Toshiba Portégé G500 and G900

Expected Q2 / Q3 2007
10th April 2007

Toshiba is a familiar name when it comes to laptops, and one that will even be familiar to ShowMyMobile.com readers for their mobile phones (such as the TS921 and TS605). What's a little surprising then is that it's taken so long for Toshiba to put the two together and come up with some smartphones.

But here they are.. the G500 and G900 models bear the Portégé (pronounced port-ay-zhay) that Toshiba uses on its most compact laptops, presumably meaning that Toshiba are pitching the G500 and G900 models primarily as tiny Windows-based devices rather than just souped-up mobile phones.

Toshiba Portégé G500

The Portégé G500 (pictured right) is a fairly conventional looking slider phone at first glance. Underneath the G500's understated exterior is a Windows Mobile 5.0 smartphone with EDGE, 3G, HSDPA (we believe it is tri-band HSDPA) and WiFi data support plus local Bluetooth and USB connectivity.

One novel thing about the G500 is the fingerprint sensor which can also be used to navigate the handset's menus. We don't have much information on this except that the G500 also uses this as a security feature. The display is a 2.3" 240x320 pixel display and the Portégé G500 also has a 2 megapixel camera with a secondary video calling camera, miniSD expandable memory , VOIP capabilities and the bundled software package is the pretty familiar combination of features that comes with Windows Media 5.0.

The indications are that the Portégé G500 will be available in retail very soon, by the end of April or beginning or May for around £300 / €500.

Toshiba Portégé G900

A step up from the G500, the Portégé G900 (pictured left) runs the new Windows Mobile 6.0 operating system and has a 3" display with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. As with the other model, the Portégé G900 has 3G capabilities, WiFi, HSDPA, EDGE, a fingerprint scanner, Bluetooth, a 2 megapixel camera with a secondary one for video calls, miniSD expandable memory and VOIP support.

Windows Media 6.0 is a pretty new package, but essentially it offers the same useful business features as 5.0 does. This means that the G900 is potentially a very powerful little workhorse.

Toshiba say that the G900 should be available from summer 2007 although no pricing has been given.

Conclusion

Although Toshiba are a late entrant into this market segment, there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of competition to the dominant HTC. These two Portégé certainly seem competitive, and the fingerprint features looks to be very useful.. whether or not the combination of features and branding will make an impact remains to be seen.

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