Toshiba Adds WiMax Support To New Notebooks

Toshiba is offering WiMax support in three new Satellite models: the A665, the M645, and the E205. WiMax support is also included in the Portege R705. All are priced in the $750 to $1,100 range and come with screen sizes ranging from 13 to 16 inches.

WiMax, which currently offers speeds of 40 Mbps, is expected to eventually offer speeds of 1 Gbps. Tokyo-based Toshiba, which released a notebook with integrated WiMax in October 2008 (the U405-ST550W), sees WiMax as a way to give mobile workers the ability to stay connected when they are in areas not covered by Wi-Fi.

In August, the CRN Test Center said the Portege R700 does a great job of providing a Windows 7 Professional environment with Windows XP mode tightly integrated as if it were a stand-alone application.

"The care that Toshiba has taken to deliver both Windows environments, in a form factor that is light and slick with a comfortable magnesium alloy case, is among the many elements of the notebook that we thought was stellar," the CRN Test Center said in its review of the Portege R700.

Toshiba also unveiled its new Qosmio X500 laptop, which features Nvidia's GeForce GTX 460M graphics processor and comes with up to 1.5GB of graphics memory as well as DirectX 11 support. The Qosmio X500 is tailor made for gaming, with a 1920 x 1080 display and 18.4-inch high definition LCD screen. Pricing starts at $1,299.