Voodoo’s Envy 133 Is Thinnest Notebook Alive

Voodoo’s new Envy 133 will be the thinnest laptop on the market at 0.7". It matches Intel’s most holy Metro concept laptop, and with good reason: Says Voodoo, the Envy 133 was "developed using the smallest available Intel Centrino technology and elements from an innovative Intel reference design." This means that, when it goes on sale, the Envy will bump the MacBook Air—at 0.76" thick in the middle—off the throne. Before you jump to the comment box, YES, there HAVE been even thinner notebooks, though none with this little compromise in power.

Toshiba has extended its Portégé R500 sub-notebook family with a pair of new models that both pack in 128GB of solid-state storage.

Toshiba’s Japan-only new Dynabook SS RX1 is the first ever notebook to offer a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD), matching the storage capacity of conventional hard-disk drives with the speeds associated with flash drives. The model will be available about nine months after Toshiba also unveiled the first laptop with a 64GB SSD drive. In North America, the RX1’s equivalent is the Portégé R500, already a holder of many “world’s first” accolades.

The newest RX1 sports Intel’s Core 2 Duo 1.20GHz CPU and 2GB of RAM, Intel’s 945GMS Express chipset with integrated video as well as a DVD optical drive. The operating system is Windows Vista Business Edition. It also features KDDI’s CDMA 1X WIN high-speed 3G service capable of up to 2.4Mbps that carries a monthly subscription rate of about $60. The RX1 and R500 have a 12.1-inch WXGA widescreen LCD. Bluetooth 2.0 support is built-in.

The RX1 with the 128GB SSD drive should be available in Japan in mid-April, with other models launching later this month. No official pricing has been announced, but the 128GB SSD-equipped version is expected to cost 400,000 yen, or close to $4,000. A version with an 80GB HDD is 290,000 yen or $2,900. In the U.S., the R500 with the 64GB SSD starts at $2,700. SSDs fetch a premium as they are more shock-resistant, energy-efficient and quieter than traditional HDDs. Toshiba has not yet announced a similar option for its North American R500.

The 11Z and 121 both use 160GB hard drives for storage. Their other specs match those of the SSD models.
Their prices won’t be comparable, of course, though we can’t say for sure because Toshiba has yet to say what it’s going to charge for the new models. The current R500-10U has a 64GB SSD and a 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo U7600 processor and retails for around £1750.

Along with the announcement today of the two new notebook lines form Toshiba it also announced two new models to go along with the X205 gaming notebook line. The two new models are the Satellite X205-SLi5 and Satellite X205-SLi6.

The new models add dual graphics and Intel 45nm CPUs to the line. The systems also feature HDMI out for connecting to an HDTV and digital out for surround sound. The X205-SLi5 runs on an Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 at 2.4GHz. The system has 3072 MB of RAM and a pair of 160GB 7200 RPM HDDs. Graphics for the system are via dual NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB GDDR3. The system retails for $1999.99.

The X205-SLi6 retails for $2499.99 and runs on a Core 2 Duo T9300 running at 2.5 GHz and 3072MB of DDR2 RAM. The machine features a pair of 200GB HDD and a 17-inch LCD. Graphics are via dual 8600M GT with 512MB GDDR3.