Toshiba shocked the gadget world today with the surprise announcement of a stunning 4.1-inch touchscreen smartphone, called the TG01. The handset looks to go head-to-head with Apple’s iPhone and HTC’s Touch HD and is the first gadget to incorporate Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon QSD2850 processor.

The TG01 is slimmer than its rivals at a mere 10mm thin, yet features a larger 4.1-inch 800 x 480 WVGA touchscreen, HSDPA, HSUPA, WiFi as well as built-in A-GPS navigation. The handset will also come equipped with a MicroSD card slot which is good for up to 32GB of storage, plus Flash and DIVX are supported.

The stripy GUI is Toshiba’s doing – a custom interface hiding Windows Mobile 6.1 running in the background. It features three vertical panels that can apparently be scrolled through with a swipe of a finger, which is a neat touch. I don’t know how people will react to the color scheme of this interface, but there may yet be some modifications before launch.

The TG01 responds to shaking and gestures and includes an accelerometer to rotate the display. Sound familiar? You can shake the smartphone to either end or answer calls, or to simply return to the homescreen.

The European launch date is apparently set at sometime in Summer 2009, but no pricing info has been made available as yet. We will find out more when Mobile World Congress hits Spain on February 16th, however. For hands-on pics and reviews, be sure to head on over to SlashGear and ElectricPig, who were lucky enough to attend the London launch today.

Sources:
Register Hardware and SlashGear.com

Toshiba have today announced a new line of flash-based 2.5-inch notebook SSDs that mark an industry first with a top storage capacity of 512GB. The drives are based on 43 nanometer Multi-Level Cell NAND and will be displayed at the upcoming CES 2009 in January.

Mass-production of the drives is slated for the second quarter of 2009 and will be produced in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities in addition to the groundbreaking 512GB model. The drives will all get a 3Gbps SATA-II connection with a maximum read speed of 240MBps, a zippy 200MBps write speed and AES data encryption.

The THNS512GG8BB 512-gig drive should help fulfill the growing need for more capacious SSDs for laptops and enable the technology to better compete with its HDD rivals.

Sources:
PR Newswire (Press Release)

Toshiba today released four new laptops, the most notable being their Portégé R600, which the company claims is the world’s lightest. The new model manages to undercut the MacBook Air by 0.6lbs, (which is even better than Samsung’s recent X360) despite being a fully-featured notebook equipped with an impressive 9-hour battery, a multi-format DVD writer and a fingerprint reader.

The ultra-portable will be available in two models. The SU9400 will feature a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 1GB of 800MHz DDR2 memory plus a 128GB SSD which will go for around US$2,930. The cheaper model will cost around US$2,120 for a slightly slower 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo with 2GB of 800MHz DDR2 RAM (yes, 2GB) and a larger 160GB SATA HDD.

Both models with come with 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, four USB ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port and an SD memory slot. Battery life is an incredible 9 hours with a 3 hour recharge when off, plus they’ve squeezed in a 0.3-megapixel web-cam and microphone in the lid to round out the package.

The word around the net is that Toshiba claimed this model is also the world’s thinnest laptop. I don’t know if this was retracted, or if someone misread Toshiba’s product description and it spread, but I can’t find an official mention of it. One look at the specs will show that it is simply not true. Toshiba says the R600’s thickness is 19.5-25.5mm. The MacBook Air is 4.0-19.4mm thick, undercutting the R600 even at the Air’s thickest point.

The R600 is only available from Toshiba Canada’s store for now but should be hitting the US shortly.

Sources:
Toshiba Canada and MacBook Air Specs
Via: Register Hardware

Toshiba today announced a new world first for 1.8-inch drives with their MK2529GSG model which holds an impressive 250GB. The 5,400rpm drive uses a SATA interface with a 3Gbps data transfer rate, has a seek time of just 15ms and is a mere 8mm (0.31-inch) thin, making it ideal for ultra-portable laptops and portable media players.

The drive manages to top Toshiba’s former world record, which was set only a few weeks ago with their 240GB MK2431GAH drive. This further improves upon their 160GB MK1617GSG record in June.

This new model not only has improved storage capacity, but is also zippier thanks to the inclusion of a SATA interface. It should provide some stiff competition to the slim but expensive Solid State Drives on offer for ultra-portables.

The MK2529GSG measures a mere 54mm (2.13″) x 78.5mm (3.09″) x 8mm (0.31″) and has a weight of 62g (2.18 ounces). The drive is scheduled for mass production in November.

Sources:
Toshiba Press Release (translated) via CrunchGear

Toshiba has just announced their new dual-platter 160GB 1.8-inch SATA disk which spins at 5400RPM – a world first.

The interface speed has been increased to 1.5Gbps, internal maximum data transfer rate is up 17% and power consumption shows a 25% improvement over Toshiba’s current 120GB model. The drive is also lighter at only 60g.

The growth in sub-notebook demand has increased competition in 1.8-inch HDDs with consumers expecting the same level of storage and performance as bigger notebooks or even desktops.

The drive is still too big, however, to fit in ultra-thin laptops like Apple’s MacBook Air or Voodoo’s Envy 133.

The drive will enter production in August.

Source:
BusinessWeek