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Toshiba America Information Systems has uncovered its thinnest notebook yet: the Portege 2000, which weighs less than 3 pounds and has built-in support for wireless networking.

The Portege 2000 weighs in at 2.6 pounds and measures between 0.75 inches at its thickest and just 0.6 inches at its thinnest, said Masa Okumura, Toshiba's director of product marketing and worldwide planning. The Portege 2000 will be available worldwide from early February, priced at $2199.

Toshiba has a very specific target audience in mind with the notebook: "Executives and senior management who are out of the office about 70 percent of the time," Okumura said.

The Protege 2000 features Intel's ultra-low-voltage Pentium III Processor-M running at 750 MHz, a 12.1-inch TFT display, 256MB of RAM, and a built-in Ethernet port and modem. The notebook has built-in 802.11b wireless networking technology, with the antenna built into the unit just above the keyboard, Okumura said. The notebook also has two USB ports, a port for an external monitor, and infrared capabilities, he said.

Thinking Thin

Toshiba used new technologies in its notebook to get both the thickness and weight down to new levels, including its recently announced 20GB 1.8-inch hard drive and a lithium polymer battery, Okumura said. The hard drive, which Toshiba announced last week, is smaller than the hard drive used in most portable music players.

Toshiba also went with the lithium polymer battery to keep with the thin and light theme, Okumura said.

"While other [battery] cells are usually cylindrical, you can make these very flat and thin," he said. The standard battery offers about 2 hours of life on the normal battery setting, while the additional high-capacity battery holds a charge for an additional 4.5 hours of use, he said.

Toshiba also added a Secure Digital Media slot to the Portege 2000 for multimedia capabilities. A 256MB SD card, which can also be used with some personal digital assistants and portable MP3 music players, can hold up to 4 hours of music or 80 minutes of video, Toshiba said.

However, Okumura admits that the design is not for everyone, because components such as a DVD drive and CD player must be external, connected through the USB or PC card slots. "If users are planning on high DVD use, we would recommend the Protege 4000," he said. The Portege 4000 features a built-in DVD drive.

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