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Toshiba ultrabook priced at $899 at Best Buy

Toshiba Portege Z830 series ultrabook will start at $899, well below the price of Apple's least expensive 13.3-inch MacBook Air.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Toshiba Z830 series ultrabook.
Toshiba Z830 series ultrabook. CNET Reviews

Toshiba's ultrabook will make one of its first appearances at Best Buy for $899, undercutting Apple's 13.3-inch MacBook Air by several hundred dollars.

The super-skinny 0.6-inch thick Z835 is slated to be sold exclusively at Best Buy for $899, according to Laptop Magazine.

Toshiba Portege Z835: That configuration includes a 1366x768 glossy display, magnesium casing, a 1.4GHz Core i3 processor (with Intel HD 3000 graphics), 4GB of memory, an SD card slot, HDMI output, a VGA ports, a USB 3.0 port, and a 128GB solid-state drive. All at only 2.45 pounds.

Apple MacBook Air: By comparison, Apple's least expensive 13.3-inch MacBook Air is priced at $1,299 with a 1440x900 display, aluminum casing, a Core i5 processor (with Intel HD 3000 graphics), 4GB of memory, Thunderbolt port, USB 2.0 ports, SD card slot, and a 128GB SSD. The Air weighs 2.96 pounds.

The Toshiba Z835 isn't the first $899 Windows ultrabook on the block, though. Acer announced its Aspire S3 in October for $899. (See CNET Review here.)

"At $899, the Z835 is a good value when compared to the $1,299 MacBook Air...but it makes a few compromises," Laptop Magazine said. Those compromises include the display (not as bright as the Air's) and performance (again, lower than the MBA's because of its use of lower-end Core i3 processor), according to the review.