Toshiba Portege R700: A Truly Ultraportable 13.3"
by Vivek Gowri on September 7, 2010 6:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- SSDs
- Toshiba
- Portege R700
Toshiba Portege R700—Conclusion
The Portege R700 is a great notebook, make no mistake about it. It’s extremely thin and light, one of the lightest 13.3” notebooks on the market, especially for notebooks that include an optical drive. Yes, there are myriad flaws, like the occasionally flimsy construction, the terrible disk image it’s loaded with, and the pretty woeful screen. Evaluated as a mainstream ultraportable, it’s pretty great. You get quite a bit for your dollar if you stick to the $799 R705 model available through Best Buy, with a Core i3, 4GB memory, 500GB hard drive, and WiDi. For a notebook that has an aluminum chassis, magnesium casing, a 3.2lb carrying weight, and 8 hours battery life, that’s an awesome deal. That combination of features, performance, and portability alone are good enough to make it my pick for road warriors on a budget.
But that assessment comes based on the lower price of the R705. It even holds mostly true for the lower-end R700 models. But for our $1599 test unit? It’s not that good of a deal, and the flaws which are excusable at lower price points become that much more prominent in a higher end market. Also, it comes down to the R700-S1330 simply not being worth twice as much as the R705—yes, you get bumped from a Core i3 to a far faster 2.66GHz Core i7, and also get a 128GB SSD in place of the standard 500GB mechanical hard drive, but it’s not that big of a difference considering every other thing about it is the same.
For a little bit more than the R700-S1330, you can get yourself a very nice—and more powerful—Sony VAIO Z series ($1749 on Newegg currently, even less than that if you’re willing to search). That gets you a Core i5-520M, an Optimus-enabled Nvidia GT 330M, two 64GB SSDs in RAID 0, a 3.04lb chassis, and a stunning 13.1” high-res screen. I don’t have numbers for the display, but having seen it in person, it’s absolutely amazing. It’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder how Toshiba could justify charging $1599 for this.
But again, as I said before, the problem is not with the R700 series itself. It’s a well designed, fantastically portable notebook, and in R705-trim, quite a good value to boot. However, this particular configuration is simply not worth the money Toshiba is charging for it. You’d be better off spending a bit more for a better computer or just getting a lower-end R700 model and dropping an SSD into it on your own (along with wiping the factory Win7 install).
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FH123 - Wednesday, September 8, 2010 - link
Not so simple. I have a T410s. Yes, it's better in most regards, however the screen is actually worse. Yes, hard to believe though it is, notebookcheck.net have measured it at only 95:1 contrast and the vertical viewing angles are virtually non-existent. Does the T410 have a decent screen?seanleeforever - Wednesday, September 8, 2010 - link
yeap. the s is for slim, but you sacrifice the screen quality (not that they have good screen to begin with).bring back the IPS/AFFS flexview....while i appreciate my 400 nit outdoor IPS tablet, i can use a 15 inch with 1920*1200 resultion for my CAD work.
Belard - Friday, September 10, 2010 - link
To me, the normal notebook (business) viewing angle is fairly straight on. Having others in a meeting having easier screen access is not my desire. We can't have everything... perhaps in 10 years, we can have screens that switch to narrow and wide view angles :)Here is my ThinkPad screen experience:
I'm typing this on my R61 (R500 replaced it - then the Ls replaced Rs).
I'm fine with its low-res screen (1280x800), its brighter and more colorful than the T61.
The SL-500 looks better than the T61.
The T410s looked okay to me.
The T410 looked better than the SL510.
In general, Glossy screens - by their nature, have higher contrast over most matter screens for notebooks and even many desktop screens.
Theres a give and take going on here. Like many years ago, Anandtech would give a NEG to a mobo review for having the DIMM slots next to the PCIe slot... but if that problem wasn't there, it meant one less PCIe slot. I posted/email... you can't have it both ways ;) Then they started pointing this out ;)
So can Lenovo go with a much better LCD screen? Yes... if they are even being made. but at what costs?
We live in a time in which Notebooks costs $300 and up with a 15" screen. Unlike 10+ years ago when a ThinkPad went for $3000~6000!
ThinkPads would be DEAD without some sacrifice.
A: Glossy notebook for $600 vs:
B: ThinkPad for $2000, both with same CPU/hardware stats.
Almost nobody will buy the ThinkPAD! Sell it for $600~1000, its marketable.
I paid $500 for my R61, new. Next to it in a store, an IDEA-PAD for $600.
Mine came with the PDC @1.6Ghz / 1GB / 40GB HD / WinXP-Pro.
The IdeaPAD had a C2D @ 2.2Ghz / 3GB / 100GB HD / Vista-Home / Camera.
I was going to spend $100 for XP Pro for the IdeaPAD... the matte screen and stronger body sold me on the ThinkPad. Even thou the IdeaPAD was a "better" deal in many ways.
My 3 year old ThinkPad has been upgraded to 2GB and runs Windows7 like a champ... it runs better than it ever did with XP.
Using a friends T410, I love it.
But I wouldn't recommend ANY 15" Thinkpad to anyone anymore... they are EXTRA-Widescreen. So the 14" is just as tall, screen wise and about 1.5 lbs lighter. Yep, the T410(s) screens are just as tall as my 3-year old's 15" screen. Hate these wide-wide screens.
I4U - Saturday, October 9, 2010 - link
Dell proposed, some years ago, a display option to narrow the view angle.QChronoD - Wednesday, September 8, 2010 - link
Would it be possible for you guys to have a separate page on the site that gives a condensed breakdown of the major specs for the different laptops/cpus/ssd/etc that you are always comparing against. (tech-report had one a few years ago that I was always going back to for cpu reviews) It's been years since I've been able to figure out WTF Intel and AMD model numbers really mean since they change them so frequently.Also it would help when looking at the benchmark numbers for systems so we can focus on those with the specs/price we are most interested in.
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 9, 2010 - link
I use the following two web pages ALL the time:http://products.amd.com/en-ca/NotebookCPUResult.as...
http://ark.intel.com/Default.aspx
Wikipedia also has a good list of CPUs and chipsets (and a ton of other stuff as well). I've considered trying to get some sort of setup where users can click on a result to get the full laptop specs; maybe we'll try to do that when we do Mobile Bench.
BushLin - Thursday, September 9, 2010 - link
"The result is a notebook that is reportedly both lighter and stiffer than the previous Portege R500 and R600 notebooks"Sorry to urinate in your soup but the R700 is considerably heavier (in ultra-portable terms) than both the R500 and R600 models. This isn't surprising since the R700 has a larger screen and less compromise on rigidity in order to save weight. I look after my laptops and sad to see the R600 is now unavailable and doesn't have a direct replacement. There are no sub 1KG (2.2lbs) models from Toshiba currently.
Osamede - Thursday, September 9, 2010 - link
When this Toshiba was announced a lot of people claimed it would be a Sony Z killer and I knew it wouldnt. Toshiba actually has the ultraportable heritage and pedigree but TODAY toshiba is no longer about making top notch products.Which is why they initiall fudged on the specs of the screen. I knew it would be a bottom-of-the-barrel 768p screen with low contrast - and so it is in the end.
Why Toshiba would bother shouting about this laptop I dont know. Its actually heavier than the Sony Z and not as good all round, depsite having a lower res screen. Worse yet there are a million Acer and Acer models that provide better value and durability.
A pointless product release. Toshiba should just quit this market and go home.
gescom - Friday, September 10, 2010 - link
Sony Z12 = unbeatable machine!Period.
BrianTho2010 - Friday, September 10, 2010 - link
Vivek,I can not stay for sure of the R700, but the R500 and R600 which have VERY similar designs have an all magnesium chassis. I would double check with Toshiba if in fact the R700 is using aluminum and not magnesium.
-Brian