Toshiba announces notebooks with Intel's 802.11n wireless chipset

Irvine (CA) - Toshiba today announced six new notebooks. Three notebooks include Intel’s 802.11n debut chipset "Kedron", one offers a 17" screen for less than $1000 and if you need lots of storage space than Toshiba offers up to 280 GB on two hard drives.

The big news about the firm’s new notebooks is Intel’s Kedron wireless chipset, which now offers draft 802.11n capability in a Centrino-branded mobile computer. Three Satellite A205 models ranging from $1200 to $1550 now include the 4965AGN, which was announced back in January and is making its way into the market now.

The new A205 versions can be split in two groups - one that is offering 15.4" screens and another one that comes exclusively with 17" widescreen LCDs. All 15.4" models integrate Core 2 Duo processors, and have some interesting product features otherwise. Besides the entry-level S4577 (Core 2 Duo T5300, 1 GB memory, 160 GB HDD, $1000), the company offers the S4617 for $1350, which includes a single 250 GB hard drive, which is built by Samsung and not by Toshiba’s own storage division. The higher-end S4639 ($1550) comes with two (Toshiba) hard drives - one 120 GB and one 160 GB drive for a total capacity of 280 GB.

Toshiba claims that it is the first notebook vendor to offer a 17" notebook for $1000. The model has a Core Duo T2080 processor, 1 GB memory, 120 GB hard drive storage space and a DVD burner. The 17" screen delivers a resolution of 1440x900 pixels. $200 more buys a T2350 processor, 2 GB of memory and Intel’s draft-n wireless chipset. Another $150 for a total of $1350 gets a processor upgrade to a Core 2 Duo T5300 chip as well as a 200 GB hard drive.