Toshiba introduced the Portege Z930 Ultrabook and R930, R940 and R950 ultra portables June 5, all running Intel Ivy Bridge processors. Lest the machines risk being lost in the dozens upon dozens of new machines to run the third-generation processors, Intel executives have said that more than 100 Ultrabooks have been designed around them. Toshiba has paired them with a second technology of note, a Smart Client Manager, powered by Tivoli from IBM.
The Manager puts an emphasis on three areas: power management, patch management and security.
Those three things are very, very important when youre looking at business notebooks, Cindy Zwerling, Toshibas B2B product marketing manager told eWEEK.
With the Manager, if people leave machines on over the weekend, an IT manager can adjust monitor power consumption for better energy-efficiency gains. If a PC is stolen, IT has the ability to lock itself out of the network. And, from a single console, IT can control the deployment of patches, resolve problems from previously applied patches and provide up-to-date patch visibility. Its Toshibas first venture with something from IBM, said Zwerling, and its on all four new notebooks, which are now shipping.
What can we say that no one else can? Toshiba owns the entire process, from designing to manufacturing. We dont ODM [original design manufacture] anything.
Because it controls the process, she continued, the end result is durable, high-quality PCs with some of the lowest failure rates in the industry.
Still another distinction is that Toshiba calls the Portege Z930 the worlds lightest 13-inch Ultrabook. It weighs less than 2.5 pounds, measures 0.63-inches thick, offers up to eight hours of battery life and supports up to an Intel Core i7 processor with vPro and AMT technology.
Its solid-state drive makes it particularly responsive. Theres a full complement of ports, according to Toshiba, as well as a fingerprint reader and a solid, travel-ready case that includes a magnesium alloy casing along with a reinforced honeycomb rib design for shock absorption and increased rigidity.
An Ultrabook with a fingerprint reader, AMT and TPM? Reviewing the Z930s specs, Zwerling insists, No one has the offering that we have in this notebook.
Pricing will start at $1,249.
Toshiba calls the Portege R930: the worlds lightest 13.3-inch full-performance ultraportable business laptop with an integrated DVD drive. An inch thin and 3 pounds, it supports up to an Intel Core i7 full-voltage processor and comes with two USB 3.0 ports, Bluetooth 3.0 and can be configured with a hard storage disk or solid-state drive.
Pricing starts at $1,399.
Rounding out Toshibas new lineup are the Tecra R940 and R950, machines weighing less than 4.5 pounds, measuring an inch thick and featuring LED-backlit widescreen high-definition displays14- and 15.6-inches, respectively.
Both offer an Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, a bump in memory and graphics over previous models and a 2-megapixel HD Webcamsomething Zwerling says customers have asked for. Spill-resistant keyboards, a fingerprint reader and Toshiba Sleep & Charge technology round out the features for this model.
Pricing starts at $1,199 for the R940 and $1,179 for the R950.