Just a week after
Apple unveiled the
MacBook Air,
Toshiba have launched a rival product with the Portégé R500
notebook . At 1kg, the
Toshiba notebook is lighter than the 1.35kg MacBook Air, and is thinner as well, though the MacBook Air’s 13.3 inch
screen is bigger than the R500’s 12 inch screen.
Whilst neither
laptop has a
DVD-drive in the machine itself, Toshiba offers a greater number of ports and drives. The MacBook Air has just one
USB port, compared with the R500’s three, whilst the Toshiba comes with an optical drive as well as
Ethernet connection, offering users a greater choice than the
Apple notebook .
Toshiba claim their notebook is cheaper than the rival Apple model, though evidence is varied as to the accuracy of these claims.