Toshiba Portege R700-S1322 13.3" Laptop

One of the worst experience with Amazon and Galactics. The laptop is not working from the day it arrived. Why I have to go through all this if I need a return. If has to be simple at least.

I just bought this directly from Amazon and everything seems to be working well and it is ultra light. The keyboard is great and feels as good/ergonomic as a full-sized external keyboard minus numeric pad. I'll try updating this review later with a more balanced review including pros & cons.

Buy Toshiba Portege R700-S1322 13.3" Laptop Now

Overview: This is a nice little machine for a reasonable price. Thin, lightweight, and full-powered. Build quality is acceptable-better than your standard consumer-grade machine, although not up to the standards of a Thinkpad (a true Thinkpad, not one the watered-down value lines Lenovo has recently introduced), an E6XXX Latitude, or Elitebook. On the other hand, it is (again) thinner and lighter than most business machines, and packs a surprising amount of processing power considering its form factor.

Pros:

1. Thin and light-ideal for travel, especially with the small AC adapter.

2. Good battery life. 5 hours is easily achieved with the stock battery with brightness at about 70%, wifi on, and browsing/office app work. This is actually excellent when one takes into account the CPU and physical size of the machine.

3. Docking connector. If you use docks, you'll understand why this is so important. If not, try a dock (a true dock-not a USB aftermarket model) and you will never purchase another work machine that does not have a native docking connection. The Toshiba dock is not cheap, but is full-featured and integrates perfectly, with no hot-plugging issues.

4. Horsepower. Powerful CPU, good enough on the graphics front for business and dual monitors, plenty of RAM support, and the stock HDD is good (throw in an SSD to make the machine really fly).

5. Matte screen. It's not glossy. Enough said. Brightness is good enough for indoors work, but not quite there in the sun.

6. Trackpad off button. Very handy for typing, to prevent random cursor movement and clicks.

7. Fingerprint reader that actually works well.

Cons:

1. Heat and noise. There is no way around this, really. Cram a high-power CPU and an optical drive into a thin machine, and this is the price. Fan revs up really quickly, even under light load, and the constant ramping up and slowing down can be annoying. The machine also gets toasty under load, enough to be a bit uncomfortable.

2. No touchpoint/trackpoint. If I used this machine as an actual laptop most of the time, as opposed to keeping it docked, this would be a deal-breaker. But, if you are not a trackpoint fan, this should not bother you at all.

3. Gaudy chrome accents on the trackpad buttons and hinges. Yes, this is nitpicky, but if accents must be used, at least make them real metal.

Other:

1. As mentioned, build quality is OK. Don't expect this machine to survive abuse like a full-fledged business machine.

2. Built-in camera and mic work perfectly well for videoconferencing, although the native speakers do not get terribly loud.

3. The screen is a typical TN panel, but not horrible. It is usable with decent viewing angles (for a TN) and a serviceable resolution.

4. Not sure how cluttered the machine is on the factory image; I have read reports that it is quite cluttered, so users should be aware that a clean install may be called for.

5. Screen hinge seems quite tight. Again, not Thinkpad heavy-duty, but the screen is very thin and light, so I don't anticipate they will be problematic.

6. Keyboard is island-style and OK. It's a bit difficult to describe-if you press the keys individually, they seem quite stiff and unimpressive. However, in actual use, it is actually quite decent. I would not hate my life if I had to use this keyboard extensively.

7. There is an optical drive. Big plus if you need one, but these days, it's not quite a deal maker or breaker.

Conclusion: No big surprises here. Price is ultimately going to be the deciding factor, unless some of the other features (especially the weight and slim profile) are selling points. In the $1K range, there is pretty stiff competition from the Thinkpad X2XX and Elitebook 2XXX series. The newer version (R800 series) reportedly improves on what I perceive to be the biggest issue with this model-heat (and subsequently noise). The latest version of the i5 (Sandy Bridge) uses a 32nm process for the GPU and almost certainly has some additional power optimizations.

12/21/2011 update

Having used this notebook for a few months, here are some additional observations:

1. The CPU really needs an SSD to stretch its legs. A G2 80GB Intel makes a noticeable difference, and is well-worth the cost. Swapping the drive out is a simple matter, and Intel provides free migration software for easy cloning. This performance boost should not have come as a surprise, but the difference never fails to impress me. I expect slightly longer batter life as well, but have not tested yet.

2. The speakers are seriously weak and lacking. An external speaker is a requirement if using this to share content/give presentations.

3. The palm rest area is a bit too flexible. The mag-alloy is solid enough, but there does not appear to be a rigid underlayer. Picking the system up by the left side causes the fan to compress a bit and results in a slightly disturbing grinding noise.

4. Battery life is quite good, but a spare is highly recommended if you use this for CPU-intensive work. Nonetheless, a full charge will only drain ~45-55% in the course of 2 hours of a media-rich presentation streaming over WebEx.

5. Noise/heat remain weak points. The fan has a very steep ramp-up curve, and this can get quite annoying during meetings. I'd wager that the fan noise alone would be enough to give away the fact that you are watching videos/playing games instead of paying attention. Even at idle, the fan is noisy enough such that the system is never silent. With an SSD, my ThinkPads have been essentially noise-free at equal workloads; the Toshiba is quiet most of the time for emails, light Office app work, etc, but you know it's there.

6. Fingerprint reader works quite well. Much less picky than previous generations, and is actually useful enough to be a viable alternative to inputting passwords with the KB.

7. Keyboard becomes squeaky and annoying over time, even with light use. I amend my previous comment about it-I actually would hate my life if I had to use it exclusively.

Conclusion: Not sure why anyone would be considering this particular model for personal use, but if your company purchased one for you, do whatever it takes to convince your IT department to upgrade you to a good SSD.

Read Best Reviews of Toshiba Portege R700-S1322 13.3" Laptop Here

I'm very happy with this machine. I got tired of lugging my 8 pound multimedia "laptop". It was a fine machine and still in use, but I really needed to downsize the machine to save my back and shoulders. This is a fine PC, good LCD, good keyboard with a nice "feel" to it, decent speed, etc. I'm quite content with the machine and it's a very welcome addition to my road warrior kit. Other reviews complained about how noisy and hot it is. HUH? I have not found either to be an issue.

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I got a good deal on this product. The merchant told me that "Amazon screwed it up" . I never got this product. Got a mail to write a review abt the product from Amazon!!