Toshiba Portege R835-P70 Laptop Review
Toshiba Portege R835-P70 Laptop Review by Thereviewspoint.com
The good: With a new Intel Core i5 CPU, sharp design, and nearly all-day battery life, the Toshiba Portege R835 is a smartly priced alternative to the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
The bad: Intel’s integrated graphics are better than they used to be, but still not gamer-friendly, and features such as Bluetooth and mobile broadband are missing from some configs. There’s no Blu-ray option (only DVD), and the speakers are somewhat anemic.
The bottom line: Excellent battery life, a light weight, and great pricing make the Toshiba Portege R835 hard to beat, even in the highly competitive 13-inch laptop category.
Specification :
Processor : 2.3GHz Intel Core i5-2410M
Memory : 4GB, 1,333MHz DDR3
Hard drive : 640GB 5,400rpm
Chipset : Intel HM65
Graphics : Intel HD 3000
Operating system : Windows 7 Home premium (64-bit)
Dimensions (WD) : 12.4×8.9 inches
Height : 0.7 inch – 1.1 inches
Screen size (diagonal) : 13.3 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter : 3.2 pounds/3.9 pounds
Category : 13-inch
Some configurations include or exclude Bluetooth, Intel’s Wireless Display technology, or built-in 4G wireless. Others drop to a slower Core i3 processor, or step up to a faster Core i7. Here’s a quick cheat sheet on the different configurations as the currently exist:
Toshiba also offers several Portege R830 models, which offer a docking connector and other CPU and hard-drive configurations (Core i7, SSD).
The keyboard, like most current consumer laptop keyboards, uses flat, widely spaced island-style keys, except these keys are slightly more rectangular than most, which may throw off touch typists. This does, however, leave more room for the oversize touch pad, which is close to what you’d see on a MacBook, except with a pair of large standalone left and right mouse buttons.
Toshiba’s keyboards typically have a vertical row of dedicated Page Up, Page Down, Home, and End keys along the right side. This makes them easy to find, but at the same time pushes the Enter and Right Shift keys in from where you’d instinctively expect them to be. Media control buttons, volume, mute, and so on can also be hard to find, relegated to alternate F-key assignments and indicated in dark gray on black keys. Like the R705, the R835 lacks a backlit keyboard. Despite these flaws, the R835 still offers an excellent overall typing and touch-pad experience.
The 13.3-inch LED display has a native resolution of 1,366×768 pixels–roughly comparable with the MacBook’s 1,280×800 pixels, but less than the 1,440×900-pixel 13-inch display found in the 13-inch MacBook Air. Though bright, the off-axis viewing angles on the R835 weren’t great. Likewise, we’ve never been impressed with the onboard audio in the Portege laptops; the R835 speakers get the job done, but they’re pretty lackluster.
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