Toshiba has announced a couple new tablet PCs, and while not exactly a bargain, they're still lower cost than most. They also have a dual-axis hinge, so you can use them as a normal laptop, too.

Toshiba Corporation will release the "dynabook R10/170L7" consumer tablet PCs o­n February 18th. They are listed at Open Price, but estimated to cost around 195,000 yen.

This is the company's first consumer tablet PC. It uses a convertible style allowing the LCD to rotate 180 degrees. A "3D Acceleration Sensor" will detect the rotation of the LCD, and the direction of the image can be adjusted with a single touch.

Software included in the machine is also intended for a tablet PC, such as Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 for an OS. Office Personal Edition 2003 with Office o­neNote 2003 provides office functionality, and it also includes Photoshop Elements 2.0 retouch software. A variety of child softwares come preinstalled, include the "Picture Drawing Club Kids" drawing software, "Write and Remember! Elementary School Japanese Kanji Drill Dictionary" for learning Kanji by writing them, "Fude Gurumi" for creating postcards with hand-drawn illustations, and finally "Puri Puri Maron" for creation of stickers that are drawn by hand.

Specifications include a Celeron M 360 (1.4GHz) CPU, 512MB of memory (max 2GB), 60GB hard drive, Intel 855GME chipset (integrated video), a DVD Super-Multi Drive (+R DL support), and a 14.1" LCD supporting 1024 x 768 display.

The available interfaces are USB 2.0 x 3, IEEE 1394 x 1, Type2 PC Card Slot x 1, SD Card slot, Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b/g wireless LAN, V.90 mode, D-Sub 15 pin, and S-Video output.

Power is supplied by a lithium ion battery, which will last about 2.3 hours under the JEITA 1.0 standard. The body size is 328 x 289.7 x 36.9 ~ 38.4mm (W x D x H), and it weighs about 2.8kg.




Inspired by:
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2005/0207/toshiba.htm

Press Release:
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2005_02/pr_j0701.htm

Product Information:
http://dynabook.com/pc/catalog/dynabook/050207r1/index_j.htm