For a small laptop (13.3 inches) the Toshiba Portege R835-P56x is an incredibly powerful unit. Most of the smaller units available today are limited in their capabilities, yet this is almost as powerful as the cheaper desktop computers, and all packed into a very small and lightweight case.
The case itself is metal, and this leaves the laptop feeling sturdy and well protected. It also looks great too, and as though it won’t wear out quickly. At just 3lb, it is a very light laptop, and easy to carry around in a backpack or laptop case.
The processor is the Intel Core i5 processor-a dual core 2.3GHZ processor that is capable of multi-threading. That means that each core can run two processes at once, meaning that rather than just being a dual core machine it can do four things at once instead. It makes it a very fast machine that can handle the most extreme multi-tasking that you, or your software can throw at it. Add to that the turbo-boost function which increases the speed even more when the machine needs it, and this becomes an incredibly fast small laptop. 4GB of RAM is installed, which handles the Windows 7 operating system beautifully.
Battery life is good too, rated at eight hours but in reality seven or more hours when doing more complex tasks. Possibly even less when you are using the machine to play media. Still this is far more than most laptops will manage-more comparable instead to a netbook, yet without the incredibly restrictive specs that a netbook has.
640GB of storage space is provided by the hard drive, which again is far more than the average laptop. Still, if that is not enough then it is easy enough to plug in an external drive to take care of, for instance, your media storage. There is a feature included on the system that is either unique or currently rare-a hard drive impact sensor that protects your data from knocks. It senses sudden movements-such as happen as a laptop starts to drop, and moves the hard drive heads to a safe position so that they cannot damage the drive (and therefore the data within). Given how frequently laptops get dropped, it’s surprising that no one has come up with this before.
Most laptops power down completely when you close them, or put them into sleep mode. This one has a USB port that you can choose to keep powered when the laptop is sleeping, so that you can charge other devices from it. An eco button gives you direct and easy access to the power settings so that you can decide what you need the most right at that time.
The screen is beautiful when viewed from straight in front of it. One of the biggest let downs though is that it has a very narrow viewing angle, so that you cannot watch from offside and essentially cannot share what you are viewing with other people.
The Portege is a lot of computer in a small package and for a relatively small price tag too. Well worth consideration for anyone in the market for a new computer.