Toshiba's business laptop customers have been asking for lighter machines and more robust battery life without a sacrifice to performance, according to the company, and on April 12 it delivered, with thinnest-ever versions of its Tecra and Portégé laptops.
The company introduced an ultraportable Portégé R830, a Tecra R840—25 percent thinner and 20 percent lighter than its predecessor—and an also slimmed down Tecra R850, all running Intel’s 2nd-generation Core processors and a choice of 7200RPM hard drives or 128GB solid-state drives. Discrete graphics from AMD Radeon with 1GB of dedicated graphics memory are also included, along with USB 3.0, eSATA/USB Combo drives with Toshiba USB Sleep & Charge technology; DisplayPort or HDMI ports; ExpressCard slots, Gigabit Ethernet; and connectors for pairing the laptops with a dock.
A suite of security features, such as multilevel passwords, a fingerprint reader and an optional SmartCard reader, are included, and to lower the total cost of ownership across a fleet deployment, the Tectra and Portege laptops have similar graphics, the same AC power adapter and Hi-Speed Port Replicator II, and the Portege R830 and Tecra R840 have interchangeable 6- and 9-cell batteries.
The Tecra laptops were built with a new fiberglass-reinforced casing and "honeycomb rib" structure. The R840 features a 14-inch (diagonal) HD or HD-plus LED-backlit display, is an inch thin and weighs just 4.2 pounds. It can be configured with a Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 processors and—when paired with a solid state drive—boasts a battery life of up to 11 hours.
There's easy access to the hard drive and memory (just remove two screws), EasyGuard technology to protect against knocks and spills and—a particular point of Toshiba pride—a "highly effective" air intake design for keeping the machine cool.
The larger Tegra R850 similarly features the range of processor choices but bumps the display to 15.6 inches and includes a 10-key numeric pad on the keyboard. At approximately an inch thick and a starting weight of 5.3 pounds, it's 19 percent thinner and 6 percent lighter than the Tecra A11 that proceeded it, and paired with the solid state drive offers a battery life of seven hours.
For more, read the eWEEK article: Toshiba's Thin Portégé, Tecra Laptops Feature Intel 'Sandy Bridge' Chips.
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