I had the chance to check out the Toshiba U920T / U925T slider Ultrabook at IDF last week in San Francisco and put a quick video together showing the slider mechanism, ports and screen which, is quite the glossy experience as you’ll see. There’s also an NFC demo – the U920T will be the first Ultrabook with NFC.
Toshiba formerly announced two new Ultrabooks this morning, taking their total number of individual designs to 5 – a figure that tells us that manufacturers are totally on board with the Ultrabook idea.
The Toshiba Sattelite U920T (U925T in the USA) is the slider device we previewed a few days ago. It’s going to be available some time in the fourth quarter. The second is the Toshiba Sattelite U940 (again, expect U945 in the USA.) As you’d expect, both are WIndows 8 models.
Via Newgadgetsde
Revealing the optical track pointer and a design that’s slimmer than I expected, the port locations, backlight on the keyboard and lots more. As a tablet it’s ‘pretty thin and light’ says Johannes. It still weighs 1.2KG though so as a pure tablet, it’s a complete bloater!
Full specs, price and other info available here.
My thoughts – Why aren’t we seeing news about HSDPA/4G for the Vaio DUO? This is clearly an ultra mobile PC but without 3G, it’s missing something in my opinion. Still, enough people have Android phones that can help out with a little hotspot love. I love the look of that track pointer! Personally, I’m more of a fan of detachable screens which is why I’ve got my eye on the ASUS Transformer Book. I’ll bet it’s going to be cheaper than 1200 Euros for a Core i3 too!
Video below…
Toshiba will be showing their new convertible Ultrabook, the Satellite U920T, at IFA this week. This hybrid device isn’t official yet but Mobilegeeks have some early specs and this image below is coming via Nomobile.ru, both at IFA.
Update: Some more info at ABCNews.
We managed to uncover information about the MSI S20 slider earlier today. We’ve just uncovered the first video of it too!
The video reveals USB3.0, 10-point multi-touch, a weight of “less that 2KG”, thickness of less than 1 inch and Bluetooth 4.
Looking very complete but weighing a touch more than the average Ultrabook is this Wistron-designed Ultrabook was shown on stage at the Ultrabook press event today.
You’ve probably seen plenty of previews of Windows 8 over the last 12 hours or so given that its just gone publicly available as a preview. The operating system offers multiple usage scenarios for touch, mobile and productivity. Devices like the Fujitsu TH40 will benefit highly from Windows 8 as they too offer multiple usage scenarios.
I was really quite impressed with the device after my hands on at the Intel Atom Showcase here at IDF. Of all the Oaktrail devices I’ve tried, this has been the best experience yet. I was left wondering why this is only available in Japan.
Look out for the optical mouse pointer. Given my experience with other Oaktrail devices I would put the working battery life, screen on, at about 4-5hrs. Two points I would have to think carefully about are the longevity of the slider mechanism and the processing power which, on Oaktrail, is never really going to impress anyone.
When we reported earlier in the week that the Asus Eee Pad Slider had passed through FCC approval, there was no official announcement from Asus. However, yesterday, the official press release announcing the device as part of the Asus product line went live on the Asus website. The official launch brings some additional tidbits that further pique our interest in this device.
One of the trends that is disturbing me in the Android infrastructure is the implementation of proprietary solutions to various use-case problems in new premier devices. Asus bundles Asus WebStorage with the Slider as a solution to cloud storage and populating an on-line archive with data you might need to access from multiple mobile devices. It is a nice touch (I guess), and I am sure one or two users will decide to use this solution instead of already existing cloud file services like Google Docs and DropBox, or cloud notebooks like Evernote or Springpad. My main issue is that every time a manufacturer deploys one of these in-house services on a tablet, the app is usually not uninstallable. The problem goes away if you wipe and root, but if you want to just run the device stock, these pre-loaded apps are annoying. It is very clear that the pre-loaded epidemic that plagued desktops and laptops for so long is creeping into the tablet market, as well.
Fortunately, that rant gets any negative take-aways I have from the press release out of the way. Most everything else is good news, or at least enticing news until we see some more definition from various allusions in the release. One of those items is in the area of the Slider’s ports. We were aware of the microSD port, but the Slider’s specs now also call out a 16/32GB Embedded Multi-Media Card (eMMC) port. This is called out as a discrete port in addition to the microSD port, so it makes me wonder if this will be a full-sized port like the Toshiba Thrive and Dell Streak 7 feature.
Also revealed is the fact that the device will be available in both pearl white and metallic brown color schemes. That designation appears to apply to the brushed layer applied to the slide-out keyboard, as can be seen in the pics attached. Android 3.1 will be pre-loaded and Asus indicates an upgrade to 3.2 as an OTA delivery, as we would expect. In case we were not certain before, the launch announcement confirms an IPS display (similar to the one used on the iPad) with a claimed 178 degree wide angle of view.
You can peep the specs in our product database here. A link to the press release is included in the source citations below. There is nothing in the press release on pricing or a release date.
So…is anyone holding off on that Asus Eee Pad Transformer purchase to snag a Slider instead?
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