Toshiba competes with the Macbook Air

APPLE markets its MacBook Air as the thinnest notebook, which turns out to be true only if you count recently-released models. And even those oldies which aren't as thick as the Air (the Mitsubishi Pedion is 0.74", the Sharp Actius 0.54", and the Toshiba Portege 0.65" thick) tend to have uniform thickness, while Apple's model tapers to a sharp point. How close, then, do current models get?

Toshiba's Portege P500, at .77" thick, is only one-hundredth of an inch fatter than the MacBook Air. However, close inspection of PDF spec sheets reveals that this is at its thinnest point, while the Air is .76" at its thickest point. When it was released, Toshiba also called it the thinnest notebook in its class.

At $2,000 to start, the P500 more expensive, and it has iffy specifications: a 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 CPU and 1GB of RAM. On the other hand, it has excellent battery life and well-heeled design: if you're not so keen on Apple's teardrop shape and black keyboard, you may find the P500 better-looking thanks to its tiny screen bezels.

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