Toshiba mini NB205

Starting Price: $399.99 ($382.36 now at Amazon)
If you're going to be staring at a 10-inch screen for hours on end you deserve a design that doesn't feel claustrophobic, and the 3-pound NB205 delivers with the biggest touchpad in its class and a spacious chiclet-style keyboard. This netbook doesn't look cheap either, thanks to the textured lid and slick color options (black, white, pink, blue or brown). We're not fans of Windows 7 Crippled Edition, but the NB205's nearly 9 hours of battery life and 250GB hard drive make this $399 machine a great deal. [Review]

HP mini 311

Starting Price: $399
What a difference Nvidia graphics make. This Atom+Ion-powered netbook can not only handle mainstream games like World of Warcraft without breaking a sweat, it takes full advantage of Flash Player 10.1's hardware acceleration for dramatically smoother Hulu playback on the 11.6-inch screen (or bigger screen via HDMI). You can even edit video on this 3.2-pound powerhouse, which comes with a stylish HP Swirl pattern in black or white. If you care about longer battery life, get the cheaper Windows XP version.
[Windows XP Review] [Windows 7 Review]

Samsung N140

Starting Price: $384.99
Samsung made a splash last year with its first netbooks for the U.S., and the $399 N140 builds upon the success of the NC10 but modernizing the design, adding Windows 7 (though it's Starter), and beefing up the hard drive to 250GB. Available with a burgundy or blue lid and outlined with silver trim, this Atom machine performs like other netbooks but features a glare-free matte display and comfy keyboard. You also get decent audio courtesy of SRS Sound. [Review]

Mark Spoonauer is the editor-in-chief of Laptop Magazine and Laptopmag.com, which reviewed over 130 notebooks and netbooks during 2009. To see all of their top picks of the year, click here.

Under $400

Acer Aspire 1410

Starting Price: $399
This 3.2-pound ultraportable is such a sweet deal it makes us question whether netbooks are long for this world. Acer stuffed a dual-core Celeron processor (about double the performance of Atom), 2GB of RAM and Windows 7 Premium inside a 11.6-inch system with a full-size keyboard—all for just $399. Plus, you get 6.5 hours of battery life. Sure, the 160GB hard drive is a bit skimpy, but the 1410 is a real PC you can take anywhere. [Review]

Under $700

Gateway NV

Starting Price: $599.99
The NV proves that you can get a good-looking budget laptop that performs. In addition to four color choices (blue, brown, read, and black), this 15.6-inch notebook sports a fashionable metal hinge and glowing LED controls. Under the hood the NV satisfies with the combination of an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive. Our only nitpick is the narrow touchpad button. [Review]

Asus UL30A

Starting Price: $649.99
If we had to pick a notebook of the year, the UL30A would be it. Why? Because this 13 incher is light enough to take anywhere yet offers enough pep to be your primary machine. This 4-pound ultraportable lasted nearly 10 hours on a charge in our tests (continuous surfing over Wi-Fi), and its ultra-low voltage Core 2 Duo processor can easily handle Windows 7. Bonus: 500GB of storage is nice for the $650 price. [Review]

Under $1000

Dell Studio 14z

Starting Price: $749.99
Think of it as the poor man's MacBook—with better specs and sound. Dell's 14-inch thin and light notebook weighs in at just 4.4 pounds and features Nvidia 9400 graphics for extra multimedia punch. But unlike the entry level $999 Mac, the Dell offers 70GB more hard drive space, superior speakers, and a backlit keyboard for $160 less. The only trade-offs are the lack of a DVD drive and the need for an adapter for plugging in memory cards. [Review]

Under $1500

Toshiba Qosmio X505

Starting Price : $1399
Ideal for multimedia mavens and good enough for gamers, the 18.4-inch Qosmio X505 brings serious muscle in the $1,499 configuration, including a blazing Core i7 CPU and Nvidia GTS 250M graphics (with 1 GB of dedicated video memory). We also dig the classy glossy black design with metallic red accents, integrated Blu-ray drive, and booming Harman Kardon speakers. If you want to step up from the 1680 x 945 display to a full HD screen, splurge for the $1,899 model, which also sports 6GB of RAM and an SSD. [Review]

ThinkPad T400s

Starting Price: $1599 ($1359.15 after coupon)
If BMWs are the ultimate driving machines, ThinkPads are the ultimate business machines, and this is the flagship vehicle. The T400s measures just 0.8 inches thick and weighs 3.9 pounds, and it's decked out in supersturdy magnesium (for the bottom and deck) and carbon fiber (for the lid). More important, this 14-incher blows away the competition in terms of ergonomic comfort and performance—when you spring for the 2.53-GHz processor and 128GB solid state drive. [Review]

To see all of Laptop's top picks of the year, click here.

This is the first part of the ad. The second half for their Satellite T Series ULV laptops will come out next year. [Toshiba UK via Engadget]

Facts about the shoot:

• The shots were taken at a staggering 98,268 feet above the earth using Toshiba's own cameras
• To reach the altitude required and to conform with Federal Aviation Administration regulations, the weight of the rig had to be carefully managed to a weight of no more than four pounds
• Tied to the rig was a specially created full-sized model chair made of biodegradable balsa wood – the chair was made by a company called Artem and cost about £2,500
• Launch coordinates of the rig were - 119 degrees, 14 minutes by 40 degrees, 48 minute (12 miles North-East of the town of Gerlach, Nevada)
• The quality of the footage from the Toshiba IK-HR1S cameras was: 1920x1080 pixel count; 1080i @ 50hz; 100 Mbps
• The temperature dropped to minus 90 degrees when the chair reached 52,037 feet
• The chair took 83 minutes to reach an altitude of 98,268 feet where it broke and took just 24 minutes to fall back down to earth with the rig.

Some quick background: DMFCs produce electricity from a reaction of methanol, water, and air—the only by products are a small amount of water vapor and carbon dioxide. You refill the fuel cell with a few squirts of methanol, and presto, you're able to charge gadgets without a wall socket.

The idea has been in development for 10 years, and Toshiba says that they're "seriously considering and researching the next model to [be available for the] worldwide market."

IDGNS tested the new Dynario charger on gear like the PSP and iPod, and say it pretty much does its job flawlessly—though it won't support every device you connect to its USB socket, including the iPhone. Toshiba has a list, and says about four out of five gadgets should work.

The ¥29,800 (roughly $325) charger is about the size of a PSP, and has a brushed metal finish. It has a small battery to "kick start" the power generation, which charges itself in operation.

50ml refill bottles/cartridges come in packs of 5 for ¥3150 (about $35), so clearly this isn't cost-effective yet. IDGNS says each methanol bottle is good for about 3.5 refills, and each refill charges a cellphone twice.

And while the charger itself is cleared for airline travel, the methanol bottles aren't. Toshiba hopes to sell them at airports for quick charges before or after flights. So travel aside, maybe the technology has more potential for emergency kits for use in blackouts and natural disasters? Time will tell. [PC World]

The first 3,000 run will cost 29800 Yen ($328), and you get five cartridges for 3150 Yen ($34), which makes it cost ineffective if you're talking about practical charging. But if you really need power on the go and you don't have time to charge up traditionally, this is the future—so long as you're part of the first 3,000 that they'll test this out on before going on a wider release. [Toshiba Japan via Engadget]

Acer—which owns Gateway, eMachines, and Packard Bell—scored 11.1 perecent of U.S computer sales between July and September this year, according to IDC. Gartner puts that figure at 13.9 percent.

As you can see in the chart above, Garner also puts Dell in the top U.S spot with a 26.2 percent share. IDC disagrees, placing HP first (25.5 percent), Dell second (25 percent), Apple fourth (9.4 percent), and Toshiba fifth (8.1 percent).

The two research firms agree on the rankings of worldwide sales, though their numbers are slightly different.

What's also interesting is that total sales grew by as much as 3.9 percent compared to last year. That's pretty surprising when both predicted the down economy would make us all tech scrooges. Maybe Windows 7 has drummed up interest after all, what do you think? [Gartner Research via BusinessWire | IDC Research via Reuters] [Image Credit]

The U505 has a 13.3-inch screen, while the M505 has a 14-inch screen. Both have Toshiba's touch UI, "Lifespace Bulletin Board" a dashboard for calendaring and to do lists and "Reeltime" a visual thumbnail browser that shows recently opened files.

Also, meta: Toshiba, your press site is terrible. I can't find shit in there and I had to research for a good chunk of time to figure out what's actually new about your new hardware. Come on. [Toshiba Hot Hardware via Engadget]

Well, at least not in Roaming Navigation view.

Instead, the shows are grouped by relationship—common threads like genre, title, and hours of original play. The more overlapping qualities, the closer the thumbnails are sorted to one another.

At first, the idea of sorting by title similarity sounds a bit ridiculous, but for those who watch CSI, CSI:Miami, CSI:NY, CSI:Indianapolis, and CSI:Millersburg, OH, it's probably pretty handy—especially if they watch Law & Order, too. [Tech-On]

The K01 (shown above) is a QWERTY slider with a 4.1-inch capacitive touchscreen, and is about 15mm-thick. Previous roadmaps suggest it could arrive this year, and will have a 1GHz processor, and 3.2-megapixel camera.

Meanwhile, all reports indicate that this is the K02— a clamshell device with a 3.5-inch (800 x 480) resistive touchscreen. Last we heard it had a QWERTY keyboard on the inside (and a secondary LCD on the outside), but as you can see, it's now looking more like a Nintendo DS-style dual screen device. Interesting. It's also tentatively expected early next year.

Over at Akihabara, you'll also see pics of the Toshiba L01—a tablet-like slate with 7-inch (800 x 480) screen that also doubles as a digital photo frame. Like the K01, it could arrive by year's end.

Everything points to these being WinMo 6.5 devices, but I wouldn't be surprised if any models arriving next year sneak in Windows Mobile 7. [Akihabara News via Electronista]

DMFCs produce electricity from a reaction of methanol, water, and air—the only by-products are a small amount of water vapor and carbon dioxide. Japanese wireless carrier, KDDI, has combined the fuel cell with a Lithium Ion battery to better handle the phone's spikes in power demand.

This combination gives the prototype phone about 320 hours of power. That's around 3 days longer than an equivalent handset. And instead of taking an hour or so to recharge, a few squirts of methanol only takes seconds. Right now the prototype is thicker than we demand of today's phones, but the two companies hope the technology will eventually make it into portable gadgets like phones and media players.

Of course, Toshiba promised to start selling a DMFC battery charger by September, and there's still no sign of it. Good to see they're making inroads, though. It's pretty interesting tech. [PC World and DVICE]

The Cell processor also provides self-congruency for improved image quality at the edge of the picture, enhanced color and brightness balance, and a super-high luminance of 1250cd/m². A 7-speaker sound bar is attached underneath the display, and network functionality includes DLNA support, and an HD Web browser based on Opera.

The Cell chip is housed in an external box about the site of an older Blu-ray player. That's also where a 3TB hard disk is installed to allow the TV to time-shift up to 26 hours of programs from up to 8 channels simultaneously. (1TB of storage is reserved for longer-term recordings). Another neat visual trick: the 55X1 can show eight channels on screen at the same time—and step through each without the delay common with rival HDTVs.

The TV is on show at CEATEC (Japan's version of CES), and will go on sale there in December for 1 Million Yen (about $11,115). Toshiba hopes to sell about 1,000 models a month before the 55X1 arrives in the U.S sometime in 2010.

Toshiba also gave some insight into its future plans for CELL processor-based TVs. It talked about using the chip in a range of concepts, including a 3D TV, and a 4K x 2K model that upconverts 1080p to 3840 x 2160. Holy crap. More please. [Toshiba via Impress AV Watch]

Both systems weigh less than 4 pounds and are under an inch thin. They are surrounded by an array of ports, including HDMI out (since both can handle 1080p video). Packed with Windows 7 Home Premium and powered by Intel's ULV processors they have more oomph than any netbook with Intel's Atom inside. The ULV processors also promise extra long battery life — the T115 is rated for 9 hours and the T135 for 7.5.

LAPTOP Magazine got its hands on the T135 and found the $700 configuration to be pretty fast for its class and reports 7 hours of juice. Not too bad for a notebook under the $800 mark. I'm interested in how the $450 T115 runs, but those lusting after a notebook with better ergonomics and faster performance than a netbook now have at least two more picks. You have to wait a bit more time for the T115 and the T135; they will be on sale on Windows 7's October 22 launch. [Toshiba, Laptop Magazine]

Yep, that's Blu-ray on a Toshiba laptop. Don't be shocked, you knew it was coming. The X500 also has an HDMI-CEC port, Harmon/Kardon speakers, a multi-touch touchpad (two-finger pinch, swipe, rotate, scroll), and a LED-backlit keyboard with a 10-key numberpad.

Toshiba says you'll be able to tailor the processor and DDR3 memory (it's still deciding on specifics), opt for a 1080p or 720p-capable screen, and go with either a 7200rpm hard disk on its own, or combined with a solid-state drive. We'll know full specs and pricing sometime in mid-October.

Looks like a pretty decent addition to the Qosmio family, but you'll have to wait until Windows 7 arrives on October 22 to get your hands on one.

On the left, the recently announced Toshiba SV670, a locally dimmed LED LCD. On the right, Toshiba's last gen, CCFL LCD display (click image for full size pop-up). Both were promised to be configured with the default "sports" settings—no special engineer tweaking.

Local dimming is one of the catchwords of CEDIA—the US's big home theater trade show. It's basically when a backlit LED display completely turns off backlighting in the dark parts of the image, pretty much making black as black as it can be.

Seeing Toshiba's side-by-side, the TVs produced pretty much identical images in terms of color, sharpness and dark details. But the blacks were way blacker, even when the lights in the room were turned on. And the difference is even more pronounced in person.

In other words, from Toshiba or any other company, this what "local dimming" really means when you read it on a spec sheet. The more you know, kids!

Touted as the "Ultimate Home Media Tablet" Toshiba's Wi-Fi tablet has its own icon packed user interface on top of Windows CE. It will allow you sit back on the couch and run a full Web browser and according to this release you can access Picasa, YouTube, Flickr and your instant messaging clients from the Wi-Fi device.

It has an ARM chip inside so chances are it won't handle true high def content all that well (though the video says it can). This thing has Nivida Tegra written all over it but no word on what is exactly powering the thing. A base station will be sold separately that will have USB and HDMI outputs.

The brushed aluminum device will retail for 249 Euros (about $350 U.S.). Hmm, a Zune HD makes a bit more sense to me. Ah mini-tablet season is upon us. [newgadgetsde and CrunchGear]

A bit ashamed, he tenuously explained the situation to friends and family, detailing the player's typical 1080p/24fps output while urging his former inlaws that AVCHD support and SD card reading had made the whole decision a lot easier. They didn't understand, but they accepted his decision. They'd loved him once, like a son.

Of course, Toshiba's most judgmental friends noticed that the BDX2000 was a skinnier model than the the HD-XA1 (bless her heart). Plus, she was prone to flaunting around town with a smoked glass finish like she owns the place.

Besides, for $250 this November, most of us would have picked the PS3. [prnewswire and Image]

Total plasma sales went up 31% compared to the first quarter, mostly due to the high value attached to them in this economic downturn. In terms of LCDs, Vizio continues its hold as the number 1 maker, and in fact grew their market share, as did Samsung, Toshiba and Panasonic. Sony, unfortunately, lost more than 3% of the market—a huge piece of its share—though the Japanese giant did retain its third place position. Check out HDGuru for more info and analysis of the numbers. [HDGuru]