Toshiba announced its ultra portable laptop today.  Called the Portege R500-S5007V, the laptop weighs just 2.4lbs (the Macbook Air weighs 3lbs and the Lenevo Thinkpad X300 2.94lbs) and measures a mere 0.77-inch at its thinnest point.  To achieve optimal battery performance and weight they’ve added a 128GB solid state hard drive and a 12.1-inch LED powered screen that can shutdown its backlighting ‘by reflecting the sun’s ray to illuminate the screen’.

Expect the new light weight Portege to cost $3,000 and include an Intel Core 2 Duo U7700 processor at 1.33GHz with 2Mb of cache, and 2GB of RAM.  Unlike the Macbook Air it will include a read and rewrite CD/DVD drive and the other standard features you’d expect from a laptop of tomorrow.

The Portege R500-S5007V is expected to ship the 3rd quarter of 2008 with geographical availability unknown.

[NYTimes]

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