Toshiba Portégé R700: first-look review

Monday, June 21st, 2010

While the Toshiba Libretto W100 and AC100 are both radically different products to what has gone before, the R700 treads more established ground. This is the successor to Toshiba’s Portégé R600 and R500, both of which were targeted at top executives from generously endowed companies.

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Samsung X-Series: First Look

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

The first two days of the IFA trade show in Berlin saw a couple of laptop-related surprises: first, Sony unveiled one of the most alluring machines we’ve ever seen in the form of its 14mm, 640g X-Series, before Samsung unleashed its very own X-Series notebooks the very next day.

Samsung’s trio of new laptops may not be quite as slim as Sony’s latest crowd-pleaser, but they still have some pretty enticing vital statistics: the 15in X520, for instance, is 24mm thick and weighs 2.09kg. And even though that’s more than three times as heavy as the Sony, it still feels incredibly light for a 15in notebook. The X120 is even more lightweight at 1.36kg.

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Samsung’s 360-degree turnaround

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

I spent the end of last week poking around the Samsung X360, and found that it fell short in several areas. One of these was the optical drive: whereas rivals from Sony and Lenovo manage to cram optical drives into the svelte dimensions, the Samsung doesn’t bother.

I found myself thinking that, well, maybe this isn’t actually a bad thing – in our day-to-day lives, who uses their optical drive on a regular basis any more?

My laptop is used on the train or on the sofa, for example, and I’m normally playing a game or working. The game doesn’t use a disc, and neither does Microsoft Word. Listening to music doesn’t need a CD anymore, as I have my mp3 player, and the vast majority of applications that I have on my laptop don’t require the CD in the drive to boot.

Of course, Samsung has included a USB DVD drive if you need to use a CD, but the excellent battery life means that this, surely, can be left at home more often than not – it’ll usually be wheeled out for an occasional product install, for instance.

I suppose that the optical drive could now be considered virtually redundant for the majority of users most of the time. It also appears that the Macbook Air may have actually done something right. What do you think?

First look: Sony’s all-new ultraportable – the TT

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

We caught our first glimpse of Sony’s legendary TZ-series back in 2007. The first moment we clapped eyes on Sony’s VGN-TZ11XN/B was the beginning of a love affair to remember.

Picture the scene – before netbooks were even a distant, cheeky glint in Asus’ eye, Sony furnished us with a ground-breaking business ultraportable that weighed in at a frankly, unbelievable 1.2kg. Its svelte figure was hitherto unmatched by the opposition, and its looks were married with 7+ hour battery life and surprisingly capable performance, courtesy of its low-voltage Intel Core 2 Duo processor. 

Since then we’ve seen the incremental TZ21 and TZ31 refreshes come and go, but now Sony has completely revamped the series. The TZ has evolved into the TT.

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First look: Samsung’s ultraportable X-series – the 13.3″ X360 and 14.1″ X460

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

With netbooks stealing all the headlines in the sub-2kg market, it’s refreshing to see that the big manufacturers are still making premium ultraportables for £1000+ budgets. After all, netbooks might be fine for surfing the net or tapping out the odd email, but still don’t offer a combination of power, screen resolution and features which can truly replace a fully-featured ultraportable laptop.

It was only last week that we took a good, hard look at Sony’s latest business-focussed ultraportable, the VGN-Z11WN/B, and now hot on its lightweight heels is Samsung’s newly refreshed X-series.

We managed to get a closer look at two models from the range, the 13.3” X360 and the 14.1” model, the X460.

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To Eee or Not to Eee?

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

I’m in something of a quandary. After seeing just how much work I can get done on the train – there’s an awful lot of time to be had in between businessman having fights with their portable bicycles and then hammering away on their Blackberries – I’ve decided to buy some sort of ultraportable laptop.

My motivation is that while I’d like to work on the train, getting anything done at the moment requires more effort than I’d like. Which, ideally, is no effort at all. At the moment, hammering out a review on the journey home involves lugging a (relatively) heavy laptop in an extra bag, with the respective power cables in case I decide to use it when I get home, too. I’d like to condense this down somewhat, and some sort of smaller, lighter laptop stands out, as I’d be able to slip it into my backpack with everything else.

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