Toshiba Ships Dual-Band Laptop

Now shipping from Toshiba’s Computer Systems Group (CSG) is the Satellite Pro 6100 series of notebooks, the first with dual-band 802.11a/b wireless networking built in.

Any PC in the 6100 series can work with the ubiquitous 11Mbps networks running 802.11ba — the top of the line model will also work with 54Mbps networks running 802.11a.

In the release announcing the product, Rich Redelfs, president and CEO of Atheros Communications, said “advanced 802.11a capabilities along with support for legacy 802.11b provide business users with the investment protection they look for when buying a new laptop.” The Wi-Fi chipset used in the Satellite is from Atheros.

This product is the first laptop with dual-band capabilities built in. It runs an Intel Mobile Pentium 4 Processor-M up to 2.20GHz.

Next year, Intel Corp.’s Banias Mobile Platform will be used in many OEM laptops and it will include integrated wireless, but the company yesterday announced that it will be delaying use of the dual-band chipset (codenamed Calexico) integrated with Banias. Instead, Intel’s early Banias-based laptop customers will have only 802.11b support, using a chipset from Philips.

Other specs for the dual-band version of the Satellite 6100 include a 15-inch UXGA resolution LCD screen with NVIDIA GeForce4 420 Go graphics processor, a built in DVD-R/RW drive, 512MB of DDR RAM, and the ability to use docking stations and accessories common to Toshiba’s Tecra 9100 and Portégé 4110 lines.

The Satellite 6100 will start with a price of $1,799 with a 1.8GHz Pentium 4 and 802.11b only; the high end model with dual-band Wi-Fi has a 2.2GHz Pentium 4 and costs $2,799.

Eric Griffith is the managing editor of 802.11 Planet.