within 1-2 weeks from Toshiba Direct