Toshiba Portege R700-15X review

Toshiba’s Portégé R700-15X ultra-portable has a Core i5 520M processor, which gives it a degree of power that belies its lightweight design. At this price, we expect good performance and were rather disappointed to find only 2GB of memory installed. The R700-15X also comes with the 32-bit installation of Windows 7 Professional, so you’re effectively limited to upgrading to 3GB of RAM.

One piece of good news is that, despite its small size, the R700 has a DVD writer, which is lacking in many ultra-portables. It also looks great, with a black brushed-metal finish that feels good too. It’s both light and sturdy enough to cope with being carried around in a rucksack or briefcase.

The keys are widely spaced but responsive and comfortable to type on. There’s no numeric keypad, which leaves more space for larger keys and also means that the touchpad can be positioned underneath the space bar while still occupying a comfortable centrally located positioned on the wrist rest.

There are three USB ports, one of which doubles as an eSATA port. You can use either VGA or HDMI ports to output graphics to an external monitor, and there are the usual 3.5mm stereo in- and outputs. There’s also an SD card reader and even a fingerprint scanner for the security-conscious. We were pleased to find a Gigabit Ethernet port and dual-band 802.11n WiFi. The hard disk capacity is adequate at 320GB, although we’d expect more at this price.

Predictably for such a tiny laptop, the quality of the sound that comes out of its miniscule speakers is awful: tinny, muddy and entirely lacking in bass. This won’t matter too for Windows sounds, but we don’t recommend playing music through them.

The 1,280×720 display also has its problems. The mat finish means that you can use it in direct sunlight without any unwanted reflections, but colours look a little dull, even at full brightness. This shouldn’t be a major issue, unless you need an ultra-portable with fine colour precision.

The R700 has great battery life, managing seven hours and 56 minutes in our tests. It also did well in our benchmark tests, with an overall score of 86. It isn’t designed for gaming as its Call of Duty 4 score of 10fps shows.

The R700 packs a surprisingly amount of power into a lightweight and durable chassis. The DVD drive and 320GB hard disk make it easy to install software and store files. A three-year warranty is welcome and helps to justify the price, but you still have to pay to send it back to Toshiba if there’s a fault. If you want a powerful ultra-portable, the R700 is a good choice, but if you’re happy to carry an extra 800 grams, Acer’s Aspire TimelineX 4820TG costs less, is faster and lasts longer.