Toshiba Portege R600 Gets WiMax Boost

Think of it as a future-proof 4G ultraportable. Toshiba’s business-friendly Portege R600-STS520W, will include Intel’s Wireless WiMax technology when it becomes available later this month, offering blazing download and upload speeds where that service is available. Where’s that, you ask? Alas, only Baltimore and Portland are lit up at the moment, but the new combined Clearwire and XOHM network should be rolling out to other cities in short order. According to the company, the Clear service should cover 60 to 80 million points of presence by the end of 2009 and between 120 and 140 million Americans by 2010. For $2,149 you also get a 1.4-GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 3GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive, plus a built-in slim optical drive and combination eSATA/USB Sleep-and-Charge port (for charging your phone and other gadgets even while the R600 is turned off). The rated battery life is an impressive 7.5 hours. We can’t wait to take the Portege R600-STS520W for a test drive and for Mobile WiMax to hit more cities.