Toshiba Portege R500 world’s lightest notebook PC

The single spindle Portégé R500 weighs in at a tiny 779 grams – approx. 100 grams less than previous industry bests for a single spindle configuration – and is the first notebook to feature a Flash-based 64GB Solid State Disc (SSD).

SSDs have the advantages of being more resilient to shock and vibration, more power efficient, quieter and with faster boot-up and read times.

The dual spindle configuration of the Portégé R500 includes the world’s first 7mm optical disk drive, a feature that helps the system maintain its ultraportable form factor while increasing the system’s overall productivity level. The inclusion of an integrated DVD-SuperMulti Drive into a system measuring 19.5 mm thin eliminates the bulk and inconvenience of carrying external drives and cables, making it Toshiba’s ultimate ultraportable mobile computing solution.

Additional features include a hard disk drive with up to 120GB, with in-built shock protection and 3-D Accelerometer, which detects acceleration from all directions. The 3D accelerometer helps guard the HDD against awkward accidental drops, including spinning, falling notebook, by rapidly removing the HDD head from between the HDD platters, better protecting the notebook in all three rotational dimensions of pitch, roll and yaw.

The Portege R500 series is the world’s first notebook computer to incorporate an indoor/outdoor transflective 12.1-inch diagonal widescreen LED backlit display. This unique innovation is ideal for usage in virtually any type of lighting condition. Indoors, the LED backlit display produces an image, rich in colour saturation and superb quality. Outdoors, the transflective screen uses natural sunlight to bring the display’s colours and images to life. Integrating a transflective screen enables users to expand their mobile computing experience beyond the traditional four walls of their office.

The Portege R500 measures just 19.5/25.5 mm in height – making it one of the thinnest notebooks with ODD in the industry– but with a full size screen and keyboard it is a viable alternative to other larger notebooks. The notebook also addresses user demand for very long battery of between 7 hours and up to 12.5 hours of battery life depending on the battery specifications. The single spindle configuration has a three-cell battery, while the 2-spindle configuration uses a six-cell battery, however customers will have the option to upgrade their battery, or purchases additional batteries for even longer battery times.

The notebook comes in a sleek, silver design with blue illuminated front edge display.
The motherboard of the Portégé R500 is more than 35-percent smaller than the Portege R200, its predecessor.

New Docking Station

Completing the look for the Portege R500, when working in the office or at home, the notebook can be connected to its own Toshiba Slim Port Replicator II, which includes four USB ports, a gigabit Ethernet connection, DVi and RGB interfaces.