Toshiba introduced today a brand new laptop, the R500 - S5007 V Portege which is expected to reach the top in the notebook market section. The company offers the first portable device with a single 128 Giga Bytes Solid State Drive.

A similar feature is available on the Alienware Area 51 m9750 which can reach 128 Giga Bytes SSD by combining two 64 Giga Bytes units, but for many, the new offer will make all the difference.

The laptop is available for $2,999 and includes a 1.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 2 GB DDR2 RAM, 12.1-inches screen and an integrated SuperMulti optical drive. Even though it only weights 2.4 pounds and the thickness is of just 0.77 inches, the announced battery life from a single charge is of about eight hours.

The main competitors, who actually made Toshiba upgrade its Portege device from a 64 GB SSD, are Apple’s Mac Book Air and Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300, both in the race with their own set of features and gadgets. The Mac Book Air weights 3 pounds and measures 0.76 inches in thickness and 12.8 inches in width. The ThinkPad X300 weights 3.4 pounds and measures 12.5 x 9.1 x 0.73 inches.

The reason why many companies are not considering for the moment a switch to the Solid State Drives and are sticking with the Hard Disk Drives is that the supplementary costs involved in the upgrade would surely reflect in their products’ prices which might scare off some of the potential customers. The SSDs are considered to be much better than the HDDs, offering a higher level of safety and efficiency due to the elimination of all moving parts. The lack of movement is translated in terms of reduced power consumption with an increased battery life, a faster access to information and also extended life for the components.