Ultraportable Showdown: Toshiba Vs. MSI : Conclusion
4. Conclusion
Aesthetically, both the R600 and the X340 are restrained and elegant. But ergonomically, the MSI suffers from its poor keyboard. It doesn't use all the space available on the chassis and sinks down disconcertingly under your fingers. The Toshiba wins this comparison with its well-designed keyboard with wide, pleasant-to-use keys. The MSI's connectivity leaves something to be desired, lacking outputs compared to the Toshiba. It does have an HDMI output, however, which will improve video and audio. The Toshiba is quieter than the MSI, essentially because of its SSD.
Displays
The Toshiba's matte-finished panel has a better black level than the MSI's display. The contrast ratio we measured on the MSI dsiplay was 341:1 compared to 680:1 for the Toshiba's panel. Also note that the MSI's panel surface is highly reflective, which is very distracting when watching movies. The Toshiba display is not fault-free, though - the backlighting was visible in the black bands at the edges.
Performance
The Toshiba notebook is lighter (10.6 ounces less than the MSI), but still packs more power and memory. The R600 has a dual-core processor, compared to the single-core in the MSI X340. As for quickness, the Toshiba is well in front thanks to its 512 GB SSD, which has much better access times than the standard hard drive in the MSI. And while 3D gaming is out, both notebooks can play HD video with no problems if the GPU's hardware acceleration is enabled. The sound quality, however, is disastrous on both machines.
Conclusion
The Toshiba Portégé R600 wins handily thanks to a better-designed and finished keyboard and performance that's better overall than its competitor from MSI. You'll have to pay a price premium of around $600, however, to get your hands on the lowest-end R600 - which doesn't come with any sort of SSD.
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?