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

Youll 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.

Toshibas 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 machines chipset.

The 1.1kg laptop uses the same casing as Toshibas Portégé R600, but the company claimed the new model will run for up to 12 hours on a single charge of its battery. Thats rather more than the R600 can manage.

Back to the SSD: its 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 its no slouch as SSDs go.

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

Source: Register Hardware