Toshiba announced KIRAbook first laptop behind the MacBook Pro Retina and Chromebook pixels that has a very high resolution than Full HD screen.

Toshiba KIRAbook is a "killer" (one of the translations of the word kira in Japanese) for MacBook Pro. This Ultrabook decidedly upscales competition not only for the MacBook Pro with Retina display, but also the MacBook Air in terms of thickness and weight.

A qHD screen with 2560 x 1440 pixels

Of course the goal is not to expand the area displayed as a 27-inch screen, the interface would be unreadable on such a diagonal, but double the resolution. Elements are likely to be the same size as a WXGA screen, but they will be much better defined.

Depending on the model, this screen is also touch.


A high-end configuration

The magnesium alloy shell of the first KIRAbook measures 1.77 inches thick for a total weight of only 1.2 kg.

It houses an Intel Ivy Bridge Ultrabook Core i5-3337U (dual core from 1.8 to 2.7 GHz) or Core i7-3537U (dual core 2 to 3.1GHz) depending on the model. It is associated in both cases to 8GB of DDR3 RAM and a 256 GB SSD Connectivity that includes Wi-Fi N, Bluetooth 4.0, three USB 3.0 ports, an SDXC card slot, HDMI output and an input / combined output audio. Finally, it claims a battery life of 8 hours and Windows 8.

Toshiba KIRAbook will be marketed in the United States mid-May at $1600 to $2000. For comparison, the MacBook Pro Retina 13 is sold at $1500 to $1700, but it is significantly thicker and heavier (1.9 cm and 1.62 kg).