Toshiba first with half-a-terabyte SSD laptop

Toshiba has begun selling what it claims is the first notebook to come with a 512GB solid-state drive as standard.

You'll have to live in Japan - or know someone there - to get your mitts on the Dynabook SS RX2 WAJ, but if you manage it you not only get the aforementioned SSD but also a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 processor, 3GB of 667MHz DDR 2 memory, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, Gigabit Ethernet and all the usual trimmings.

Toshiba's Dynabook SS RX2 WAJ: 512GB SSD on board

The display is a 12.1in 1280 x 800 job driven by the Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics core built into the machine's chipset.

The 1.1kg laptop uses the same casing as Toshiba's Portégé R600 - reviewed here - but the company claimed the new model will run for up to 12 hours on a single charge of its battery. That's rather more than the R600 can manage.

Back to the SSD: it's a multi-layer cell job that Toshiba claimed has a sustained write speed of 180MB/s and a sustained read speed of 230MB/s. So it's no slouch as SSDs go.

The laptop's available today for ¥398,000 (£2755/$4172/€3065) or ¥423,000 (£2928/$4434/€3258) if you want Microsoft Office as well as Vista. ®