Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: sony, toshiba, 12-inch | Themes: Business Notebooks, Laptops and Notebooks, Business
- 1. 12" Power Notebooks
- 2. HP Compaq 2510p: Design, Weight, Quality
- 3. HP Compaq 2510p: Hardware, Software, Usability
- 4. HP Compaq 2510p: Features, Heat, Noise
- 5. Samsung P200-Pro: Design, Weight, Quality
- 6. Samsung P200-Pro: Hardware, Software, Usability
- 7. Samsung P200-Pro: Features, Heat, Noise
- 8. Sony VAIO VGN-G21XP: Design, Weight, Quality
- 9. Sony VAIO VGN-G21XP: Hardware, Software, Usability
- 10. Sony VAIO VGN-G21XP: Features, Heat, Noise
- 11. Toshiba Portégé R500: Design, Weight, Quality
- 12. Toshiba Portégé R500: Hardware, Software, Usability
- 13. Toshiba Portégé R500: Features, Noise, Heat
- 14. Benchmark Testing
- 15. Application Testing, Battery Testing, Noise Level
- 16. Conclusion: Underdog, Sprinter, Endurance Racer and Flyweight
- 17. Spec Sheet
- 18. More on this topic
11. Toshiba Portégé R500: Design, Weight, Quality
Design
The design of the Portégé is kept simple; aside from the black display frame, the whole housing is kept in matte silver-gray. The trackpad buttons and their housing with integrated status lights are covered with chrome. Everything seems to be very well organized.
Weight
The Portégé is the clear winner in this discipline. No other system comes even close to its 900 g (1.98 pounds). Holding this notebook in your hands for the first time is an experience in itself — it is unbelievably light. In fact, if there is one problem that this $3,709 system faces, it is that due to its small size and light weight, one might assume it is just a fake computer or mock-up, like the ones you see at furniture stores!
Quality
The low weight affects quality, though; it is still high overall, but in some spots the R500 is missing some reinforcement in its frame. When pressing on the underbody, for example, you can lift up the keyboard. Pressing on the hand rests results in tilting the frame downward, although the keyboard itself doesn’t bend during typing. However the keys Alt, CTRL and the context menu bar on the right side of the keyboard stick out.
Although the display can be bent alarmingly far, it doesn’t create any bright pressure marks or patterns. Overall, though, we couldn’t get rid of the feeling that one could (with or without intention) easily break the Alt and CTRL keys in half. It would have been nice to have a little bit more weight to improve stiffness at some spots, but apparently 2 pounds was Toshiba’s development target, so there was not much room left to experiment with.
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Why only these four?
The Acer Travelmate 6293 (or older 6292 model) competes well with these models. The review would have been much more useful if you had included the Acer.
What about x300, x61, d430 etc.... the review is grate, just pour choice of Notebook's if you ask me.
Nice article, especialy useful in times when mini-notebooks, or netbooks come to be more and more popular. I am owner of HP 2510p almost 6 months and I love this notebook. It was extremly cheap for me - just 450USD from ebay. Small, well featured, ultra-light /1.6kg/ and 6-7h on 6-cell battery. Btw I think that overlaping battery is quite useful - just try it - as IT admin I use it every day - one can hold this notebook easily in one hand while doing many common service work, and type with other hand. I got my HP with Windows XP Pro, so its much faster than with Vista. I installed tripple boot on it, XP Pro, Ubuntu and Mac OSX 10.5.4 - just used external USB WiFi for Mac OSX, all other HW is working in all OSs.
I never understand while to bother with popular trends like Asus Eee - no DVD, limited HDD options, extremly LOW battery time /I expected much better performances with Atom and SSDs/, small size-display like from Gullivers fairy-tale. Thers only one good point - price. And its fun that if you want all these features on new EEE-like notebooks, you have to pay 500-700USD. So why not to pay more and have all fetures together like in HP 2510p or Toshiba R500. Or try ebay like me, and its even cheaper than new EEEs with Atom.
But maybe I am wrong and EEE targets different audience.
I cant believe you have done a review user "power" and "12.1" in the same sentence and failed to include uber powerful Asus U6V. My god this thing would blow your choices out of the water for under $1700 anywhere in north america!
HP recently introduced the 2530p with substantially faster ULV processors (up to the SL9400, 1.86GHz, 6MB L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB) and with 2 DIMM slots for up to 8GB of 800MHz DDR SDRAM. It weighs a little more with a starting weight of 3.16lbs, but with some additonal durability features built-in, it meets the Mil-Std-810F standards for vibration, dust, humidity, altitude and high temperature. The spec's can be found at this URL:
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products [...] 01_na.HTML
The 2510p will be going away shortly so the 2530p is the one to look at if one is considering HP.
HP also introduced the 2230s with a 12.1" screeen, and although it weighs a little more than the 2530p, it boasts a regular mobile processor such as an Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P8400 (2.26 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB, 3 MB L2 cache). This is a new form factor for HP as this model did not replace any existing models, but rather it is a new addition to HP's notebook lineup.
Marcus
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