Toshiba adds new notebook, desktop replacements

Toshiba Tuesday announced three new laptop PCs: one is a multimedia notebook and the other two are “desktop replacement” notebooks that use desktop processors, the company said in a statement.

 The Satellite 1905-S303 and the Satellite 1955-S803 are designed to be used as somewhat-portable PCs for home or small office use, said Toshiba. The S303 uses a desktop 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 processor from Intel Corp. and weighs 8.3 pounds (3.72 kilograms), while the S803 is powered by a 2.5 GHz Pentium 4 and weighs 9.6 pounds (4.32 kilograms).  

“These notebooks are designed for people who want to be mobile, but don’t do it on a regular basis,” said Oscar Koenders, vice president of product marketing and worldwide product planning for Toshiba.

Toshiba’s notebooks with desktop processors have come under fire by analysts and users for the excess heat generated by desktop processors. In a desktop chassis, this heat is dissipated, but the smaller notebooks retain more heat, which can cause the processor to throttle back its clock speed or shut down altogether. Owners of Toshiba’s Satellite 5005 series filed a class-action lawsuit against the company in August, charging Toshiba was aware the desktop processors would cause problems in those notebooks. 

 But these two new notebooks will not suffer from this problem, he said.  

“We are talking about a completely different machine,” with the 1900 series, Koenders said. These notebooks are larger than the 5005 series, and include additional heat shields, he said.

A sample configuration of the S303 with the 2.4 GHz Pentium 4, 512M bytes of RAM, a 40G-byte hard drive, a 15-inch TFT LCD, ATI Technologies’s Mobility Radeon graphics card, two USB ports and a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive costs an estimated US$1,999.

The S803, with a 2.5 GHz Pentium 4, 512M bytes of RAM, a 60G-byte hard drive, a 16-inch SXGA display, Nvidia’s GeForce4 440 Go graphics card, three USB ports and a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, will cost an estimated $2,799. The S803 also comes with integrated 802.11b wireless connectivity, which allows Toshiba to package a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse with the notebook.

Both notebooks are available immediately through Toshiba’s Web site or retail stores.

The other Toshiba notebook, the Satellite 5205-S503, is designed for high-end consumers who want to use their notebooks for multimedia applications, such as viewing DVD movies. It features a customizable bay which can accommodate an additional hard drive, battery, or optical media drive, Koenders said.

Intel’s Mobile Pentium 4-M processor is used in the S503, which alleviates the need for heavier heat shields or more expensive heat sinks. The notebook will come with Nvidia Corp.’s GeForce 460 graphics card, which uses 32M bytes of graphics memory. This card was also announced on Monday by Nvidia.

A sample configuration with a 2.0 GHz Mobile Pentium 4-M, 512M bytes of RAM, a 40G-byte hard drive, three USB 2.0 ports, and a remote control will cost $2,199. The standard lithium-ion battery offers up to 3 hours of battery life, and the notebook weighs 7.7 pounds (3.47 kilograms). It is available now direct through Toshiba’s Web site or through retail channels.