Review: Toshiba Portege R700
From the moment you pull the Toshiba Portege R700 from its accompanying leather suitcase, you can tell it’s going to be a class act. There’s none of the plastic smudge of a cheap Fisher-Price netbook, and all of the class and business prowess of a Lenovo ThinkPad, and portability to match the MacBook Air and Acer Aspire Timeline X series.
Although you’ll be pleased with the aesthetic finish of the Toshiba Portege R700 (subtle plastic that appears to have a brushed metal finish), what you’ll come to appreciate most over time is its extreme portability. While at 25.7mm thick at its deepest point, the Portege R700 isn’t going to fit inside a manilla envelope any time soon, it feels stunningly light for a 13.3-inch laptop – and considering the full power innards, that’s impressive.
Despite its tiny form factor, the review sample we saw featured a high-powered Intel Core i7 processor and 4096MB of DDR3 memory. Core i3 and i5 models are also planned for the Toshiba Portégé R700's release and even at this pre-production stage this is one of the most powerful ultraportables we’ve seen.
During preliminary testing, we found the Toshiba Portégé R700 extremely fast to use, running standard office applications and more demanding programs with ease. The use of an integrated Intel GMA HD graphics card means even basic multimedia tasks such as photo or video editing are also possible.
Specifications:
Dig a little deeper, however, and the DNA of the R500 and R600 is plain to see. Still present is the impossibly thin and somewhat flexible lid, while the arrangement of the fingerprint reader between the two touchpad buttons and the chromed hinges have been lifted straight from its predecessors. In other words, this isn't a wholly new machine, merely another evolution upon a theme.
The port design of the R700 is also said to be improved over the R600 in that all of the major ports use harnesses now. The power and USB ports, which are the most used ports on a notebook, all use leads to connect to the motherboard, which means that there of damaging the board if you plug a peripheral in too forcefully. The power port even has three dabs of glue holding it in place, which let it withstand more force without getting unstuck.
The optical drive, hard drive and dock connections, which were traditionally connected and held to the motherboard via solder alone, now overlap the circuit board and are screwed together so that the solder doesn't have to take survive any tugs from these connections. All these little behind the scenes tricks should come together to hopefully make the Toshiba Portege R700 battery immune to breakage. Even the wireless antennas have undergone a transformation and are now 'chip-mounted'. Their wires still snake around the screen though.
Toshiba claims the third-gen SSD offerings for the Portégé R700 offer between five and 10 per cent better performance over second-generation drives. Toshiba also says that from July all of its SSD offerings in all product ranges will shift to third-generation drives, so the Portégé R700 won't be the only platform to benefit from the new SSDs. Only the two high-end models of the Portégé R700 will include an SSD; the other three models in the range will have conventional hard drives.
Graphics performance will be handled by the integrated Intel QM57 chipset, which will be powerful enough to drive the 1366x768-resolution screen, as well as Full HD resolution via the HDMI port in the side of the chassis. You also get two USB 2.0 Sleep-and-Charge ports, VGA, a combination eSATA/USB 2.0 port, headphone and microphone ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, an SD card slot and, depending on the model you choose, you'll get an ExpressCard slot and a built-in 7mm thick DVD burner.
In a break from tradition, Toshiba has broken away from their traditional aluminium finish for the Portégé. The new R700 has a brushed matte black finish that looks elegant. Although we didn’t put the R700 through a tough roadtest, it was obvious that the finish wouldn’t scratch easily and could take being carried in a backpack without having to worry about superficial damage.
The ins and outs are well covered. The R700 has a pair or USB 2.0 ports. Conveniently, one is placed on either side of the unit so so that one side of the device doesn’t get too cluttered if multiple devices are connected. Toshiba’s USB drivers allow for USB ports to be used for device charging when the computer is in either “sleep” or “stand-by” modes. Each time a USB device is inserted, a dialog pops up so you can choose whether or not enable this mode. That way, the 5800mAh Portege R700 battery isn’t totally discharged inadvertently while traveling.
The Portégé R700 has a starting weight of just three pounds, and measures just one inch thick, and sports a new Airflow Cooling Technology co-developed by Toshiba and Intel that uses directed air streams to cool heat-generating components so the systems can use ful-powered Intel Core processors; the R700s also feature magnesium alloy casing with a honeycomb rib design incorporated into the palm rests and base to increase rigidity without adding weight.
The Portégé R700s will be available with Intel Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 processors and Windows 7 Professional (XP downgrades available). The units sport an HD 1,366 by 768-pixel LED-backlit display, 4 MB of RAM, an ExpressCard slot, an eSATA/USB combo port, as well as an integrated DVD±RW drive and webcam; folks can also dock with a port replicator for connecting up more desktop peripherals. The R700 will ship with a six-cell battery that should give up to 8.5 hours of use; although an optional 9-cell Toshiba PA3832U-1BRS battery can kick that all the way up to 12.5 hours.
The R700 is staggeringly quick too. Our test sample used a 2.4GHz Core i5-520M with a healthy 4GB of DDR3 memory for company, and it sliced through all the apps we threw at it without any hint of a delay.
Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a silent laptop, however. In our tests, the fan was audible despite its relatively low spin rate, and when we pushed the Core i5 sample in our test machine the fan audibly revved up. That said, this was a pre-production unit so we’ll wait to see how the final machines cope with hard graft.
More pleasing is the fact that Toshiba has managed to squeeze a DVD rewriter into such a small laptop, for read/write access to CDs and DVDs.
Connectivity is also top-notch, courtesy of 802.11n Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet. There's also a 3G module for wireless broadband access.
You can also deactivate the touchpad with a button right beneath the space bar. Zooming in and out with multitouch gestures (when we intended to) worked better than on other notebooks we've tested recently.
The two plastic touchpad buttons are a bit smaller than we'd like, and that's because Toshiba put the fingerprint sensor in between them. This made right-clicking somewhat of a challenge without looking--at least at first.
Toshiba's Portégé R700 is a well-made 13.3in. ultraportable whose only significant issue is a rather flexible lid section. Some users may find the keyboard too spongy for their liking, and you'll have to move up the range if you want an integrated optical drive. Battery life is good, though, and that could be enough to tip the scales in the R700's favour.
Although you’ll be pleased with the aesthetic finish of the Toshiba Portege R700 (subtle plastic that appears to have a brushed metal finish), what you’ll come to appreciate most over time is its extreme portability. While at 25.7mm thick at its deepest point, the Portege R700 isn’t going to fit inside a manilla envelope any time soon, it feels stunningly light for a 13.3-inch laptop – and considering the full power innards, that’s impressive.
Despite its tiny form factor, the review sample we saw featured a high-powered Intel Core i7 processor and 4096MB of DDR3 memory. Core i3 and i5 models are also planned for the Toshiba Portégé R700's release and even at this pre-production stage this is one of the most powerful ultraportables we’ve seen.
During preliminary testing, we found the Toshiba Portégé R700 extremely fast to use, running standard office applications and more demanding programs with ease. The use of an integrated Intel GMA HD graphics card means even basic multimedia tasks such as photo or video editing are also possible.
Specifications:
- Processor: 2.67GHz Intel Core i7 M620
- Memory: 4GB RAM
- Storage: 128GB SSD
- Optical Drive: DVD±RW
- Screen: 13.3 inches (1,366x768 native resolution)
- Graphics: Integrated Intel HD
- Weight: 3.01 pounds
- Dimensions (HWD): 1.01x12.44x8.94 inches
- Operating System: Windows 7 Professional (32-bit)
Dig a little deeper, however, and the DNA of the R500 and R600 is plain to see. Still present is the impossibly thin and somewhat flexible lid, while the arrangement of the fingerprint reader between the two touchpad buttons and the chromed hinges have been lifted straight from its predecessors. In other words, this isn't a wholly new machine, merely another evolution upon a theme.
The port design of the R700 is also said to be improved over the R600 in that all of the major ports use harnesses now. The power and USB ports, which are the most used ports on a notebook, all use leads to connect to the motherboard, which means that there of damaging the board if you plug a peripheral in too forcefully. The power port even has three dabs of glue holding it in place, which let it withstand more force without getting unstuck.
The optical drive, hard drive and dock connections, which were traditionally connected and held to the motherboard via solder alone, now overlap the circuit board and are screwed together so that the solder doesn't have to take survive any tugs from these connections. All these little behind the scenes tricks should come together to hopefully make the Toshiba Portege R700 battery immune to breakage. Even the wireless antennas have undergone a transformation and are now 'chip-mounted'. Their wires still snake around the screen though.
Toshiba claims the third-gen SSD offerings for the Portégé R700 offer between five and 10 per cent better performance over second-generation drives. Toshiba also says that from July all of its SSD offerings in all product ranges will shift to third-generation drives, so the Portégé R700 won't be the only platform to benefit from the new SSDs. Only the two high-end models of the Portégé R700 will include an SSD; the other three models in the range will have conventional hard drives.
Graphics performance will be handled by the integrated Intel QM57 chipset, which will be powerful enough to drive the 1366x768-resolution screen, as well as Full HD resolution via the HDMI port in the side of the chassis. You also get two USB 2.0 Sleep-and-Charge ports, VGA, a combination eSATA/USB 2.0 port, headphone and microphone ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, an SD card slot and, depending on the model you choose, you'll get an ExpressCard slot and a built-in 7mm thick DVD burner.
In a break from tradition, Toshiba has broken away from their traditional aluminium finish for the Portégé. The new R700 has a brushed matte black finish that looks elegant. Although we didn’t put the R700 through a tough roadtest, it was obvious that the finish wouldn’t scratch easily and could take being carried in a backpack without having to worry about superficial damage.
The ins and outs are well covered. The R700 has a pair or USB 2.0 ports. Conveniently, one is placed on either side of the unit so so that one side of the device doesn’t get too cluttered if multiple devices are connected. Toshiba’s USB drivers allow for USB ports to be used for device charging when the computer is in either “sleep” or “stand-by” modes. Each time a USB device is inserted, a dialog pops up so you can choose whether or not enable this mode. That way, the 5800mAh Portege R700 battery isn’t totally discharged inadvertently while traveling.
The Portégé R700 has a starting weight of just three pounds, and measures just one inch thick, and sports a new Airflow Cooling Technology co-developed by Toshiba and Intel that uses directed air streams to cool heat-generating components so the systems can use ful-powered Intel Core processors; the R700s also feature magnesium alloy casing with a honeycomb rib design incorporated into the palm rests and base to increase rigidity without adding weight.
The Portégé R700s will be available with Intel Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 processors and Windows 7 Professional (XP downgrades available). The units sport an HD 1,366 by 768-pixel LED-backlit display, 4 MB of RAM, an ExpressCard slot, an eSATA/USB combo port, as well as an integrated DVD±RW drive and webcam; folks can also dock with a port replicator for connecting up more desktop peripherals. The R700 will ship with a six-cell battery that should give up to 8.5 hours of use; although an optional 9-cell Toshiba PA3832U-1BRS battery can kick that all the way up to 12.5 hours.
The R700 is staggeringly quick too. Our test sample used a 2.4GHz Core i5-520M with a healthy 4GB of DDR3 memory for company, and it sliced through all the apps we threw at it without any hint of a delay.
Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a silent laptop, however. In our tests, the fan was audible despite its relatively low spin rate, and when we pushed the Core i5 sample in our test machine the fan audibly revved up. That said, this was a pre-production unit so we’ll wait to see how the final machines cope with hard graft.
More pleasing is the fact that Toshiba has managed to squeeze a DVD rewriter into such a small laptop, for read/write access to CDs and DVDs.
Connectivity is also top-notch, courtesy of 802.11n Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet. There's also a 3G module for wireless broadband access.
You can also deactivate the touchpad with a button right beneath the space bar. Zooming in and out with multitouch gestures (when we intended to) worked better than on other notebooks we've tested recently.
The two plastic touchpad buttons are a bit smaller than we'd like, and that's because Toshiba put the fingerprint sensor in between them. This made right-clicking somewhat of a challenge without looking--at least at first.
Toshiba's Portégé R700 is a well-made 13.3in. ultraportable whose only significant issue is a rather flexible lid section. Some users may find the keyboard too spongy for their liking, and you'll have to move up the range if you want an integrated optical drive. Battery life is good, though, and that could be enough to tip the scales in the R700's favour.
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