Toshiba Rolls Out WiMax Satellite Notebook

Not to be left out of the WiMax fray, Toshiba has rolled out a WiMax-equipped version of its Satellite U405 notebook.

Just yesterday Acer took the wraps off two WiMax equipped notebooks available for sale in Baltimore, the first city lite up on Sprint’s planned nationwide Xohm WiMax network. Now Toshiba is getting in on the act, rolling out a WiMax-equiped version of its Satellite U405 notebook with a 13.3-inch display and combined WiMax/Wi-Fi networking.

The Satellite U405-ST550W features an intel Core 2 Duo processor, an integrated Webcam with face recognition, a 320 GB hard drive, 4 GB of RAM, USB 2.0, and (interestingly) an eSATA port.

The Satellite U405 joins the two Acer models and four Lenovo ThinkPad models with WiMax options in the company’s X, L, and SL series.

Although Baltimore is currently the only city with active Xohm service, other cities are expected to come online soon, including Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Portland, Dallas, and Fort Worth. Xohm will eventually be run under the name Clearwire, as part of a joint partnership between Clearwire and Sprint. Despite the current economic crisis—and its own recent fiscal difficulties—Sprint remains bullish on the commercial possibilities of its WiMax network, which will represent the only so-called “4G” wireless broadband service available in the United States until LTE services come online from other providers in a few years. The real question is whether Sprint and its partners will be able to build out their (already much-delayed) WiMax infrastructure fast enough to capitalize on their window of opportunity…and, if they do, whether cash-strapped businesses and individuals will be willing to pay for the service.