Toshiba Portege R500 Review

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by Jerry Jackson

Toshiba recently announced the Portege R500 12.1&quot; widescreen notebook that includes the new Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 (Merom) platform, and is the first ultraportable laptop to incorporate an optical drive into a system that is less than one inch thick and weighs less than 2.5 pounds. The R500 provides a new ultra-low voltage Core 2 Duo processor, optical drive, fingerprint reader, and a generous selection of ports in a stylish form factor that is so light and thin it’s shocking.

The Portege R500 comes in two virtually identical configurations: The R500-S5002 (Windows Vista Business) priced at $2,149 and the R500-S5001X (Windows XP Professional) priced at $1,999.

Toshiba recently announced that they have further reduced the weight of the Portege R500 Series to 1.72 pounds (without optical drive) by replacing the Serial-ATA HDD with a 64GB solid state drive. This makes the R500 the world’s lightest widescreen 12.1-inch notebook (as of this writing).

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Our Toshiba Portege R500 has the following specs:

• Genuine Windows Vista Business (32-bit version)
• Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 1.20GHz, 2MB L2, 533MHz FSB with 64-bit
• 1024MB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM
• One memory slot available
• 120GB (5400 RPM); Serial-ATA hard disk drive
• 7mm, 8xDVD-SuperMulti (+/-R Single Layer) drive supporting 9 formats
• 12.1-inch diagonal widescreen highbrightness display
• 1280 x 800 (WXGA) - Transreflective backlit LED
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with 64MB
• Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN (802.11a/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR

Build and Design

The Toshiba Portege R500 features a radical design measuring as thin as 0.77-inches and weighing 2.4 pounds. This makes the R500 lighter and thinner than most ultraportables. The silver R500 combines rounded edges and angular lines producing a shape that's both space-saving and stylish. It’s very clear upon first glance that there is absolutely no wasted space in the design of the R500.

The build is mostly plastic with some flex most noticeably beneath the right palm rest and the LCD lid. The R500 doesn't use any type of latch to close the lid, just a firm hinge closing mechanism that works well.

While the design is quite impressive, and build quality is amazing given the thin materials used, our overall feeling is that the R500 is far from rugged. The standard amount of abuse that most notebooks endure with ease would result in a broken R500.

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Screen

While the widescreen 12.1” LCD is almost paper thin and flexible, there are no noticeable ripples even when pressing firmly or flexing the screen.

Now this is where our review gets interesting. If you recall our first look review of the pre-production R500 we said, &quot;There is minimal light leakage and both horizontal and vertical viewing angles are more than acceptable.&quot; Unfortunately, we cannot make such statements about the production unit of the R500. After multiple phone calls and emails with Toshiba it is now clear that we have a fully functioning R500 which is representative of the production units which Toshiba is now shipping.

Rather than go into detail describing what we're seeing, we've posted images below to show you what the R500's screen looks like. You can draw your own conclusions about whether this screen quality is acceptable for your uses.

Horizontal view from the left. (view large image)

Horizontal view from the right. (view large image)

View of screen tilted back about 15 degrees. (view large image)

View of screen tilted forward about 15 degrees. (view large image)

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard is full sized and very nice to use with minimal flex. The pre-production unit we previously looked at suffered from considerable keyboard flex but we're pleased to see this production unit has a solid keyboard. One surprise on the keyboard was a set of dedicated page up and page down buttons, along with dedicated home and end keys, a nice feature not found on most ultraportable notebooks.

The spacious touchpad provides excellent responsiveness, but feels a little “cheap” compared to the fit and finish of the rest of this notebook. The glossy “metal-like” plastic touchpad buttons feel nice, but are a magnet for fingerprints. As with the keyboard, Toshiba managed to improve the touchpad buttons in the production unit and the touchpad buttons now provide nice feedback.

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Ports and Features

While about half of all ultraportable notebooks come equipped with an optical drive, those that do tend to be thick and heavy. Anyone looking for a super slim notebook was forced to sacrifice an optical drive in favor of making the system as light and thin as possible. The R500 successfully offers the “best of both worlds” by combining a light and thin notebook with a 7mm 8x DVD Superdrive.

The drive itself performed perfectly well for playing DVDs and CDs. There was little operational noise coming from the drive although you can certainly feel the disk spinning inside the drive thanks to the thin alloy used in the R500's construction. The drive feels a little fragile when it is open, so some care should be used to avoid damaging the open optical drive.

One additional item of note about the optical drive is that the PC Card slot is directly below the optical drive. If you use larger PC Card devices which stick out from the slot these devices may block the optical drive and prevent you from opening the drive.

The port selection of the R500 is remarkably good for a notebook of this size. Below you can view detailed images of the ports on the notebook, and here's a quick rundown of what you get:

• 3 USB 2.0 ports (two on the left and one on the right)
• IEEE 1394 / FireWire port
• Monitor out port
• Headphone / line-out port
• Microphone in port
• PCMCIA PC card slot
• Ethernet LAN port
• SD card slot reader

The right side with Ethernet, USB, wireless on/off, optical drive, SD card reader and PC Card slot. (view large image)

The left side with power jack, VGA port, two USB ports, Firewire, volume control, headphone and microphone ports. (view large image)

The front view ... no ports here, just some LEDs beneath the touchpad. (view large image)

The rear view with the hinge and battery. (view large image)

Top view. (view large image)

Bottom view showing the many heat vents, docking station port, battery releases, and memory slot access. (view large image)

You also get some nice dedicated hardware buttons such as wireless on/off on the right side, volume up/down control wheel on the left, a “Toshiba Assist” help quick launch button, and an LCD backlight on/off button.

To top these features off you get integrated biometric security via a finger print reader located between the touchpad buttons.

Performance

The overall performance of the R500 was less than impressive. Our standard benchmarking shows acceptable performance for a business ultraportable machine, but benchmarks fail to illustrate the general &quot;lag&quot; that occurs between when you double click on an icon and when something actually happens.

Given the 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM and an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 chipset we expected to see reasonably quick performance when running standard Microsoft Office applications and web browsing. Unfortunately, this was not the case. For those of you who are interested in the Windows Experience Index score, the R500 generated a score of 2.0.

On that note, it's important to remember that the R500 does have one additional expansion slot available for an extra 1GB of RAM. The system performance under Vista would have been better with a full 2GB of RAM.

Super Pi comparison results:

Notebook	Time
Toshiba Portege R500 (1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600)	1m 46s
Sony VAIO FZ (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300)	0m 59s
Dell XPS M1330 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300)	0m 58s
Lenovo ThinkPad X61 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300)	1m 01s
Lenovo 3000 V200 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300)	0m 59s
HP dv2500t (1.80GHz Intel 7100)	1m 09s
Lenovo ThinkPad T61 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T7300)	0m 59s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo T7200)	1m 03s
Toshiba Satellite P205-S6287 (1.73 GHz Core 2 Duo Intel T5300)	1m 24s
Toshiba Satellite A205 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo)	1m 34s
HP Compaq 6515b (1.6GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52)	2m 05s
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T2400)	0m 59s

PCMark05 comparison results:

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Toshiba Portege R500 (1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600)	1,839 PCMarks
Fujitsu LifeBook P7230 (Core Solo CPU U1400, 1.20GHz, Integrated graphics)	1,152 PCMarks
Toshiba Satellite U200 (1.73GHz Core Duo, Intel Integrated graphics)	3,113 PCMarks
Fujitsu LifeBook N6420 (2.00GHz Core 2 Duo, ATI X1600)	4,621 PCMarks
Fujitsu LifeBook N6410 (1.66GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400)	3,487 PCMarks
Sony Vaio SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400)	3,637 PCMarks
Asus Z84Jp (2.16GHz Core 2 Duo, Nvidia Go 7600)	4,739 PCMarks
Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400)	3,646 PCMarks
Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60, Nvidia Go 7800GTX)	5,597 PCMarks

3DMark05 comparison results:

Notebook	3D Mark 05 Results
Toshiba Portege R500 (1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600)	363 3DMarks
Sony VAIO FZ (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100)	910 3DMarks
Dell XPS M1330 (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS 128MB)	3,116 3DMarks
HP Compaq 6510b (2.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500, Intel X3100)	916 3DMarks
HP Compaq 6515b (1.6GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-52, ATI x1270)	871 3DMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400)	2,013 3D Marks
Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400)	1,791 3D Marks
Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 256MB)	4,236 3DMarks
Alienware Aurora M-7700(AMD Dual Core FX-60, ATI X1600 256MB)	7,078 3D Marks
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB)	2,092 3D Marks
Asus V6Va (2.13 GHz Pentium M, ATI x700 128 MB)	2,530 3D Marks
Fujitsu n6410 (1.66 GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB)	2,273 3DMarks
Dell XPS M1210 (2.16 GHz Core Duo, nVidia Go 7400 256MB)	2,090 3D Marks

Heat and Noise

The R500 is remarkably quiet despite the fact that the system is so thin with so many air/heat vents along the bottom of the system. The only time the whisper quiet fan was even audible was during heavy duty benchmarking ... and even then the fan was quiet.

That said, heat is still an issue with this notebook given there is so little material between the inner workings of the system and the user. The left palm rest and the bottom of the system beneath the left palm rest (where the hard drive is located) got very hot during benchmarking. The temperature was hot enough that the notebook became uncomfortable to hold. Additionally, the bottom of the notebook gets extremely warm next to the RAM expansion slot.

All in all, the R500 is a very quiet machine that isn't comfortable to keep on your lap for serious computing.

Battery Life

Battery life on the R500 was quite impressive, due in no small part to the low-voltage U7600 processor used in this system. While browsing the web continuously using the wireless and keeping the screen at the brightest setting the battery lasted almost four hours before the low battery warning popped up on the desktop.

If battery life is a concern for your mobile business needs the R500 should keep you very happy with more than enough power for short road trips or airline travel.

Conclusion

Overall our final impressions of the Toshiba Portege R500 are &quot;enthusiastic,&quot; but we can't shake the feeling there is plenty of room for improvement. The R500 represents an impressive first-generation design for the future of the ultra-portable market. We expect to see amazing things from Toshiba in the coming years as the Portege line grows and develops.

In terms of how this ultraportable stacks up to the competition, the R500 is a bit of a mixed bag. While the R500 is remarkably well built for such a thin and light ultraportable, most competing systems have a more rugged build quality. Likewise, although the R500 is a full-featured notebook in most respects, the low-voltage processor and only 1GB of RAM running Vista make the R500 noticeably slower than other notebooks in the same class.

Bottom line, the R500 is the thinest and lightest full-featured notebook in its class. Unfortunately, you will have to make some sacrifices if size and weight are important to you.

Pros

• Amazingly thin
• Amazingly light
• Super thin 7mm optical drive
• Reasonable battery life even at maximum screen brightness
• Very quiet

Cons

• Poor viewing angles and light leakage on screen
• Produces too much heat
• Build quality is too delicate for everyday use and abuse
• Not the best location for the PC card slot (may block optical drive)
• Performance is too slow for anything but short-term travel

 

Thanks for the updated review Jerry. Any plans of getting the SSD version for testing?

 

It seems like a bit of a stretch for Toshiba to describe this as the first ultraportable to include an optical drive that is less than 1" thick and less than 2.5 pounds.

The Sony G1 is 2.17 pounds with its optical drive, and .93-1.0" thick (so yes, technically it isn't "less than 1" thick", but still).

Still, looks like a nice machine from Toshiba.

-Zadillo

 

It's possible, and we'd certainly welcome the chance to see what the SSD can do for the R500, but we don't currently have another R500 review on our editorial calendar.

 

Nice review, Jerry! I like the inclusion of the dedicated Page Up/Down, Home and End keys.

 

Jerry, can you mention if the battery was 3 or 6 Cell ?

Thanks

 

Nice review (as always!). I think the answer on the lagging problem is clear: one model with XP, one model with Vista. Forget the Vista model, save $150, and get a snappier PC. No one needs Vista!

 

6 Cell battery.

 

oh thats bad!

6 Cell = 4hrs and they claim it gives 12hrs

Maybe it can give 1 more hour with the SSD option!

 

Never ever ever ever ever ever ever listen to a manufacturer's battery life claim, at least I never do.

Its a shame it still uses PC Card instead of Expresscard and that screen looks pretty yucky, very dim and dull if you ask me.

Otherwise, an excellent and sexy computer.

 

The G1 is a nice machine ... for a Core Solo, it really rocks. I've had it now for four months. If it only had that 64GB SSD

SSD has virtually no effect on your battery life contrary to belief, but it does help with performance. I always assume somewhere between 50 and 75% of the manufacturer's best times when their battery ratings are posted. I generally get 6 - 8 with the G1, and it's rated at 12. That 6 - 8 depends upon how bright the screen is, etc. - the usual suspects.

Unlike this R500 which the review says isn't built for the road (?!?!?) essentially, the G is a tough cookie like Panasonic's Toughbook line. I'd like to see Sony update the G, but I don't think they will.

 

The review says it does have ExpressCard.

Kind of a pity that it doesn't meet the performance as was expected of it. What is interesting is that it probably is due to the Intel 945GM Chipset instead of the newer 965. What's weird is that they use the updated 4965ABGN that is meant for the Santa Rosa Platform, and I think they also use the U7600 which is also meant for the Santa Rosa Platform. Old chipset, new stuff... chipset is the bottleneck I guess.

 

Machines like these (toshiba r500, sony tz, etc) with the 945 gm chipset should really be running xp instead of vista.

I have a sony tz90 with 2gb and 5400 rpm 160g hd and I ended up installing xp, and this thing really flies with it. Way better performance than vista.

For the r500, I would really recommend getting it with xp especially since you can actually get it as an option.

 

I would have bought the R500 for myself based on our pre-production unit. The display on the production unit is terrible though, that alone knocks it off my list.

And it is a PCMCIA slot, there was an error in the initial review.

 

Brian,

I had a production unit in my hands without an remarkable difference in display quality compared to the preproduction unit I have seen. Maybe there are different screens around. Since I had no reason I didnt check the actual part number....

 

I think SSD increase battery life by 20% as mentioned in several places, and this is due to no moving part, so no extra heat, less work for fans etc...

I like the Sony G1 a lot too, i would consider it if it had Core Duo 2 & SSD... (6-8 hrs) is GR8 and its one of the lightest & thinnest too!!

I assume that Vista can run better on the Toshiba R500 version which got the SSD + 2GB RAM, because as it was mentioned here that it runs smoothly on the Sony TZ with 2GB RAM + SSD, and both got same processor... Something else to consider is that Microsoft is releasing Vista updates soon which fix lot of things including memory management!

So maybe all in all could b a winner in the R500

What do u think guys?

 

yes it will run vista better with 2gb and ssd, but performance still won't be that great.

 

it depends on what you mean by performance.

I have a desktop with a pair of raptor 10,000rpm drives, 2GB ram and X2 4800+ running MCE2005 to compare with the TZ (R500 should be comparable since it could be configured with similar specs)

everyday tasks such as web browsing, finding files, opening office files, outlook, as well as boot time, the TZ is similar if not a bit faster. Of course my desktop can also run BF2, GRAW and other graphics intense programs that the TZ cannot. For its purpose, any ultraportable with a U7600, intel graphics chip, 2GB of ram, SSD can run Vista buttery smooth.

 

What I mean by performance is performance of vista compared to xp.

xp is way faster than vista.

I have the tz with 2gb and 5400rpm hd and I didn't particularly find the performance of vista on the tz very fast. And I tweaked the crap out of it to improve the performance.

Try playing some HD flash videos on vista. Notice the jerkiness. Thats not what I call buttery smooth whereas xp runs it buttery smooth.

Try playing some HD wmv files while having something run the background. More jerkiness, while xp is buttery smooth.

Try running a dual display and play a movie on the lcd screen. Then try browsing on the other monitor. Notice the jerkiness. But running on xp, its buttery smooth.

Don't get me wrong, I love my tz, but I love it with xp installed.

 

Nice review, but I think it lacked some more information about the screen. It's this fancy "transflective" stuff which should work wonders for outside use. What is your impression, does it work?

What about indoors. It's a matte screen instead of glossy. Is it good? Rich and accurate colors? Good for Photoshop? Great for watching movies?

And what about this bleeding light from the edges. If you're sitting in front of the screen, as one would normally do, is it still a major issue?

All in all, a very good review, but not enough insight about the screen.

 

Yes, the transflective screen does look wonderful outside in the sun. It's without a doubt the easiest screen to read when outdoors.

The problem with the screen is that indoors it is without a doubt the worst looking screen we've seen in our office. I wouldn't even consider watching a movie on this screen. We tried to watch a DVD in our office on the production R500 ... let's just say we gave up after less than 5 minutes.

Yes, the bleeding light from the top and bottom is a problem even when viewing the screen head-on.

If you live and work outdoors then the R500 screen is great. If you ever need to view the screen indoors you won't be happy.

 

Ouch. That doesn't sound good. I mean, it's great that it works outside, but I would guess 99% of the time I'd inside working on it.

Can you elaborate a little bit on what the problems are indoors? Is it too dark? The light bleeding around the edges? Poor viewing angles? Bland colors?

(Btw, thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. One of the things I love about this site. I've been researching a replacement for my trusted Fujitsu P7010 for months on this site, and it's amazing how much useful information is shared here.)

 

I am planning to buy it too, and i would be 99% working indoors, so i would like to hear more about the problem too?

Thanks

 

I think the pictures tell the story on the screen, see all the black spots when looking from an angle? I tried watching a movie on it and gave up because it was so bad. Large sections of the movie where essentially black unless you get he perfect viewing angle.

 

As Brian said, our photos are very accurate in terms of what our screen looks like. Those aren't bad photos ... that's what the screen looks like.

The light-tent photo taken in our studio of the R500 head-on is the best screen image we could get ... and it isn't exactly amazing.

We don't want to bash this screen, as I said it looks great outdoors and it is amazingly thin. However, it really is the worst screen we've seen so far. I reviewed a cheap Systemax notebook from TigerDirect a while back which had a horrible screen ... and it looked much better than this.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=133338

 

thats just very unfortunate, as I think many people were considering this as an alternative to the Sony TZ or the Lenovo X60/s.

 

I disagree about the screen. I have the XP model and the screen is twice as good as the screen on the Dell D420. I am sure it won't be as clear as the LED on the Dell XPS M1330 or some of the Sony's that have LED but it is definately a better than average screen. It definately needs to be used at full to almost full brightness though which will lower the battery life, but all in all I think the screen is good. Toshiba might be using different screens for the Vista model.

 

Nice review Jerry. I am using the R500 XP version and I agree with some of what you said, but I believe there is probably a big speed difference between the XP version and the Vista. Mine runs very snappy and I have been pleasantly surprised about the performance. I compare it to a Dell D420 I had tried running XP and this Toshiba is really much faster. I couldn't use the Dell at all. I do agree that this thing gets really hot on the bottom around the memory cover, but because it is so light I can use it on my lap and adjust it so the heat doesn't bother me. The batery is a big disappointment to me. I can only get about 4 hours. Most people will be happy with that but I was really hoping to get 6 to 8. I have the latest BIOS as well and it didn't improve my battery life at all. Over all I am very pleased with this laptop so far. I am going on a trip next week and will test the durability and portability factor and report back.

 

All I can say is that I'm glad I decided on the TZ. I would have chosen the X61, but, when you are showing power point presentations, aesthetics come into it, and Levono's simply don't look good.

 

I didn't think the screen was that bad when I saw it in the store. I may try to take a look again if I have a chance.

 

I never heard about that, but I am wondering why would you think so

 

The G1 with my 32GB SSD, 2GB of RAM, and the Core Solo 1.33 runs Vista just fine. In fact, other than a few times where I have too much going on, it performs nearly as well as my SZ with 3GB of RAM. The SSD has a lot to do with it. The one thing I like about the G is it is very durable - much moreso than my SZ. I haven't played with the TZ but I bet it's better built than that, too.

But my comment re: SSD and battery life is true - I see no real advantage in the G that way. It is a bit cooler, but if you look at the tests for some of the Dell machines done here, the battery life was not 20% higher with the SSD.

Now, if you were accessing your HD all the time, it may amount to that, but under a normal workload, the gain will be marginal.

 

Once again, when I had a test unit there were only two of them around in Europa. It had a pretty good screen (even if I dont share the enthusiasm about the outdoor mode), the production model looked much the same. I think there might be different screens around (as with the D420 for example)...

 

i want to know this, does this laptop comes with the Vista CD, or its just installed in it and if i formated then i have to buy vista?

Thanks

 

I have to admit that in a weak moment I bought the R500 although I already have the Vaio TZ90 (got a good deal!). While there is really no comparison in the screen department I find the R500 screen acceptable, although you really have to get the viewing angle just right. On the other hand, the outdoor feature is really nice. I find it more agreable for work because of the larger screen and the very good keyboard. Speed seems to be more or less on a par with the Sony. And it does come with recovery disks...

 

Dear djbobo

You may be the only person with both! and there are quite a few threads on NotebookReview trying to figure out which one is better (search "R500 TX" to see them). Your insight would be useful to help us decide.

However, your message is not clear. Do you mean to say that R500's screen is generally poor, but acceptable for outside work? I have read various comments implying that the "outside feature" doesn't actually work!

I have also heard from a seller that R500's new 7mm ultra-slim optical drive has problems and Toshiba delays shipping to the UK for a few weeks and may even recall some R500s(!)

Can you please compare their battery life, speed and "typing" experience? My money is with the VAIO, if I had the extra cash

Thank you,
Seraph

 

Hi to all,

I have just received my R500. This is a version with a 1.06 Ghz processor, no dvd and no bluetooth.
My first impression is that it is really, really light: I own an asus U1F which weights around 1kg (2.2 pounds) with the light battIery and the R500 feels lighter. (recall that I don't have a dvd writer)

The battery is a bit of a disappointment since I don't expect to have more than 5 hours out of it; I have only discharged the battery once, so I guess it has not reached its optimum capacity yet. Still, I have removed aero and the widget bar of vista, and it allows to gain some extra time.

As to the screen, it is indeed a bit weird. However, it is very flexible, meaning that one can certainly find a good angle to work with it.
As to the outdoor function, I can't really comment yet since it is not very sunny out there, but when I am near a window, I can activate the "outdoor" setting and the screen is visible, whereas you gain a few minutes worth of battery. I guess it works better when its not too cloudy outside.
I have only watched a movie for a few minutes, and it seems ok, although if two people were to watch a movie if might get cumbersome since the viewing angles from the side are limited.
Overall, this is not something that matters a lot for me, but as I am leaving on vacation on sunday, I will certainly have a few occasions to watch movies on the go, so that I will keep you informed of my thoughts.

Next, I am going to install Linux on it since Vista sucks in my opinion.
I have to say however, that, compared to my U1F with the same characteristics, vista feels considerably faster and more responsive, thanks to the 5400rpm hard drive I guess. But this is clearly not enough for me to stick to vista. I hope things work ok in Linux.

 

Hmm, Other than we need from you to compare performance, etc... It will be also helpful if you mentioned which version of R500 did you buy! SSD version ?

Thanks in advance

 

I took the 160GB HDD, SSD just has not enough space. The Vaio is SSD and 160GB HDD, which is of course neat. I have had no problems with the CD-Rom Drive on the Toshiba so far. The description of the screen given by lillumultipass (?) is quite accurate. I took the notebook outside in full sunshine and it is indeed very usable, although I would not want to watch a movie since the colors are somewhat subdued. I think that one should indeed get about 5 hours of battery life which to me seems very good for this size of battery and I think somewhat more than what you get with the light battery in the Sony. If you want more with the Vaio, you also have to put in the bigger battery.
When I got the Vaio I said that this was the best notebook I had gotten in a long time, but now I think that I might eventually keep the Toshiba and sell the Vaio. It all depends on what you want to use it for, but the better typing experience and larger screen really do it for me. The smaller screen with the high resolution on the Vaio really requires perfect vision, but if you want to watch a lot of movies, I would go with Vaio.

 

Do u see big difference in screen size with the extra 1" ?

5hrs battery with ur combination would mean somehow 6hrs or more with SSD version... ?

It would be great if you can post an image for both next to each other

 

Yes, there is a big difference with one inch more. I can't tell you about the battery life of the SSD, that's very individual anyhow. By the way, I really would not recommend the Vaio G; the screen resolution is no longer up to date to my taste, and the keyboard is not very good. It all felt a bit shaky, whereas the Vaio TX feels wonderfully solid.

 

Ok thanks and now what about some comparison pics between TZ & R500

 

Don't push it

 

As the sun was just shining I went out with the Vaio TX and have to say that it is actually just as visible as the Toshiba!

 

In the infinite goodness of my heart I have actually taken two pictures of the units side by side. If somebody will tell me how to upload them, I will do it

 

Click Post Reply then advanced
then
Follow the instruction in the image

 

Here they are, I hope...

 

Thanks a lot for your heart

I think many people were waiting for them!

 

Funny, the bigger the lighter he he

 

The only thing which really annoys me with the Toshiba is that they build this wonderful machine, trimming every gram, and then they give you this charger brick, which is easily twice the volume of the Sony one, and with thick three pronged power cable which could power industrial machinery.... I am trying to find other cables and have ordered a Kensington charger, hoping it is lighter...