Toshiba gets official with Portege R600 ultraportable

We'd say it's a pretty terrible day for Toshiba to launch new laptops and expect anyone to pay attention, but we suspect that's glaringly obvious. Continuing on in its launch of new and / or revamped machines today, the Portégé R600 has been hammered down as official. The unit tips the scales at 2.4-pounds and measures in at just 0.77-inches thin while including a built-in DVD burner. You'll also find a currently undisclosed CPU (the mystery! the suspense!), a LED-backlit display, a 128GB SSD and a USB Sleep-and-Charge / eSATA combo port. Toshiba should be updated its site here shortly with full customization options, but for now, just know that this beauty will get going at $2,099.

[Jash Sayani @ Oct 14th 2008 10:14AM]

First TOSHIBA notebook that looks nice to me....
Has got the MacBook feel... The whole silver keyboard and neat touchpad....

But the beauty is even more expensive than the MacBook !!!

[Dan Fruzzetti @ Oct 14th 2008 10:18AM]

Yeah maybe it's a little pricier than the MBA, but does the MBA come with an SSD at that low price? :P That's what I read in this article. Also, it's about half the weight of the MBA and with a much smaller footprint it fits in a regular manila envelope (unlike the MBA). I have a couple pictures of that available on www.fruzzetti.org that you can see.

[Dan Fruzzetti @ Oct 14th 2008 10:17AM]

This looks awful nice. I've got the R500 and have been thrilled with it (but not with Toshiba's warranty service when the mobo blew because I wasn't giving it breathing room on the bottom edge). It's ridiculously light, fully featured, has more than one port (quite a few, actually) and aside from a bit of keyboard flex that I don't notice because I type on a Dvorak layout with minimal movement, it's been a great machine.

My one complaint (for real) is that they went too thin on the case structure. It's plastic and alloy on the R500, no matter what any reviewer says, and it's so thin that the whole machine can flex. That's a weird phenomenon when you expect a computer to be, well, more rigid. :P

I'd consider the R600, and the price tag is right nice. I spent $3400 on this R500 when it hadn't yet come out... Man...

[sr @ Oct 14th 2008 10:24AM]

Maybe you should start thinking about a Thinkpad, no matter how thin they get they don't flex.

[Richard Lai @ Oct 14th 2008 10:49AM]

@Dan: the flex does no harm to the screen though - you can find the video demo on YouTube. Not for the faint-hearted.

[Dan Fruzzetti @ Oct 14th 2008 10:20AM]

I totally take back my weight claim. I guess my R500 is half the weight of the Macbook Air. This R600 featured is more like two-thirds the weight.

[Backlin @ Oct 14th 2008 10:25AM]

Yeah, of course Engadget would say it's a terrible day for any other notebook manufacturers to unleash notebooks.

But yeah, that does look pretty good, and the specs are nothing to sneeze at either.

[fred @ Oct 14th 2008 10:40AM]

You mean Engadget is still seriously pulling that line out of their rear?

Nah, how could anyone possibly care about hearing about various new laptop models when we should all be focused on the over-hyped stage show that Apple has to put on so it can get it's 15 minutes free publicity.

I suppose the writers here think we are as narrow as they are.

[Adam @ Oct 14th 2008 10:25AM]

Way to go Toshiba!

That is one light laptop that also included a dvd burner, has a SSD and has lots of ports you can't beat the price!

One sweet laptop!!!

[sr @ Oct 14th 2008 10:25AM]

What's the deal with DVD drives in these machines? I can't recall the last time I needed, used or cared for one. This is an ultralight, please save the 0.4lbs of the drive and make the machine 2.0lbs. This isn't 1998 anymore where CD drives were actually useful, ever heard of a flash drive Toshiba?

[huh @ Oct 14th 2008 10:42AM]

I would be ok with an optical drive if it were modular, so you could remove it and put a second battery in, which is a very useful feature.

[dhc82 @ Oct 14th 2008 10:43AM]

Well until Netlix send their movies on flash drives or uploads their entire collection to watch instantly, I'd imagine a lot of folks still use their dvd drives to watch/rip movies. Also lot of software still comes on dvd as well, some of us prefer to have that hard copy rather than a download, especially for expensive programs. And at work a lot of clients still send data/reports on cd.

[Dan Fruzzetti @ Oct 14th 2008 12:33PM]

That's why I bought the S5003 model; the last one with no integrated disc drive. I wanted the light weight rather than the drive I don't use (I mean, if I carry 23 GB of flash storage on a keychain everywhere I go, I just don't need the optical drive. I did, however, want more USB ports, so I wired in a thin four-port hub, ground out part of the case and mounted it in the empty space where the optical drive would have gone. I really wanted to squeeze in another SSD but the thing is I had no way to get one with no cover and that weird ribbon cable connector they use inside these machines...

[sr @ Oct 14th 2008 10:29AM]

The pricing is not bad for this quality of ultraportable and please don't compare that johnny come lately MacBook Air to established ultraportable lines like the Toshiba Portege, the MBA is a toy to show off at coffee shops. This is a real machine, lighter, cheaper and more capable.

One thing though is that I think they moved the line a little downmarket from the R500 which was significantly lighter in some variations and also significantly more expensive in those configurations.

[teasphere @ Oct 14th 2008 10:38AM]

Does anyone actually *like* the fingerprint reader? I absolutely have no use for it nor do I like the look or placement and I can't imagine I'm alone here. It cheapens any laptop in my eyes.

[Philbury @ Oct 14th 2008 11:58AM]

Hey come on Engadget - join the rest of the world and give us those weights in metric too wouldya?

[i said know @ Oct 14th 2008 3:36PM]

OCD ppl look away... the touchpad is NOT centered... this is BAD BAD DAB DAB

[Tim @ Oct 14th 2008 10:48PM]

Screen Size?