CES: Toshiba taps Sandy Bridge for new notebook PCs

LAS VEGAS: Toshiba has announced plans to incorporate Intel's Sandy Bridge chipset into its Satellite and Qosmio notebook lines.

The Sandy Bridge platform will equip the Toshiba systems with improved performance speeds as well as wireless display connections which will support video quality up to 1080p, the company said.

The new models will also support USB 3.0 and the Toshiba Sleep and Charge energy management system.

Rollouts of the new Qosmio and Satellite models to retailers is slated to take place over the next three months.

"Incorporating these new processors into our line will provide our customers with a more responsive PC experience and better battery life, two important improvements they've been asking for," said Ron Smith, information systems digital products vice president at Toshiba America.

Toshiba is among many PC vendors planning to offer new systems based on Sandy Bridge in early 2012. The Intel platform boasts improvements in processor and graphics performance as well as a new consumer multimedia platform.

Dubbed Intel Insider, the platform is being launched in co-operation with film studios to offer HD film releases as paid download and streaming services.

Not to be outdone, rival chipmaker AMD made news of its own at CES, rolling out the first versions of its Fusion line for ultra-portable systems such as netbooks.