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Toshiba Corp. launched an ultraportable notebook today, known as the Portégé R500-S5007V, that it claims to be the world’s lightest at only 2.4 pounds, surpassing Apple’s MacBook Air, which weighs approximately 3 pounds, and Lenovo’s Thinkpad X300, which weighs approximately 2.93 pounds. The notebook measures 0.77 inches at its thinnest point, according to Toshiba.

Toshiba also claimed that the new notebook was the first to include a 128GB solid-state drive rather than a hard drive, which will be the only option for now, according to a Toshiba representative. Toshiba said its new laptop can run for eight hours on a single battery charge, as it runs on a lithium-ion battery. Battery life is also preserved by the laptop’s transreflective 12.1-inch screen, which can shut down the LED backlighting by reflecting the sun’s rays to illuminate the screen.

Priced at $2,999, the notebook comes with:

• 1.33-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7700 processor
• 2MB of cache
• 2GB of RAM
• Windows Vista Business, which can optionally be downgraded to Windows XP Professional
• SuperMulti optical drive
• wired and wireless 802.11 a/g/n networking
• Bluetooth 2.0 support
• built-in safety features to protect data during falls

The new notebook will start shipping in the third quarter of 2008; however, Toshiba didn’t comment on worldwide availability. It looks as if Apple’s MacBook Air finally has some real competition.

Via [The New York Times]