Toshiba Unveils Tecra, Portégé Laptops With 'Sandy Bridge' Chips

Toshiba's business laptop customers have been asking for lighter machines and more robust battery life without a sacrifice to performance, according to the company, and on April 12 it delivered, with thinnest-ever versions of its Tecra and Portégé laptops.

The company introduced an ultraportable Portégé R830, a Tecra R840--25 percent thinner and 20 percent lighter than its predecessor--and an also slimmed down Tecra R850, all running Intel's 2nd-generation Core processors and a choice of 7200RPM hard drives or 128GB solid-state drives. Discrete graphics from AMD Radeon with 1GB of dedicated graphics memory are also included, along with USB 3.0, eSATA/USB Combo drives with Toshiba USB Sleep & Charge technology; DisplayPort or HDMI ports; ExpressCard slots, Gigabit Ethernet; and connectors for pairing the laptops with a dock.

A suite of security features, such as multilevel passwords, a fingerprint reader and an optional SmartCard reader, are included, and to lower the total cost of ownership across a fleet deployment, the Tectra and Portege laptops have similar graphics, the same AC power adapter and Hi-Speed Port Replicator II, and the Portege R830 and Tecra R840 have interchangeable 6- and 9-cell batteries.

The Tecra laptops were built with a new fiberglass-reinforced casing and "honeycomb rib" structure.  The R840 features a 14-inch (diagonal) HD or HD-plus LED-backlit display, is an inch thin and weighs just 4.2 pounds. It can be configured with a Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 processors and--when paired with a solid state drive--boasts a battery life of up to 11 hours.

There's easy access to the hard drive and memory (just remove two screws), EasyGuard technology to protect against knocks and spills and--a particular point of Toshiba pride--a "highly effective" air intake design for keeping the machine cool.

The larger Tegra R850 similarly features the range of processor choices but bumps the display to 15.6 inches and includes a 10-key numeric pad on the keyboard. At approximately an inch thick and a starting weight of 5.3 pounds, it's 19 percent thinner and 6 percent lighter than the Tecra A11 that proceeded it, and paired with the solid state drive offers a battery life of seven hours.

For more, read the eWEEK article: Toshiba's Thin Portégé, Tecra Laptops Feature Intel 'Sandy Bridge' Chips.