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Following yesterday's announcement of the Lenovo U300s ultrabook, Acer and Toshiba have thrown their hats into the ring: Acer with its Aspire S3, and Toshiba with its Portege Z830.

Let's start with the similarities: Both feature a 13.3" screen with a 1366×768 resolution, Sandy Bridge ULV processors, DDR3 memory, an HDMI port, an SD card reader, wi-fi, a webcam, and bluetooth. Both also feature SSDs of varying capacities, though the Aspire S3 will offer a higher-capacity but slower mechanical HDD option (sources indicate that HDD models will feature an embedded SSD to retain the fast boot times required by Intel's Ultrabook spec, but specifics are hard to come by). Both will also launch later this year: Toshiba is commiting to November, while Acer declined to be more specific.

And the differences: the Toshiba model also features built-in Ethernet, a VGA port, a backlit keyboard, and a third USB port, while the Acer model is slightly thinner at 0.51 inches but heavier at about 3 pounds (the Toshiba is 0.63 inches high and weighs about 2.5 pounds, though it should be noted that the weight of each model may vary based on component selection). The Toshiba will also be cheaper, starting at around ,000 (compared to the Acer's ,179).

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Looking at these early Ultrabooks, it's becoming clear that these laptops, like netbooks before them, are going to have to fight to differentiate themselves. In these particular models, this is mostly being done with ports: the Acer is the only one to lack a wired Ethernet port, while the Toshiba is the only to offer a VGA out and a third USB port.

This sort of heavy competition can be good, to a point, but I'm hoping we don't see the same thing we already see in the netbook and low-end laptop market: dozens of unexciting computers that are, for most intents and purposes, indistinguishable from one another.

Source: BusinessWire, PCMag

JAPANESE ELECTRONICS MAKER Toshiba came to The INQUIRER towers today to give us a closer look at its Portégé R830 laptop and some insight into the PC market’s future.

Toshiba senior product manager Ken Chang showed us the R830 and dubbed it the company’s “Hero Product”, telling us, “We’ve put everything we know about a PC into this product.”

Chang told us that the R series of Toshiba laptops has six key strengths and said those are that they are thinner, lighter, faster, stronger, smarter and easier.

For starters the R830, which is priced from £949, looks very smart with its brushed magnesium alloy chassis and it’s certainly light, weighing just 1.5kg, 630g lighter than Apple’s white Macbook.

It’s suitable to compare it to the Macbook as the R830 has a 13.3in screen. We like the LED display on the Toshiba, which has 1366×768 resolution. It is also non-reflective, which might not look as glamorous as a glossy screen but provides a much better experience for the user.

Toshiba has included support for both e-SATA and USB 3.0 to cover both formats, but Chang gave us his opinion, saying, “Now that we have USB 3.0 there is no need for e-SATA.”

Mobility is where it’s at with the R830, with its size, weight and impressive hardware including an Intel Sandy Bridge Core i5 processor. Toshiba also touts a notable 10 hour battery life, which will definitely help if you’re taking the laptop out and about.

We asked Chang what he thought about the growing tablet market, which is threatening the laptop market. He answered, “Everyone wants to go and be the next Ipad and to grab a slice of this new market.”

We really like products such as the Asus Transformer that combine the content consumption strength of tablets with addressing content creation by adding something like a keyboard dock, so we asked if he thinks the laptop market will be threatened by these kinds of devices.

He told us, “You still can’t beat the input device and I can’t see that disappearing.” He backed up this claim by showing us the consistent sales figures of laptops. He also said, “Over the next six to nine months the playing field will be clearer.” And, he added, “We’re trying to pick the right horse.”

So it seems that Toshiba is taking its time before jumping into the tablet market, intending to study the market so that it can create the right device. Maybe we’ll see it announce that within the next few months. µ

To say that I was very impressed by the Toshiba R700 on paper would be an understatement. Even with very little actual hands-on time with the notebook, I put it in my mobile buyer's guide as my pick for road warriors. I got Toshiba to send me a review unit to see if the R700 was as impressive in day-to-day use as it is on paper and found that while the configuration they sent me was not so great, the rest of the R700 lineup represents a fantastic value for money and is a great choice for mobile use.