The e-reader didn’t show up, and I kind of forgot about Mirasol–until yesterday. Here at Qualcomm’s Uplinq conference, there was a press conference with Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs, and  someone asked him about Mirasol. Which I wish I’d thought to do.

Jacobs said that the technology is still in the works. Qualcomm had indeed been readying an e-reader, but it wasn’t thrilled with it and decided that Mirasol needed more refinement in general. He said that there’s a Mirasol plant which Qualcomm expects to be manufacturing displays in six to eight months–but that won’t be mass production yet. And he didn’t give any estimates of when products with Mirasol screens might go on sale.

Bottom line: Mirasol is still on its way, but it isn’t imminent. It might still be exciting once it shows up–we still need displays that do color and animation and which can last for weeks on a charge.  And I think back to the first time I saw an OLED display. That was about a decade ago in a lab at Kodak. It was a very rough-around-the-edges OLED, and the technology didn’t start showing up in consumer products for several years. But when it did, it was awfully cool. Mirasol could be, too.

Toshiba's Portégé R830

When people ask me for recommendations about highly portable Windows notebooks, I’m quick to mention Toshiba’s Portégé R700–a reasonably-priced three-pounder that has a 13.3″ screen and even manages to pack a DVD burner into its trim, good-looking case. Today, Toshiba is announcing the R700′s successor–as well as two larger notebooks and a unique portable display. The company recently gave me a preview of its new wares.

The R700′s successor is called the Portégé R830, and it’s not a radical departure. Unlike netbooks and thin-and-lights that use low-power chips, the 3.1-lb machine is based on Intel’s more powerful new second-generation Core 2 Duo processor, aka Sandy Bridge. (Toshiba says that its air-cooling technology lets it pack the more potent CPU into the Portégé’s case without fear of overheating.) One of the USB ports is now a 3.0 one; the other is 2.0, but offers Toshiba’s Sleep-and-Charge feature, which lets you charge a device such as your phone even when the computer is otherwise powered down. Toshiba rates battery life at up to eleven hours with solid-state storage, a figure which, like all laptop battery claims, is probably on the optimistic side.

Like the R700, the R830 has a magnesium-alloy case with a honeycomb design–ie, strategically-placed holes–for lightweight rigidity; it doesn’t match the luxe feel of Apple’s aluminum unibody MacBook designs, but its quite nice.

Once again, Toshiba is offering this Portégé in two versions. The business-oriented R830 starts at $1049 (more with faster Core 2 Duos and solid-state storage), has an ExpressCard slot, and can be connected to a docking station. The slightly less fancy $888.99 R835 is designed for consumers: it doesn’t have the slot, can’t be docked, and has a one-year warranty instead of a three-year one, but adds Intel’s Wireless Display 2.0 feature for cable-free connections to HDTVs.

Toshiba’s other new models are in its full-strength, corporate-focused Tecra line–but their model names, the Tecra R840 and Tecra R850, are intended to indicate that they’re closer kins to the new Portégé than previous Tecras have been to its predecessor. The R840 is a 14″ notebook and the R850 is a 15.6″ one; while they’re not thin-and-lights and have beefy components such as 7200rpm hard drives, they are sleeker than the models they replace. (For instance, Toshiba says that the R840 is approximately 25 percent thinner and 20 percent lighter than the Tecra M11.) Like the Portégé, they use honeycomb case designs, but with fiberglass-reinforced materials rather than magnesium alloy. They offer second-generation Core 2 Duo processors with optional AMD Radeon discrete graphics with 1GB of DDR3 RAM.

The R840 starts at $899; the R850 starts at $879. (Yes, the larger model is $20 cheaper.)

Toshiba is also launching an intriguing laptop accessory: a Mobile Monitor that makes the venerable concept of adding a second display to your computer portable. It’s a 14″ screen that’s one inch thick and weighs three pounds, and it connects to notebooks–Toshiba and non-Toshiba alike–through a USB cable that provides both the image and power. (You can plug it into the wall for a brighter image.) It comes in a case which, like many iPad cases, unfolds into a stand that props the display into an upright orientation.

The Mobile Monitor is a niche product, but it looks quite well done and the $199.99 price is reasonable; it could be cool for serious road warriors who want a two-screen setup, as well as folks who do presentations and who don’t want to make everybody crowd around their notebook’s screen. It’s certainly a lot less weird than the various laptops with two built-in screens that have come and gone over the years.

It’s all driven by marketing hype: Manufacturers figure you’ll buy the monitor with the most impressive-sounding sounding numbers. Tech companies have a long history of making claims about their products that devolve into deceptive gibberish, and this may be the most troubling current case. Ray proposes an Energy Star-like program for certifying displays using standards that really mean something, which is a fabulous idea.

Ray’s testing is so thorough that it’s a multi-part story; even if you’re ultimately happy trusting your own eyes to judge if you’re happy with a display, his examination of the two phones makes for fascinating reading.

One striking thing is that while the naming conventions of MacBook and MacBook Pro live on, the difference in industrial design does not. And even in terms of specs, the differentiation between the two classes of machine is blurry.

Below are both models–that’s the plain MacBook up top–and except for the size and minor differences in proportions, they’re twins. And both, of course, look essentially like portable versions of the current iMac.

So how do they look up close? Good. Steve Jobs was reasonably restrained in his use of the reality distortion field this morning, but the new design is a giant leap beyond the current MacBook Pro (attractive but aging) and MacBook (pleasant but plasticky).

I want to be cautious about expressing opinions about the “unibody” cases based on a very quck hands-on with the new notebooks, but they do feel strong and solid. My MacBook Pro creaks a bit when my palm rests to the right of the touchpad; with luck, that won’t be an issue with a unibody case.

Speaking of the touchpad, which is made of glass and is its own button, with new multi-touch gestures, I didn’t get enough time with it to come to any conclusions–Jason Chen of Gizmodo liked it, though.

I did take a look at the underside of the MacBook Pro–Apple is the only company that makes computers with interesting undersides–and found it to be even simpler and sleeker than that of current MacBooks and MacBook Pros. The design is all-new, with a cover that spans the width of the case:

And here’s the inside of the bay (this is a MacBook).That’s the battery up top and the hard drive below; looks like access to the drive couldn’t be much easier. (It’s not bad with the old MacBook, but you need to loosen some screws and remove a bracket; with the old MacBook Pro, you don’t want to try and remove the drive.)

Here are the sides of both machines, with all ports neatly lined up on the left–they’re the same except that the MacBook (to) lacks FireWire and Express Card. Elegant and basically a good idea, although there are times when the fact that my current MacBook Pro has USB on both sides is an advantage from an accessbility standpoint.

Lastly, here’s the new $899 Cinema Display. It’s not the wacky one you can slide an entire MacBook into that people have wondered about based on Apple patents, but Steve Jobs spoke the truth: It looks like an excellent match for the new machines

And that’s all the photos I have. Lots more coverage of the new Macbooks to come…

his is, I’m reasonably sure, the last time I’ll write in any detail about what Apple may announce tomorrow at its notebook event. I’m about to hit the hay, and will be at the event itself not too long after I wake up. But information (some of which may turn out to be misinformation) is still hitting the blogosphere, and I thought a quick update made sense.

First of all, if you read only one more pre-event post, make it this one by Daring Fireball’s John Gruber. He’s the furthest thing from a rumormonger, and he seems quite positive about the following:

–the new MacBook Pro combines elements of the MacBook (latchless case), MacBook Air (black keyboard), and iMac (black frame around display) and indeed sports a case made out of one piece of aluminum;

–it has a glass touchpad with no button–you press the entire pad to click;

–this is a 15-inch MacBook Pro we’re talking about; there’s no new 17-inch one.

John then says “I have some educated guesses as to what else will be announced,” and I can’t quite tell if he means that everything after that sentence is less definitive. But he says that there are new MacBooks that are similar in industrial design to the new 15-inch Pro; that the MacBook Air is getting bigger hard drives; that all the systems have Nvidia’s 9400M GPU; and that the MacBook Pro also sports an Nvidia 9600M GT. (Yup, it supposedly has two GPUs.)

Oh…he also says that there is no $800 MacBook. (I’ll channel Joe Biden and say that again: There is no $800 MacBook.) But the current white MacBook will hang around at $999. And Apple will also introduce a 24-inch LED-backlit Cinema Display.

Okay, once you’ve read Daring Fireball, go to Engadget for a fuzzy photo of the new MacBook Pro. It certainly looks legit.

Actually, I think those are the only two posts you really need to read. See you at 10am tomorrow for our live coverage from Cupertino. Happy thought: By around 11:30am tomorrow, there will be absolutely no Macbook rumors to sort through. For a little while, at least…