Review: Toshiba Port'eg'e R700

Toshiba positions its Port'eg'e series as being ultra-portable, and at just 1.4kg, the R700 is a serious player when it comes to business mobility.

Apart from being incredibly light, the R700 is also super thin, making it a pleasure to carry around. It has a sophisticated black design and brushed metal look, thanks to its Magnesium alloy material. However, the cover tends to hold fingerprint marks, making constant wiping of smudges a bit of a nuisance. It measures 316 x 227mm, with the thickest part being 25.7mm.

On the left of the machine, you'll find one regular USB 2.0 port and one eSATA/USB 2.0 port, which allows users to charge other devices even if the laptop is in standby, hibernation or shutdown mode. You'll also find an HDMI slot and a connection for an external monitor. On the right, there's another USB 2.0 port, headphone and microphone connections, an Express Card slot, network cable port and CD/DVD drive.

The R700 has a very responsive chiclet keyboard that was easy to type on, with hardly any finger slips. The keypad is not backlit, so it's not ideal for use in a dark room. Call it silly, but I like that the Caps Lock key has a little light on it that turns on as soon as Caps Lock is enabled, so you can see immediately when it's on, and not after you've typed three rows in capital letters.

The keyboard is also spill resistant - not something I tested personally.

The scroll-pad and mouse buttons were just as responsive, although I can't say the same for the scrolling function when using the far right of the pad to do fast scrolling. I would often revert to scrolling on-screen, as I found this easier and quicker.

There is also a fingerprint scanner on the scroll-pad to protect data. Although I never tested this feature, I imagine it would be extremely valuable to businesspeople, who would need to encrypt data, especially if they're mobile. Users can register their fingerprints and access their data in this way, rather than with the less-secure password route.

I cannot fault the display. The 1366 x 768 resolution, coupled with Toshiba's high-definition non-reflective High Brightness display and LED backlighting, makes for clear, sharp visuals, although the video playback quality could be better. The 13.3-inch anti-glare display was more than sufficient for everyday tasks.

Watching movies and listening to music on the R700 was a bit of a letdown. Playback is not entirely smooth and the display was jumpy. The laptop falls short in the sound department, too. Sound was tinny when listening to music or watching movies, and playing anything at or near full volume resulted in distorted, unpleasant sound.

Access to the VGA Web cam was super easy, as hovering the cursor in the left corner of the screen revealed instant access keys to the Web cam, settings, photo effects and face recognition technology - a neat tool that lets you register your face to automatically log onto the computer.

As convenient as this was, it was just as inconvenient when, for example, moving the cursor over the save button in a Word document would bring up this toolbar if you moved it slightly too high. As far as VGA cameras go, the picture quality was not bad at all, and would be more than sufficient for Skype or conference video calling.

The Port'eg'e R700 impresses with its Intel Core i5 520M dual-core processor operating at 2.4GHz. Other options include the i3 or i7 processor. Add to this its 4GB of RAM and 500GB of free hard disk space and you have serious dynamite in a mobile package.

This ensured that start-up, shut-down and waking up from sleep mode was quick and painless, as was opening and switching between open files and applications. I have no qualms with this little machine's operating power.

The R700 does not have a dedicated graphics card so will not support gaming.

Wired connectivity is catered for by the Gigabit Ethernet LAN, although the R700's many wireless options enhance its mobility credentials. These include 3G, Bluetooth and WiFi.

Toshiba claims a whopping nine-hour life out of its lithium-ion battery, although I can't say this was my experience. I probably got around five-and-a-half hours out of it, while running various apps at once, including the browser, Microsoft Word and video. The R700 does, however, come with Toshiba's eco Utility, which reduces the laptop's power consumption.

Says Toshiba: “[The] eco Utility helps you monitor your power savings by showing approximate real-time power consumption. Furthermore, it shows approximate accumulated power consumption and approximate accumulated power savings when using eco mode daily, weekly, and monthly. The utility also shows the approximate accumulated CO2 emission and savings while using eco mode.”

Perhaps using the machine on eco mode permanently would realise the claimed nine hours battery life.

It loses points, however, when it comes to charging the battery, which I found agonisingly slow. For example, it took nearly two hours to reach 30% battery life while charging and working on the machine simultaneously.

Another downside is that, despite the included Advanced Airflow Cooling Technology, the machine generates a lot of heat, and not just around the battery area. I found the keyboard and surface of the laptop also got pretty warm. The fan was also quite loud and runs almost continuously while watching videos or running many applications at once.

The R700 comes pre-installed with Windows 7 Professional and functionality for Skype, eBay and Nero. It also includes Toshiba Photo Service and Toshiba Recover Media Creator. I particularly liked the Toshiba Bulletin Board, which consolidates important information, including user guide, security centre, PC health monitor and eco Utility. The pin board is a nifty tool that users can personalise by adding photos, shortcuts, memos, clock, calendar and a to-do list.