It's an autumn thing. Around this time every year, give or take a bit, Toshiba unveils its latest business laptop line-up, with new models and spec-boosted upgrades across the board.
For those unfamiliar with Toshiba's trio of business notebook families, we have:
- the Portégé series of stylish ultraportables, such as slim and light Ultrabooks and convertible 2-in-1 devices
- the Satellite Pro: still thin and light, but built with an eye on the bottom line of affordability
- the Tecra range of muscle-bound 'desktop-replacement' laptops, geared to be rolled out as a fleet in medium-to-large organisations where desktop docking stations and security are high on the list.
Standard features across all three skews include Intel's latest sixth-generation Core i5 and i7 chips; spill-resistant keyboards; identical AC adaptors and port replicators to previous models; and 'Sleep-and-Charge' USB ports which can recharge a tablet or smartphone even when the notebook itself is switched off or in sleep mode.
Here are some highlights from Toshiba's 'Fall 2016' laptop line.
The 12.5-inch Portégé Z20T (above) keeps its appealing '2-in-1 Ultrabook' form and insane 19 hours battery life (in notebook mode) but along with sixth-gen Intel powerplants this revamp includes the high-speed USB Type-C connector with up to 16Gb of RAM for heavy-duty app overhead and 512GB of SSD storage. Prices start at $2,255.
Its larger sibling, the Portégé R30 13.3-incher (above), is some 27% thinner than the previous edition and has full desktop docking capabilities, with up to 13 hours battery life and your choice of a 500GB (7200rpm) hard drive or 128GB/256GB solid state drive, priced from a budget-friendly $1,485.
The Satellite Pro R50 (above) is more of your big-screen road buddy, with a 15.6 inch display, full-size keyboard with numeric keypad and – increasingly rare these days – an inbuilt CD/DVD drive for both playing and burning discs on the go. The basic spec R50 kicks off from $1,210.
Toshiba is also tempting road warriors with two top-shelf Ultrabooks: the 14 inch Tecra Z40 (above, from $1,980) and 15.6 inch Tecra Z50 (from$2,090) with up to eight hours' battery life and optional 4G LTE mobile broadband.
The really serious stuff? That's the domain of the Tecra A40 (a 14 incher, from $1,375) and the Tecra A50 (above, a 15.6 inch from $1,430) which both sport a docking port and Toshiba's Tecra-standard 'High Speed Port Replicator' with selected models packing a fingerprint reader for added security on the go.
For more details, click through to mytoshiba.com.au.
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David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
28 Sep 2012
Total posts 131
Despite the extra RAM and new CPU speeds, these laptops are not enough to entice me away from my trusty UX31a Asus laptop.
Its been an amazing workhorse out on the road. Still gets 5 hours batter after all this time on power save - and still a good 3 hours on full power on battery.
Light, sleek and great to use. Excellent keyboard for typing too. Still lighter and thinner that these new offerings.
I've never been a huge Toshiba fan either.
31 Jul 2012
Total posts 20
Toshiba are virtually bankrupt, and none of the local distributors stock anything any longer since the fraudulent activity of Toshiba Japan last year. Factories have been closed or severely downsized.
As a long standing Toshiba dealer, we sold a lot of these, but no longer. This is a shame as from a quality perspective they were great. Now selling Toshiba is too much of a risk. Buyer beware.
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