Product Reviews

Toshiba's Tecra A2 is aimed at the corporate market and promises a long product life to give the sort of platform stability that business buyers need. This model is the middle of three currently on offer and has a 1.5GHz Pentium M processor and a 40GB hard disk. The 256MB of RAM seems a little low for the price, but only the top-of-the-range 1.7GHz machine gets 512MB.

At first glance the A2 doesn't appear especially portable, but a slim profile helps to reduce its apparent bulk and at 2.65kg it's relatively light for a notebook with a 15" screen. Its left side houses a USB2.0 port, PC card slot and D-sub output, with audio connectors, a DVD/CD-RW combo drive and a further USB2.0 slot to the right. Parallel, network and modem ports are at the rear.

Elements of the Tecra's design seem poorly thought out for a notebook likely to see plenty of use on the road. It has a bright silver finish that is easily scratched. The lid can be flexed with little effort, causing the screen to discolour in patches and move slightly in its mounts. Although its hinges are strong, the catch assembly is highly flexible

The A2's trackpad and keyboard are of high quality and are comfortable to use, but the Windows key is in the top right-hand corner - a common annoyance in Toshiba notebooks.

The benchmark scores paint a slightly more positive picture. Although 2,321 points in 3DMark2001 indicates poor 3D performance, potential users of this computer will be far more interested in its suitability for work than for games. A SYSMark2004 score of 98 points is adequate for mobile office working, but its real strength is its battery life of four hours and 19 minutes in our tests. This is among the best we've seen and should prove plenty for the most mobile of users.

The A2 has other strong points. It's extremely quiet and the DVD spin speed can be limited to reduce noise further during audio CD playback. For security, wireless networking can be disabled via a switch and the trackpad can be switched off.

It comes with a high-quality, semi-rigid briefcase with plenty of dividers and pockets. Toshiba installs Windows XP Pro and Microsoft OneNote 2003, the information-sharing application in Office 2003, but there are no other Office applications.

The Toshiba is a mid-price notebook with little to set it apart in terms of specification or features. Its low weight and excellent battery performance should make it ideal for business life on the road, but despite a strong briefcase we have concerns about its durability and can't help wondering how it would stand up to a couple of years' heavy use.