Toshiba has announced seven new notebooks that run the gamut from large widescreen consumer notebooks to lightweight wireless models for business travelers, the company said in a release.
The overall PC market appears to be regaining some of its late-1990s muscle, driven primarily by consumers falling in love with bulky notebooks that offer desktop multimedia performance in a "luggable" package. Both IDC and Gartner credited the strong growth of consumer notebooks for the healthy third-quarter PC shipment numbers, but corporations are also looking to notebooks as they replace desktops purchased during the Y2K upgrade cycle.
Size Matters
Widescreen notebooks are becoming increasingly popular with consumers and are featured on five of Toshiba's new notebooks. The P25-S509 comes with a 17-inch widescreen display, a form factor that has done well without a lot of promotion from notebook vendors, said Matt Sargent, an analyst with ARS in La Jolla, California.
The 17-inch displays should be popular heading into the fourth-quarter holiday buying season, Sargent said. Apple Computer was the first vendor to release a 17-inch notebook, he said, although Toshiba's version is less expensive.
Hewlett-Packard just released a 17-inch widescreen notebook, but Sony and Dell have been conspicuous with their lack of a 17-inch model, Sargent said. Notebook buyers should expect to see 17-inch models from those vendors before long, he said.
Despite the interest in widescreen notebooks, prices are still high enough to dissuade some customers, said Stephen Baker, director of industry analysis for NPD Techworld in Reston, Virginia. As prices come down, sales of those notebooks should increase even more dramatically, he said.
Professional Performance
The Satellite P25-S509 and Satellite P15-S409 are designed for performance, with desktop Pentium 4 processors from Intel and graphics cards from Nvidia. The P25 has a 17-inch widescreen display, and the P15 comes with a 15.4-inch widescreen display.
For $2,199, the P25 comes with a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 processor with hyperthreading, 512MB of DDR SDRAM, an 80GB hard drive, a DVD-RW/CD-RW optical drive, and an integrated 802.11g wireless chip. The P15 features the same processor, memory configuration, wireless chip, and optical drive, but comes with a 60GB hard drive and a different GeForce graphics card, for $1899.
Another widescreen model, the P10-S429, comes with a 2.66GHz Pentium 4 desktop processor, 512M bytes of DDR SDRAM, a 60G-byte hard drive, a 15.4-inch widescreen display, a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, and a 802.11g wireless chip for $1599.
Big on a Budget
Toshiba also addressed the low end of the market with the A35-S159 at $1399 and the A10-S169 at $1199. Most notebooks sold fall into this price range, but the segment is not very profitable for vendors, Sargent said.
Toshiba's A35-S159 comes with a 2.3GHz Mobile Intel Pentium 4 processor, 512MB of DDR SDRAM, a 60GB hard drive, a 15-inch display, a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, and integrated 802.11g wireless connectivity. The Satellite A10-S169 comes with a 2.2GHz Mobile Intel Pentium 4 Processor-M, 256MB of DDR SDRAM, a 40GB hard drive, a 15-inch display, and a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive.
The P25, P15, and A35 models are available at retail or through Toshiba's Web site. The P10 and A10 are designed for business customers and are available through resellers, Toshiba's sales force, or the Web site.
Weight Problem?
The new Satellite M30/M35 series notebooks are the lightest Satellite models Toshiba has built, the company said. But at just over 6 pounds, true road warriors will probably look at Toshiba's Portege ultraportable line instead. These widescreen notebooks come with Intel's Centrino technology, and Microsoft's OneNote digital notetaking software.
OneNote allows notebook users to read handwritten notes sent by colleagues with Tablet PCs, or handwrite their own notes with the purchase of a writing pad, said Sam Bhavnani, an ARS analyst. The software will be included with every future Toshiba notebook and Tablet PC released after Tuesday, Toshiba said.
The Satellite M35-S359 comes with a 1.4GHz Pentium M processor, 512MB of DDR SDRAM, a 60GB hard drive, a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, a 15.4-inch widescreen display, and Intel's 802.11b wireless chip for $1799. The M30-S309 comes with a 1.4GHz Pentium M, 256MB of DDR SDRAM, a 40GB hard drive, a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, a 15.4-inch widescreen display, and Intel's 802.11b chip for $1699.
The M35 will be available through retail channels, while the M30 is available through resellers or Toshiba's sales force. Both notebooks are also available on Toshiba's Web site.
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