14 DAY TRIAL // Computex has been, and still is, practically littered with scores of tablets, from Moorestown-powered models to those centered around the NVIDIA Tegra 2 SoC or the Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. A significant number of laptops have also shown up. What they all had in common, however, was that they focused on performance without bringing anything particularly new to the overall aspect of said systems. Toshiba seems to want to distinguish itself from the fold by tweaking the base looks of its Satellite line.
Toshiba's Satellite series of ultrathin laptops has held onto its basic design for quite a while now. Meanwhile, when making new netbooks, the company took the liberty of experimenting with the keyboard and the placement and shape of the inputs, among other things. This led to the Mini NB305, which stands out more thanks to its wide touchpad and chiclet keyboard instead of its specs.
These features brought a new air of style to the entry-level laptop market. Since their inception, though quite useful, netbooks hadn't really managed to surprise through aesthetics. In fact, they were much duller than ultrathin and traditional notebooks.
The chiclet keyboard soon started cropping up in more units, and manufacturers came up with different design themes to spice up their collection. Some ideas eventually stuck, which is why Toshiba is now expanding the looks of the NB305 to its Satellite series of ultrathins.
The company even brought such a model to Computex, as a forerunner. Said machine is a modified Satellite M135, is roughly 1-inch thick and has a wide touchpad with dedicated right and left buttons. As for specs, not all details are known, except for a choice between the Intel Core i5-U520 and an AMD Athlon New chip. It shouldn't be long until this machine starts selling, though nothing has been, so far, said in regard to pricing or availability.