Toshiba Adds Penryn Processors to X205 and U305 Laptops

Today, Toshiba announced that both the popular Satellite X205 gaming notebook and lightweight Satellite U305 will now be available with Intel's latest Penryn Core 2 Duo processors.

Satellite X205-SLi

The Satellite X205-SLi is one of the most popular gaming notebooks for consumers who need high performance without a ridiculously high price tag. The new Penryn 45nm platform generates less heat while providing a faster, more powerful CPU for greater gaming performance. The Penryn update to the X205 ($1,999.99) also incorporates NVIDIA's SLI graphics with dual NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics cards for fluid frame rates at high-definition resolutions.

We were impressed by both of the previous releases of the Satellite X205 and we acknowledged that the original X205 offered great performance, reasonably low temperatures, and great battery life for a gaming machine. Consumers will likely be blown away by the level of performance added by the latest generation of Intel processors.

Read our original review of the Satellite X205.

Read our review of the Satellite X205-SLi3.

Satellite U305-S2816

The Satellite U305-S2816 ($1,349.99) incorporates 2GB of memory, a 250GB hard disk drive, a starting weight of 4.6-pounds and features a 13.3-inch widescreen TruBrite display. We praised the original release of the U305 as "an impressive portable notebook" but the criticized the old Intel Santa Rosa T7100 processor for delivering "average performance." The update to the U305 should solve those performance issues thanks to the new Penryn T8100 processor.

Read our review of the Satellite U305.

As we found in our review of the Penryn update to the Toshiba Qosmio G45, the addition of Intel's new Penryn processor means a significant improvement in overall system performance and a modest increase in battery life. Consumers should see some impressive options as more and more notebook manufacturers begin releasing Penryn updates to their laptops in 2008.

 

what a beast! i sold mine a few days ago, it was too heavy

 

When will it have 8800M?

 

Toshiba "might" decide to bring the 8800M to the X205, but most likely we won't see the 8800M in a Toshiba notebook until the next big gaming notebook from Toshiba hits the market much later this year.

I had the privilege of getting to see the prototypes of the next-generation Satellite and Qosmio notebooks at CES. While I can't provide details at this time, I think a lot of consumers (both average folks and gamers) are going to be impressed with what Toshiba brings to the market later this year.

 

So now we have HP and Toshiba at the Penryn party. Dell, where are you?

 

Not to mention the ThinkPads family...

 

Will some manufacturers skip Penryn in some models and wait until Montevina? Doesn't seem to be that long a gap between them, unless there is a delay.

 

Dell already offers Penryn in the XPS M1330 models in Australia.

 

I don't know what to make of the X205. Why not upgrade the GPU too?

It is a poor value compared to systems it competes with.

 

Yeah in order to compete with other gaming notebook manufacturers, Toshiba should arm their X205 with nvidia 8800GTs as well.