The small amount of text accompanying the picture emphasises the care that’s gone into the design. In particular, it mentions that, despite its thinness, the Z830 has “all the ports you’ll need.”

Looking a little more closely at the picture, however, I’m not quite so certain that’s true:

So, that’s all the ports you’ll need… so long as you can fit your Kensington lock into a round socket – and cram your USB devices into a card slot.

While it gets harder and harder for manufacturers to differentiate their slates from the identikit masses, Toshiba’s done a great job of giving its AT200 a little personality of its own. The unfussy design looks plain yet elegant; a strip of black running along the tablet’s flat 7.7mm edges, arresting only when it reaches the ports on the tablet’s flank.

Those ports include micro-USB, microSD and Micro HDMI, although it’s worth noting that the AT200 can’t be charged via the USB connection, only via the docking connector on the underside.

The on button, volume controls and orientation lock, meanwhile, are almost camouflaged – hidden by the black strip binding the AT200’s edges.

It comes as little surprise that the  AT200 feels as feather-light in the hand as the 558g weight might suggest, but it also exudes an air of solidity. There’s no give or flex in the casing, and the brushed aluminium back adds a frisson of class to the proceedings.

The demo unit we got our hands on was running a temporary build of Android 3.2, so lacked any of the Toshiba-specific apps that will be included on the final retail models. However, performance was spritely thanks to the dual-core 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor and 1GB of RAM inside.

Elsewhere, there are few surprises. The 10.1in 1,280 x 800 screen looked bright and crisp, and we didn’t get a chance to properly test the 5-megapixel front-facing and 2 megapixel rear-facing cameras. All the usual tablet gadgetry is present and correct, however, with a 3D accelerometer, gyrometer, electronic compass and GPS. Wireless networking includes single-band 802.11n, Bluetooth 3.0 and optional 3G.

Toshiba’s been unusually specific about its battery tests, too, and with the screen set to 60cd/m2 (we presume that’s its dimmest setting) the AT200 manages eight hours of video playback or eight hours of usage divided into 65% web browsing over Wi-Fi, 10% video playback and 25% left on standby.

16GB and 32GB models will be the first to market later this year, with 64GB and 3G versions following soon after. As ever, Toshiba’s promised to make sure we get one of the first AT200’s to strut off the factory floor, so keep your eyes peeled for the PC Pro review.

The big news about the Toshiba mini NB550D netbook is the processor inside: no Intel Atom here, but AMD’s all new C-50 – a dual-core chip running at 1GHz.

And AMD is very enthusiastic about the platform as a whole, describing the combination of processor, chipset and graphics chip as an APU: accelerated processing unit.

Don’t be fooled into thinking you’re going to get staggering performance. We found the NB550D a little slow at times, with both cores of the processor sometimes fully utilised even when using Word.

The graphics performance is a little more interesting. 720p video played back smoothly as we’d expect, but it’s also capable of playing 1080p video stored locally. I watched a YouTube HD clip it was a lot more jerky, although that could be due to the wireless connection at the event.

As with the Toshiba mini NB520, which we previewed in December, there’s a pair of very nice Harman/Kardon speakers on offer. Toshiba assures us they’re identical units to the ones in the NB520D, and we were once again impressed by the music playback – even in a crowded showroom.

While Toshiba has moved away from the standard netbook configuration by offering an AMD processor, and using 2GB of RAM, the rest of the NB550D follows a familiar pattern.

The 1,024 x 600 screen is bright and easy on the eye, in line with previous Toshiba netbooks. There’s some visible grain if you look closely, but this a better screen than the netbook average.

I was more underwhelmed by the keyboard. It’s usable rather than great, with cramped keys meaning typos happen a little more than I’d like. Although that could just be my poor typing.

Build quality, on first use, seems strong. There are no dreadful flexes to cause concern, and we’d expect this machine to survive life in a bag with few worries.

Design is a subjective matter. I quite liked the honeycombed cover – it’s distinctive without being look-at-me overwhelming – and there’s a good variety of colours to choose from.

From bitter experience, which you can see to your left, I recommend you avoid choosing a colour that clashes with your jumper, though.

The big question, as ever, is pricing. We’ve chased Toshiba UK for a price, and to confirm the specs we can expect in the UK, but there’s no news as yet. Until then we’ll mark the NB550D as a promising machine, and certainly a welcome change from the tablets being released at this CES.

Any qualms as to whether Nvidia’s Tegra 2 is up to the job are soon dispelled – the Folio 100 eagerly zipped through the familiar Android menus, and the whole experience felt suitably slick and refined. The full-sized HDMI socket on the device’s edge gives a clear indication of the Tegra’s mighty graphics crunching power: this is one tablet that’ll relish the challenge of HD video playback. And, with Flash 10.1 on board, YouTube HD footage is only a few clicks away.

While most of the Folio 100s were tethered to a wall, secreted from the clumsy, prying hands of eager journalists, we found Toshiba’s conference demo unit sitting quietly in a dimly lit corner. But while we were pleasantly surprised by the fine figure of ViewSonic’s ViewPad tablets, Toshiba’s effort is a touch disappointing.

The 14mm thick chassis feels lightweight, and even relatively gentle twisting motions left the Folio’s plastic body creaking under the stress. It might weigh a very reasonable 760g, but if you’re expecting a Toshiba-branded iPad, this just isn’t it.

That 10.1in multitouch screen boasts the usual 1,024 x 600 pixel resolution, but image quality is also far from stellar. Tilting the Folio from side to side revealed narrow viewing angles, and the Android home screen looked noticeably less sharp than Viewsonic’s efforts.

At least the specification is more promising. The 16GB of internal storage is complemented by a full-sized SD card reader which supports cards up to 32GB. Wireless networking stretches to 802.11n speeds, while Bluetooth and 3G comes as standard. A 1.3 megapixel webcam rounds off the proceedings.

We’re not overly keen on the plasticky-feeling chassis, but with Toshiba suggesting the Folio 100 is going to retail for around 399 Euros, we’re willing to cut it some slack. The Folio 100 might yet be the Flash-enabled iPad killer some people have been waiting for.

1. The home screen

Here’s the most important screen of all: Home sweet Home. You’ll immediately note the four distinct “tabs” down the bottom, and the quick launch bar of pre-supplied apps.

What isn’t so obvious is that this is one of five “home” screens, but take a look at the top-right and you can see it’s the middle screen, as denoted by the bubble.

2. All the apps

I also mentioned in my first-look review that I was impressed by all the apps that were already on show, and you can see them here in their full glory. To access this screen (or to hide it), you just press the grid of buttons found on the bottom of the screen at the right.

3. DataViz Documents To Go

Toshiba is working in partnership with DataViz to provide a full-screen version of Documents To Go that provides full editing capabilities, but strips out certain features – such as the word count in the word processor.

You also can’t create new documents, but (as I mentioned in the first look) that’s easy enough to get round: just create a blank document on your PC, sync it across and use it as a virtual template via the wonder known as “Save As”.

Documents To Go also includes a spreadsheet, PDF viewer and presentation tool, and I include screenshots of them all below (and yes, the PDF viewer does look rather similar to the presenter):

4. File Manager

The AC100 includes an SD card slot and a USB port: just plug in your card or drive and their contents will appear in Toshiba’s File Manager. Right now, it’s best described as basic and functional, but it does offer a simple way to access and transfer files directly.

5. Picture gallery

And finally, for now at least, the picture viewer. Simply double-click on a picture to view it.

Microsoft’s Courier tablet might be languishing somewhere in a Redmond wheelie-bin, but Toshiba’s Libretto W100 has turned the keyboard-free concept into reality. With dual 7in touchscreens, a miniature netbook form factor and no sign of Intel’s weakling Atom, the Libretto takes a daring stride into the future.

Stepping out

First impressions are excellent, too. It manages the tricky balancing act of appearing light in the hand without feeling desperately insubstantial, and we were impressed to find the early pre-production units feeling so physically well finished. Brushed aluminium constrasts nicely with the gloss black trim, and the whole effect is one of understated class.

What’s probably not immediately apparent from the photographs is how small it is. Measuring just 202mm wide and 123mm deep, it’s easy to mistake the Libretto for a plump, miniaturised netbook. It is admittedly fairly thick around its waist – a chunky 31mm – but given how much Toshiba has crammed into its lightweight 840g frame, it’s still impressively petite.

While we would have been entirely unsurprised to find the Libretto sporting a decidedly modest specification, any fears that Toshiba might have crippled the Libretto with a sluggish Atom processor were soon dispelled. Instead, we were relieved to find a 1.2GHz Intel Pentium U5400 processor taking pride of place alongisde 2GB of DDR3 memory and a 62GB SSD.

It’s a seriously powerful combination for such a dainty device -  not least as the U5400 is more commonly found in significantly larger CULV laptops – but it’s just as well conisdering that the Libretto is running Windows 7 Home Premium.

Physical connections are unsurprisingly frugal – Toshiba’s furnished the Libretto with nothing more than a USB port, a 3.5mm audio output and a MicroSD card reader – but wireless connectivity covers every base with 802.11n, Bluetooth and an optional integrated 3G adapter.

Touching down

Fire up the Libretto and it’s immediately impressive: the twin touchscreens – yes, they’re multi-touch capable – are bright and clear with not a hint of grain, and each of the 7in panels has a modest resolution of 1,024 x 600 pixels.

Initially, the Windows desktop stretches across both screens just like any multi-monitor setup. It’s undeniably novel: whether you want to run different applications side by side or stretch webpages or Word documents across both displays, you can. Flip the Libretto round to hold it like a book, and the accelerometer shifts the Windows desktop around to match.

There is, of course, one crucial laptop ingredient missing from the Libretto: a keyboard. Instead, dabbing the keyboard button toggles Toshiba’s software keyboard on and off. Use the Libretto in the usual laptop orientation, and, initially at least, it’s a fairly unsettling experience: haptic feedback gives a clear indication as to whether you’ve successfully hit a key or not, but, conversely, the limited width of the display means that touch-typing is all but out of the question.

It’s far from unusable, though. Mistakes are inevitable, but entering text into dialog boxes, emails or documents is made easier thanks to the T9 dictionary which throws up suggestions and corrections. Meanwhile, dabbing the on-screen keyboard icon swaps between various different keyboard layouts, such as the split keyboard which makes it possible to hold the Libretto and type with your thumbs. And should you ever need one, there’s also an on-screen touchpad.

Getting the most out of such an unusual device is clearly beyond the abilities of Windows 7 Home Premium, however, and Toshiba has tried to plug the gap with its LifeSpace suite of software.

ReelTime uses a touch-friendly interface to list recently accessed documents, previewing their contents on the adjacent display, and the Bulletin Board area allows users to pin notes, documents and links to a virtual pin-board. But by far our favourite part of Toshiba’s LifeSpace? There’s a virtual piano.

Sounding off

The hardware was most definitely pre-production, suffering from sluggish fits of pique, and regularly unresponsive touchscreens, but, warts and all, it’s difficult not to come away a little bit impressed.

Indeed, you’ve got to admire the sheer chutzpah of Toshiba in releasing such a bold product. Is it practical? From our brief outing with it, we’d have to say not. Will it be affordable? Well, if by affordable you mean cheaper than, say, the iPad, then probably not.

Look at it as a technological showpiece which physically embodies Toshiba’s mantra of Leading Innovation, though, and it almost begins to make sense. It’s innovative, thoughtfully designed and, to its credit, more than a little bit bonkers. We can’t wait to get one in for a full PC Pro review.

Perhaps reflecting our new era of austerity, the Portégé R700 has a mainstream price: £629 exc VAT for the base model with a Core i3 processor. Not that this has stopped Toshiba from investing in new features.

Top of the list is its “Airflow Cooling Technology”, which Toshiba developed in tandem with Intel. This involves a miniaturised motherboard that positions the processor and all the other components that require cooling near the edge of the chassis, allowing a single fan to constantly cool them. And, rather than wait for the processor to become hot, it blows air all the time.

According to Toshiba, this is what allows it to include a Core i3, i5 or i7 processor in such a slim machine. While we do have some criticisms – which we’ll come to later – this shouldn’t undermine what is a notable achievement. If you wanted a 13in ultraportable measuring under 30mm thick before, your options (think the Lenovo ThinkPad X301) were limited to ultra-low-voltage processors. Indeed, while the X301 is impressively thin at 24mm, the R700 measures 17mm at its thinnest point.

The R700 is staggeringly quick too. Our test sample used a 2.4GHz Core i5-520M with a healthy 4GB of DDR3 memory for company, and it sliced through all the apps we threw at it without any hint of a delay.

Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a silent laptop, however. In our tests, the fan was audible despite its relatively low spin rate, and when we pushed the Core i5 sample in our test machine the fan audibly revved up. That said, this was a pre-production unit so we’ll wait to see how the final machines cope with hard graft.

Another change in the R700 compared to the R600 is the lid. We criticised the R600’s for having a little too much flex for comfort, and the addition of magnesium alloy has certainly stiffened it in the R700’s incarnation. It’s not ruggedised by any means, but should withstand daily bashes.

While the bottom of the chassis is again magnesium alloy, the palmrest area (despite its brushed metal appearance) is plastic. That could be an issue if ham-fisted users lean down on the left-hand side, as the hard disk sits directly beneath.

The isolated keyboard is unexceptional but usable, but we’re fans of the responsive touchpad – and Toshiba has added a nice touch by including a switch above it to turn it off. That can be incredibly useful when typing, as it prevents the annoyance of accidentally tapping the touchpad and moving the cursor to a different part of your document.

We also enjoyed using the 13.3in screen. It may not have the highest resolution in the world – 1,366 x 768 – but this ensures system text is easy to read without fussing about with dots per inch.

And it’s this size of screen (combined with the Core i3, i5 and i7 processors) that helps turn the R700 into a very usable everyday laptop, as opposed to an ultraportable you turn to when portability is your priority. Note that some models include an optical drive as well.

We were using a pre-production sample for testing, so we’ll hold off a full verdict until a finished unit arrives in our Labs for benchmarking. It’s only then that we’ll be able to verify Toshiba’s claims of up to nine hours’ battery life as well.

But in terms of outright power in a highly portable form, we’ve been blown away by the latest Portégé. if it lives up to its promise, the R700 could well be vying for a place atop our Executive Laptops A List.

And let’s make no mistake: this is a device you can take anywhere. It’s tiny, measuring just 26.2cm wide and 21mm thick at its fattest point (the rear). And it weighs a miniscule 870g. The benefit of the clamshell design over a slate such as the Apple iPad is obvious too – chuck it in a bag and you don’t need to worry about protecting the screen.

What’s fascinating about the AC100, though, is the choice of Google Android as an operating system. Toshiba isn’t the first to opt for this route: Acer produced the Aspire One D250 last year, which dual-booted Android with Windows 7, but at that point we felt Android wasn’t ready for the big screen.

While our AC100 was a very early sample, with a developer version of the OS, it’s already clear that Toshiba has put a lot more effort into making it work with a 1,024 x 600 resolution.

For instance, press the on-screen shortcut at the bottom right and all the available applications fill the screen. These range from Fring (a VoIP service) to Opera Mobile to EverNote (a note-taking tool) to a YouTube player. Most Android applications should work, although they’re unlikely to take advantage of the screen’s high resolution.

One app that will is the special version of DataViz Documents to Go that will be bundled with the AC100. This brings the ability to edit word processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations, although not create new ones. That said, you can convert a Word or Excel document and click Save As, so this restriction is easy to work around. What might persuade you to upgrade to the full version is a lack of a word count and advanced formatting.

There are other nice touches too, including the ability to associate different desktops with the wireless networks you use. So, you can have a home desktop with YouTube and social-networking widgets, and a work desktop with the email client to the fore.

We can also see signs that Toshiba has put effort into making the hardware and software work together. The Escape key doubles up as a Back key, a search key launches the Quick Search tool, while four useful buttons sit at the top-right of the keyboard that allow to you bring up settings, switch between open applications, launch the web browser and switch to the email client.

Another key inclusion sits inside the chassis, with Nvidia’s Tegra processor taking pride of place. This has some similarities with the chip inside the iPad, running at 1GHz and being based on the ARM9 architecture. It proved enough to keep the AC100 feeling nippy, and 512MB of RAM means it’s capable of multitasking without freezing.

Rather ambitiously, Toshiba also includes an HDMI port on the left-hand side of the chassis. An SD card slot and headphone jack also sit on the left of the chassis, with the right home to a single USB port, power connector and a mini-USB port. The latter could be used to synchronise the AC100 with your main PC, just as you would a mobile phone.

These ports are housed in a curious yellow surround, which brings some welcome relief to the dark grey plastic used for the rest of the chassis. If it was any larger, this monotonous finish – despite a hatched, honeycomb effect on the lid – would make the AC100 look rather dull, but being so slim and compact it gets away with it.

Far more importantly, the 10.1in screen itself looks great. We half-expected Toshiba to skimp here and include a sub-standard panel, but in terms of quality it rivals the best netbooks. The keyboard is more mediocre, with bouncy keys that don’t provide much resistance, but the keys themselves are well sized so we had no difficulty typing at speed. The trackpad and mouse keys are big and responsive too.

The final inclusions of note are inside the chassis. It includes 802.11bgn wireless, Bluetooth and some models will integrate mobile broadband. A 1.3-megapixel webcam completes the picture.

So we’re largely impressed by the AC100. If Toshiba can price it right (all we know so far is that it will be “similar” in price to a netbook), then it may carve out a niche in the same way the Apple iPad has – but with the advantage of a more rugged clamshell design and a keyboard.

An awful lot rests on the final software, however, and initially buyers might be disappointed that it comes supplied with Android 2.1. As a result, Flash won’t play, rather denting the AC100’s internet browsing abilities. Toshiba promises an update to Android 2.2 (which will fully support Flash) won’t be too long in coming, and that it will be an over-the-air upgrade.

The AC100 certainly needs this to be a compelling buy, but even in its raw state we’d be fascinated to know what you think: would you buy one? And would it be instead of, or to accompany, a second laptop?

I wrote here about upgrading my old (and horribly unreliable, until it was repaired) MacBook Pro laptop with a solid-state drive: this was another Red Watch trick, to stop me looking at other, later, sexier MacBooks. Now, I’m carrying an HP nc4400, because it’s small enough that I can ignore pretty piano-black netbooks, and it runs Vista, which hasn’t done anything nasty to me yet and helps me to avoid buying one copy of Windows 7 per laptop… You begin to see the pattern here.

So when the iPad seemed imminent, I went back to my basic principles. I had already rescued my oldest laptop with a Compact Flash disk upgrade, after being obliged to fall back on it because it has a genuine, no-messing 9-pin serial port. Lots of switches and routers use a serial connection as part of the “I’m a brick, fix me” mode they occasionally enter: so replacing the 13GB rotating iron platter drive (c. 1997) with an 8GB solid state Compact Flash made perfect sense. However, for blog purposes this job is low on good evidence, because Tecra 8000’s put their disks inside dent-prone alloy carrier shells, so you can’t easily see what I was up to.

Which is when I came across intense substitute temptation: a data-wiped Portege 7010CT. These were the executive’s delight a decade and a half ago, coming with no CD in the main laptop and a somewhat chunky docking unit, carrying excellent speakers, a DVD drive with hardware decoder, a floppy – all the stuff you didn’t really need while actually working.

Mindful of the likely super-long-term requirement for the Tecra 8000 in switch-recovery duties, I thought: how cool would it be to have an SSD Portege? As it turns out, I was the only person to think this, because I got the whole machine for £12. That’s a whole laptop, with a wiped drive admittedly, for less than it was going to cost me to buy replacement lid hinges for my wobbly-screened nc4400. I already knew how good the quality of the parts in a Portege are because lots of them are shared with the Tecras, and I definitely wanted something I could write on – which means a good keyboard, a clear screen, longish battery life and ideally, no ability to connect to the internet whatsoever. The Portege looked ideal.

Hand on heart, when it arrived I don’t think I have seen a second-hand laptop in as good a nick. Either Toshiba were making self-healing plastics back in the nineties or this little machine has been shut up on someone’s desk, in docked mode with the screen off, for ten solid years.

With no real idea whether it would work or not I grabbed a 16GB CF card (£40, the largest expenditure) and a no-name CF to Laptop IDE adapter card for another £9. As it turned out, the hardest part was taking a pair of cutters to the “extra” pin on the adapter card – laptop drives blank off one pin, and I was left guessing which way up the adapter went.

Clearly I picked right, because when it came to taking out my very precious original retail CD of Windows 98 Second Edition, the whole machine behaved as if it had a very, very fast drive in it. Installing Windows 98 wasn’t quite the breeze I was hoping for – incredibly, Toshiba still allows you to download the NeoMagic graphic card drivers, but there are diverting listing sites that point you to other installers, and these make the Portege behave as if the LCD controller chip has had an aneurism.

Once built up, I was delighted by the two things that matter to writers above all else; battery life and keyboard quality. The little devil even connects to the net – but only on the docking station, which improves my writing no end by obliging me to stay offline while tapping away.

So no queuing for me, no applause from the Jobsworths (that is a pun – I said my writing was improving) – just a terrible sequence of ever more shakily-justified small purchases to support the revived laptop. Now I have a 6000mAh battery (four whole hours!) and I’m hunting for PCMCIA network cards, and the elusive USB key storage driver for Windows 98. That is, until I saw a Lenovo Thinkpad X100, which ticks all the same boxes as the Portege (apart from keeping off the net!). It also fits into the ‘Red Watch’ rule, because while it has an Atom-speed processor, it’s from AMD, not Intel. Could this be another way to stay out of reach of temptation?

While this does have its benefits, particularly for power users of Excel, it takes a little while to get used to the arrangement; for example, finding the Backspace key when typing quickly. Toshiba compensates for this by making this key, and the right Shift key, nice and large – possibly the biggest hindrance will be the half-width Enter key.

In virtually every other ways, it’s identical to the Toshiba Tecra A11. This even extends down to the ports on offer (four USB 2.0, mini-DisplayPort, eSATA, D-SUB), with the sole exception being the omission of a serial port.

Fire it up, though, and you’ll notice a glossy display rather than the matte screen on the Tecra. This makes sense for a laptop that’s trying to appeal to consumers in PC World just as much as it does for businesses.

And this is the gap the Satellite Pro S500 is attempting to fill: a serious laptop for business use that people will also be happy taking home to use in the evenings and weekends.

It certainly has enough power on tap. Intel’s Core i3-330M processor sits inside, and with 4GB of DDR3 memory on hand it will race through even the toughest tasks.

The argument falls down a little when it comes to graphics, with only Intel’s integrated offering on show. That’s fine for decoding even Full HD video (though note the screen is 1,366 x 768), but anyone who enjoys playing demanding 3D games should look elsewhere. At least there’s a 320GB hard disk for storing lots of content.

One feature will attract both business users and consumers: the price. At £499 inc VAT, you’re getting a very powerful machine for a very reasonable cost. Especially when it’s backed by Toshiba’s failsafe guarantee: if something fails within the warranty period, aside from problems caused by accidental damage, then Toshiba will repair the Satellite Pro and give you your money back.

We look forward to getting a model into our Labs for a proper performance test, and to see how long the battery lasts in real-world use.