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Toshiba lights up the streets with Satellite U500 Ducati
Ducati may have its roots firmly planted on the highway, but the high-end label certainly isn't scared of stepping out from time to time. After gifting firms like SanDisk and Sony Ericsson with the right to use its name on various gizmos, the motorcycle maker is now linking up with Toshiba on a special edition laptop. The Satellite U500 Ducati is a 13.3-inch ultraportable equipped with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 (512MB), an Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 and 4GB of RAM. Naturally, the primarily white device will boast its fair share of Ducati badging, but seemingly lacks the company's trademark desmodromic valve actuation. Precise pricing information wasn't made public, but you can bet only those with more money than sense will take interest when it ships later this month in Italy.
Toshiba's new Satellite M500 and U500 mid-tier laptops "shine" in the flesh
You know, at one point chrome accents and glossy plastics were novel additions to previously staid consumer electronics -- now they make us want to punch a hole in the nearest smarmy LCD display. While HP has tried its best to be the worst offender in its consumer line, Toshiba is really giving it a shot with the M500 and U500 series laptops -- the U500 is pretty outlandish, but at least it offers a ribbed, almost-desirable matte surface of sorts, while the M500 (pictured) makes everything else look tame in comparison, and has the plentiful finger smudges to prove it. Both of the laptops offer chrome trim, overdone speaker grills and light-up accents. The textured trackpads are probably a love it or hate it thing; in fact, most of these "style" choices could be termed as such, but we're sure you've ascertained by now where we stand. Sure, the so-called general consumer apparently eats it up, but the charm is lost on us. On a gentler note, the M505 we looked at was running Windows 7, something we more commonly see being demoed on a touchscreen PC or something otherwise Windows 7 specific. Obviously it's not shipping with that OS yet, but the pining is palpable.
New Toshiba Satellite laptops now available Stateside
Remember those new Satellites that Toshiba dropped in Europe a week or two ago? Seems like they're making the scene Stateside starting today, alongside several of their siblings. As previously noted, the A500 is a 16-inch multimedia machine (starting at $749.99), while the U500 ($849.99) is a 13.3-inch guy more suited to on-the-go computing. Newly announced are the M500/M505 (with 14-inch high-def LED display, starting at $699.99) and the P500/P505 (an 18.4-inch desktop replacement with slot-loading DVD drive, starting at $799.99). All the new Satellites include multimedia command keys, webcam, face recognition software, harmon/kardon speakers and, of course, the world renowned eSATA/USB combo port. And if you're good, we have a couple pics for you. After the break, of course.
