First 21:9 UltraBook Revealed by Toshiba

Japanese electronics and technology giant Toshiba is always trying the enthusiasts filled Japanese market with novel and sometimes strange solutions. The company’s new 21:9 UltraBook is a perfect example of good technology in a very strange package.

The new mobile computing unit from Toshiba is called Satellite U840W and although it reportedly weighs in at a little bit less than four pounds, the company is calling it an UltraBook. The only thing that could be characterized as “ultra” about the Toshiba’s Satellite U840W is the screen format and that’s rather an ultra-weird 21:9 format sporting an atypical 1792 by 768 pixel resolution. We haven’t the slightest idea about what Toshiba is trying to achieve with this strange design, but the company claims the old cliché that “it can display widescreen movies without black bars on the top and bottom of the screen.” Does this mean that all those TV and display manufacturers that claimed that the 16:9 format is ideal for the FullHD widescreen resolution were lying through their teeth? We would gladly welcome the 4:3 format along with the logical and decent 16:10 format back in our life if any of the manufacturers has the decency to deliver the same amount of screen surface that they were offering half a decade ago.

This 21:9 format we would respectfully let it just for Toshiba’s PR and marketing guys along with the managing leaders that decided to market such a device. The rest of Toshiba’s Satellite U840W is pretty decent performance wise. We have Intel’s Ivy Bridge processor with a rather peculiar 10 GB or RAM maximum configuration and a nice tandem of storage devices. Toshiba’s Satellite U840W comes with a 500 GB HDD, but also has a 32 GB SSD for caching. The body of the laptop has a nice metal texture and WiDI support along with USB 3.0 connectivity is also present. The model will likely have two names, Satellite 840W for Europe and 845W for the rest of the world.

And for the final disappointing tough, despite the screen looks like it’s a 17.3” or 18.4” model, it’s just a meager 14.4” with a mediocre TN panel. There’s no word on battery life and whole thing is not what we’d call thin. The keyboard is backlit with a nice blue light and the whole thing costs about 900 quids. That’s around 1400 USD or 1150 EUR for the buyers that like strange experiments.

Posted in: Hardware, Preview