Toshiba Portege R500 - Expert Reviews

Review summary: First Class Travelling. The Portégé R500 can be called a prototyp ...

Pros: Attractive design , Compact size, low weight , Good workmanship, high-quality materials , A lot of communication options , UMTS/HSDPA integrated , Spacious, user-friendly keyboard , Transreflective LED display, well fit for outdoor operation, ...

Cons: Touch pad needs getting used to , Moderate picture quality and viewing angles , Fan is always audible , Moderate battery runtime, Touch pad needs getting used to, Moderate picture quality and viewing angles, Fan is always audible, Moderate battery ...

Review summary: Tosh's super-small laptop is packed with all the necessary bits to run Vista at warp speed. But has it got the design clout to compete with Sony and Apple?

Pros: Extremely powerful. Unbelievably light

Cons: Feels a little cheap. Screen not as good as competitors

Review summary: Microsoft's Office Live Web service was designed for small businesses that needed an easy solution for creating websites and business emails. Microsoft Office Live Small Business offers a single service with a number of pay-for add-ons.

Verdict: Even in terms of price, the R500 stands up well against the Air once you configure the latter with the 64GB SSD drive, coming in at £1,761 to Apple's £2,028. If you're after a usable, super portable machine that weighs hardly anything then the Toshiba ...

Pros: Extremely thin and light laptop ; includes solid-state hard drive

Cons: Fixed configuration ; no mobile broadband ; expensive external optical drive option ; ULV CPU limits performance without seeming to do all that much to extend battery life

Verdict: Toshiba's SSD version of the Portege R500 may be the best ultraportable laptop available right now, and it packs in much of what the MacBook Air lacks while weighing nearly half as much.

Review summary: When we first saw the Toshiba Portege R500 back in the summer of 2007, it quickly became one of our favorite ultraportable laptops--and one of our favorite laptops overall. Thanks to its small size, light weight, and plentiful extras, the R500 was ...