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Toshiba's New Waffle Iron Looks Vaguely Laptop-ish |
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 In an apparent attempt to catch up to Apple, Toshiba has recently unveiled their brand new 17" Waffle Iron. I mean, 17" laptop - not waffle iron. Heavens no, we wouldn't want to make that mistake, as the new laptop isn't quite up to par with a waffle iron as far as features, performance and style go.
If you haven't heard about it/seen it, an article at forbes.com speaks of Toshiba's new "Monster Notebook". They're calling it the "Satellite P25-S507", but only because they couldn't fit any more letters and/or numbers on the thing.
Now I know PC's are generally ugly, I accept that as an unchanging fact. If anyone other than Apple actually makes an attractive machine, the whole of reality will collapse in upon itself. Now Toshiba's new machine isn't really horrible, but it ain't gonna win a beauty contest either.
The wierd thing is, the Forbes article goes on to say the following:
"Sure, this is another classic case of Apple hardware leading the way only to be followed by the Wintel world. But Toshiba's only the first to build a notebook of this size and style."
Ummm.....right.
Here's the Toshiba Satellite next to the 17" PowerBook.
You tell me which one is stylish.
Now style points notwithstanding, the Satellite is 9.9 pounds. That's 2.1 pounds heavier than Apple's 17" PowerBook, which weighs in at 6.8 pounds. The PowerBook is also thinner.
What does Toshiba give you for those extra pounds?
Well actually the two laptops looks pretty similar in features, with minor differences in the PowerBook's favor. F'rinstance it has Gigabit ethernet, 32 more MB of video RAM, a light-sensing keyboard and it has 4.5 hours of battery life compared to just 2.0 for the Toshiba. That probably has something to do with the huge amount of power the Pentium 4 processor needs (and no, we won't argue processor speeds here because it's almost impossible to tell what's faster with 2 different chip architectures). The Toshiba DOES have 2 separate drive bays, ala the old G3 PowerBooks, but how often are you going to change those out?
Toshiba is also following Apple's lead by neglecting to use a floppy drive. The only way they're really differing is that they're using 802.11a (instead of 802.11g like Apple) which is NOT backwards compatible.
So perhaps Forbes' quote was right on. No one has made a laptop this heavy nor quite as waffle-ironish. We can only hope that Apple will top them by bringing more breakfast food features to the PowerBook G5.
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July 1 2003, 9:56 PM EDT, by
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Comments:
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| Zack |
7/1/03, 11:09 PM EDT |
If only the Toshiba laptop could display Nascar races like the 17" Powerbook.
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| rlhamon |
7/2/03, 12:00 AM EDT |
I don't know what hte hell Forbes is talking about Toshiba laptops are over priced crap. I know i fix the on a daily bases. crap crap crap crap crap..
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| Bill Palmer |
7/2/03, 12:06 AM EDT |
The primary difference being that while the PowerBook is designed to fit neatly on an airplane tray table, the Toshiba is an airplane tray table.
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| Zack |
7/2/03, 3:15 AM EDT |
Good one Bill!
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| Jonahan |
7/2/03, 8:32 AM EDT |
Haha....
And here's a side-by-side comparison of the Satellite and an actual waffle iron:
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| Jonahan |
7/2/03, 8:56 AM EDT |
Here's another pic of the Satellite in action:
BTW it looks like Toshiba is taking most of their design cues from thi s company.
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| HTML Samurai |
7/2/03, 9:25 AM EDT |
Toshiba has (for a long time) had one of the most reliable PC laptops you could get. Unfortunately, they are also one of the most expensive on the market! And recently, one of the heaviest.
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| won |
7/2/03, 10:52 AM EDT |
...and yet, the Toshiba costs close to a grand less than the AlBook.
Are Apple's extra trimmings likely to sway PC users looking for a sizeable display in a portable?
won
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| Chris |
7/2/03, 11:01 AM EDT |
What it includes for the price looks very good, and it is only $222 per pound, compared to the Apple price of $485 per pound. You also get more volume per dollar, at $6.50 per cubic inch, compared to the Apple price of $29 per cubic inch. With Apple you clearly get less for your dollar.
It is 3.1 pounds heavier, not 2.1, and in volume it is three times the size of the PowerBook.
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| myron |
7/2/03, 12:41 PM EDT |
There is one PC notebook that is nearly as nice as the Apple ones. It's a BestBuy brand, I forget the name of it. It's got a widescreen 15-inch display and is an inch thin. Sound familiar? It's design was openly and purposefully lifted from the tibook's.
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| Jonahan |
7/2/03, 1:22 PM EDT |
Is it this one?
It looks fairly decent, but still pretty clunky.
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| stickman67 |
7/2/03, 9:48 PM EDT |
Come on, guys, you're not being fair to Toshiba. Let's put this in some perspective. You're in the departure terminal on your way to a high-powered takeover bid on a rival software company and some thuggish buffoon with an undershot jaw and squinty eyes makes a grab for your laptop. What happens next?
Ending 1: Enraged by his in-bred appearance, you hit him behind the left ear with your 7-pound powerbook. His eyes widen slightly as he shakes his head a pulls a knife. Now you've made him *really* mad ...
Ending 2: Enraged by his squeaky-soled shoes, you hit him behind the left ear with your 10-pound Toshiba. His eyes widen slightly as he realises that the splashing sound he just heard was not only his brains hitting the Coke machine behind him, but also that it's the last sound he'll ever hear ...
Which is *your* favourite ending?
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| illtron |
7/3/03, 8:11 AM EDT |
Ugh, god no! Actually myron was talking about the VPR matrix 15" machine. It was pretty sweet, though not quite as "refined" as the powerbook. Check out their notebooks on their website at http://vprmatrix.com/products_notebook_listing.asp
I worked at Best Buy for a few months, and everyone who worked in that department would recommend nothing but the vpr matrix machines for other employees. they really were pretty nice. now, they've disappeared. i don't know if best buy decided they weren't profitable and decided to stop making them, or what, but good luck finding one in any best buy store. they're definitely gone.
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