The Tosh Mosh tips up

WE WERE PUMMELED into submission by Tosh PR bunnies bearing heavy slates of magnesium, aluminium and plastic… err… sorry, notebooks. Under a heavy barrage of specs, prices and neat little photos of the newborns, we managed to figure out what they’re all about – seconds before laptop number five hit home and we blacked out.

Toshiba has launched five - count ‘em - five business lappies today. These are: the Tecra R10, the Satellite Pro S300, the Portégé M750, Portégé M600, Portégé A600, and if you haven’t guessed already, they’re all businessy-types. All Centrino 2 types (GS45), too. Some VPro, less so.

What’s interesting to see is Tosh has finally plugged all of these laptops with embedded HSDPA, so now your boss will be on your case 100% of the time. Even though HSDPA is still an option on the low-end variants of each new model, we’d rather go ‘with’ than ‘without’. Another feature Tosh is touting is the very discrete Sleep’n’Charge that will sense your phone or iPod sucking at that USB port and keep the juice flowing even when the lappie’s off (but plugged into a wall socket, we presume).

Apart from that there are more laptops than a civil servant can lose in a lifetime. You’ve got the cheap-yet-able, Satellite Pro S300 with its very generic specs and 3Kg/15.4-inch screen. Then you’ve got the high-performing but very executive Tecra R10, a VPro unit standard with fingerprint reader, an eSATA port and even an option for SSD drives. You’ve also got the ultra-portable Portégé R600 and A600 which share a lot of specs, although the R600 comes in at 300g lighter than its brother – both Centrino 2 VPros, both include optical drives. Finally you have the Portégé M750 tablet PC, weighing in at a hefty 2Kg. This one’s an oddity tho’, as it’s the most upgradeable of the lot (you can even stick 8GB of RAM in it).

Here are the highlights:

Tecra R10, starting at £899

Sub-2Kg, 14-inch widescreen, Centrino 2 VPro, CPU SP9300 (2.26GHz) or SP9400 (2.4GHz), embedded HSDPA, 802.11 a/g/n, BT 2.1, SSD drive option, fingerprint reader, Gigabit Ethernet, eSATA/USB Port;

Satellite S300, starting at £439

Sub-3Kg, 15.4-inch widescreen, T3200, T5870 or P8400, webcam+mike, 4xUSB (Sleep’n’Charge), Gigabit Ethernet, HSDPA, up to 3GB DDR2, 250GB HDD, Wifi agn, BT2.1

Portégé M750, starting at £849

Tablet PC, 2kg, 12.1-inch widescreen, Centrino 2 VPro, T5870 (2GHz), keyboard+pivoting led back-lit LCD, webcam+mike, Gigabit Ethernet, Super multi drive, embedded HSDPA, 802.11 a/g/n, BT 2.1, 5H battery;

Portégé R600, starting at £1099

Ultra-portable 12.1-inch, 1.1Kg, Centrino 2 VPro, SU9400 (1.4GHz), non-reflective display, Gigabit Ethernet, embedded HSDPA, 802.11 a/g/n, BT 2.1, eSATA/USB port, up to 8H25min, Webcam+mike, LED back-lit, DVD super multi drive;

Portégé A600, starting at £849

Ultra-portable, 12.1-incher, 1.4Kg, Centrino 2 VPro, SU9300 (1.2GHz), non- reflective display, Gigabit Ethernet, embedded HSDPA, 802.11 a/g/n, BT 2.1, eSATA/USB port, up to 7h30min, webcam+mike, Centrino 2 VPro, LED back-lit, DVD super multi drive.

We've only put the relevant bits, but we'll be doing a quiz later in the week to see if you were paying attention (you in the back, you hear?) µ