Ultraportable Showdown: Toshiba Vs. MSI : Toshiba Portégé R600
3. Toshiba Portégé R600
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Duo U9400 |
| Graphics chipset | Intel GMA X4500MHD IGP |
| Memory | 3 GB |
| Display | 12.1 inches (1280 x 800) |
| Hard disk | 512 GB SSD |
| Optical drive | DVD burner |
| Dimensions | 11.1” x 8.5” x 0.77”(front) / 1.0”(rear) with feet |
| Weight | 2.4 pounds |
Toshiba's Portégé line is aimed primarily at mobile business users. Generally, that target could be extended to include anybody who wants a computer that combines light weight, small size, and good battery life, all without sacrificing performance. Toshiba calls the R600 "Toshiba’s ultimate ultralight notebook." And while this isn't a low-cost machine by any stretch, we have to admit that Toshiba's claims are not unfounded.
First Impressions and Design
Due to the Portégé's business orientation, Toshiba has avoided the unfortunate trend towards "all glossy" computers. The keyboard and surrounding area are silver-gray, while the display bezel is matte black. The effect is very handsome and proves that you don't need to use glossy plastics to give the impression of quality. Only the area below the touchpad stands out a little, with its so-so looking chromed plastic.
The keyboard takes up the full width of the PC, and has wide keys with a soft, enjoyable touch. It's fairly quiet and the keys are responsive. The adjustment functions are assigned to the F1 to F12 keys, with only two shortcut keys.
The touchpad is standard in function and in size, and it reacts well. Its matte surface is a lot nicer to the touch than a glossy finish that sticks to your fingers, providing a smooth feel and good preciseness. The click buttons located below it are firm and they're separated by a fingerprint reader. The activity indicator lights round out the equipment on the keyboard.
The image from the webcam is acceptable and has good fluidity. It lacks some sharpness and definition, however, and brightly lighted areas tend to burn out. The colors are slightly too warm. The microphone, unfortunately, is poorly located, on the lower left. So it's covered by your left hand when you're typing and delivers only average sound.
The machine isn't very noisy; its fan emits a steady whoosh that increases under load. It's reasonable, but it is audible in a quiet environment.
Connectivity is very complete: 1 VGA, 1 mic input, 1 headphone jack, 1 memory-card reader, Ethernet, 1 ExpressCard slot, Wi-Fi on/off switch, and 3 USB ports, one of which is an e-SATA combo. There's also a DVD burner and Bluetooth adaptor.
Under the computer are traps for access to RAM. It's also possible to insert your SIM card in a slot located under the battery - the R600 has a 3G+ module.
Display
One detail that's rare enough to mention is that the Portégé R600 has a matte-finish display. That's especially welcome on an ultraportable that's likely to be used outdoors.
The screen diagonal is 12.1 inches with a definition of 1280 x 800 pixels. That makes for good readability since the characters aren't too small.
The display panel has fairly wide viewing angles, and it appears to be an MVA, as opposed to a TN-type panel. That's very rare in an ultraportable, since nearly all portable computers use TN panels. One good point about this one is that the upper and (especially) lower viewing angles don't shift toward black, but the colors do have a tendency to lighten quickly when the display is tilted, and its response time is poor.
The black level is good for a portable. We measured it at 0.15 nits with the display's brightness set to 102 nits (the maximum brightness is 211 nits). That's good enough to work in full sunlight. The resulting contrast ratio is satisfactory, at 680:1. One fault should be noted - the backlighting is visible against a black background at the edges of the display.
We can't give you a color analysis or a color profile - we weren't able to get our colorimetry sensor to work, even though we did a complete restoration of the computer.
Calculation
The R600's Vista Index is 3.2: Processor 4.6 - RAM 4.9 - Graphics 3.2 - Game graphics 3.3 - Main hard disk 5.9.
The Intel Core 2 Duo U9400 processor, clocked at 1.4 Ghz, isn't the fastest, but it is a dual-core model with acceptable performance. It's also energy-efficient, so battery life should be good while keeping power requirements low.
Average processor performance was 40% lower than on our reference computer, the Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Xi3650. But to put things in perspective, the R600 is still three times as powerful as a netbook with an Atom processor - good enough for office applications and quite usable for occasional photo and video use.
The R600 is very quick with most programs and also has fast boot times. That can be explained by the SSD that's under the hood - an impressive 512 GB one that improves the notebook's overall performance. Access times are very good, at only 0.3 ms compared to 13 to 15 ms for a typical platter drive. Data rates ranged from 140 and 180 MB/sec and were constant throughout the disk, which is not the case with standard hard drives. SSDs are also completely quiet, lightweight, and have the further advantage of being more or less impervious to shocks since they have no moving parts. A lower-end version of the R600 comes with a 128-GB SSD, which is reflected in that model's price.
Playing movies with quality equivalent to Blu-Ray is possible if you use hardware acceleration with the built-in graphics circuitry. CPU use runs around 10%. Without graphics acceleration, CPU use is between about 70 and 85%, with peaks at 100% which makes stutter-free play difficult.
Games
No surprises here. The built-in Intel graphics chip is still very poor with 3D. So forget about gaming, except for old titles with few 3D effects, or else 2D games.
Audio
The speakers are poor. The sound is dry and lacks bass and midrange. Don't expect to listen to music, not to mention movie soundtracks. You can tell that Toshiba had a hard time building in decent sound due to the small size of this machine. We saw (or rather heard) that it's possible to come up with acceptable audio, however, when we tested the Lenovo S10-2 - and it's an even smaller netbook. The headphone output is clean, though, so go the headphone route for movies and music.
Mobility and Battery Life
What strikes you most about the R600 when you first heft it is its light weight! It tips the scales at a mere 2.4 pounds thanks to its magnesium-alloy shell and SSD in place of a hard disk. It's also very thin, which makes it a real pleasure to use on the go.
The 3 hr., 44 min. battery life as tested with our video playback test puts the Portégé on a par with the aluminum 13 inch Macbook and below the best netbooks.
| Toshiba Portégé R600 | |
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Very lightweight and slim, the Toshiba Portégé R600 is the king of mobility. Much more complete than a netbook, it's also much more expensive. We like the matte screen and long battery life. All we can find to criticize is mediocre sound and poor 3D performance.
This comparison test is about as absurd as it gets. Why bother? A top of the line model is better than a relatively budget model. Who would have figured that?
So, you mentioned the $600 price difference. How much would it have been, as actually configured, since you used the hard drive model of the Toshiba for the compared price, but the high end SSD model in the actual test?
This is a stupid comparison. The Toshiba is $600.00 more... This is like comparing a single 4770 to a 4890. Of course the 4890 will out preform the 4770. It's priced accordingly.
I don't get where you get 600 dollars from the toshiba starts at 2099 on their website and the msi runs 750 on the egg. The toshiba goes up against the air and adamo while the x340 competes with the cheaper ideapad U350 and acer timeline 13incher which can be had for 599 on the egg with a better keyboard and much better battery but not quite as thin but still very light. Even if I had the money I don't think I would spend 2 grand on that toshiba.
WOW! On the Toshiba site, the model with the 512MB SSD is a mere $3499. Apples to Ambrosia!
Digital versus is amazing!
Idiotic article is idiotic
The conclusion (comparison) is not necessary. Like the posters above, can't compare top-of-the-line to a budget model. But the review of the individual model is slightly more useful.
In fairness, there was a chance that the gap wouldn't be as pronounced as the specs might indicate due to clever driver and software implementation and or architecture differences. This was obviously not the case, but they are comparing items in the same 'class' not the same price range, which is valid.
Every now and then you get a surprising result...
These look like they chug/stink. Why not see the SONY VGN-Z798Y/X or VGN-Z790 CTO which has the I 9700 (2.8GHz) 2Core processor, 8GB RAM, 500MB graphics Cache; graphics accelerator, 1066bus, 512GB SSD, HDMI, Blueray r/w, w/11 hr battery life at 3 pounds?