Toshiba Portégé R500

Notebook Specifications

Reviews for theToshiba Portégé R500

70%Toshiba Portégé R500 (SSD)
Source: PC Mag (English)
Toshiba drove the Portégé R500 (SSD)'s weight down to 1.7 pounds, but you'll have to do without an optical drive, work with a smaller battery, and pay for an expensive SSD drive.
3.5 von 5, Leistung mäßig, Preis mangelhaft
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 04/29/2008
Rating: Total score: 70% price: 50% performance: 60%

73%Toshiba Portege R500-S5002
Source: PC World (English)
It's a feature, not a flaw: You can twist the Toshiba Portégé R500's screen in your bare hands. Pressing the plastic panel on the bottom of the case underneath the hard drive makes it pop inward. Toshiba does many things right with the Portégé R500--you just can't become too bent out of shape over the twisty.
(von 100): 73, Leistung 51, Ausstattung 80, Preis mäßig, Mobilität gut
Single Review, online available, Short, Date: 03/07/2008
Rating: Total score: 73% price: 60% performance: 51% features: 80% mobility: 80%

85%Toshiba Portégé R500 slimline laptop
Source: Reg Hardware (English)
Toshiba's Portege R500 is pricey and its construction doesn't inspire confidence, but you simply can't argue with how incredibly portable it is. Yes, you can buy cheaper full-size laptops. True, you can get yourself more powerful ones. But the R500 is about delivering a decent computing experience in a casing you can carry in your hand all day, which few other machine can. For us, that makes it a winner.
85%, Preis/Leistung mangelhaft, Verarbeitung schlecht, Mobilität sehr gut, Leistung sehr gut
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 02/25/2008
Rating: Total score: 85% price: 50% performance: 90% mobility: 90% workmanship: 40%

80%Toshiba Portege R500-126 ultraportable laptop
Source: vnunet.com (English)
Apple may get all the headlines with its super-thin MacBook Air (reviewed here), but Toshiba's Portege R500-126 trumps it in many areas. True, it can't compete on thickness - the Toshiba Portege R500-126 is 19.5-25.5mm from thinnest to thickest, while the Air is a mere 0.4-1.94mm. 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 Portege R500-126 will make an excellent travel companion.
(von 5): 4, Verarbeitung 4.5, Ausstattung 3.5, Preis/Leistung 3.5
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 02/19/2008
Rating: Total score: 80% price: 70% features: 70% workmanship: 90%

79%Toshiba Portege R500-S5003
Source: CNet (English)
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 very close to the final word in ultraportable systems. 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.
7.9 von 10, Mobilität mäßig, Leistung mäßig, Preis/Leistung mangelhaft
Single Review, online available, Short, Date: 02/14/2008
Rating: Total score: 79% price: 50% performance: 60% mobility: 60%

70%Toshiba Portege R500
Source: Laptop Logic (English)
Ultra portables have carved a niche in the laptop world as the sexy and stylish of all laptops out in the market. They’re small and lightweight, making them the perfect travel companion if you’re a power user who is constantly on-the-go. However, as a result of their compact form factor the ultra portable is sometimes limited in its performance and feature sets, making them a product geared more for the travelling businessman. These machines usually have slower performing processors, lack of any video graphics capabilities, and no optical drive built-in in an effort to save battery power and space.
Toshiba has really brought out many of the world’s firsts in this ultra-portable machine.  It’s currently the thinnest and lightest full-featured ultra-portable you can buy on the market.  And with it, you’ll really stand out and impress passersby.

3.5 von 5, Preis/Leistung teuer, Leistung schlecht, Mobilität sehr gut
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 09/02/2007
Rating: Total score: 70% price: 40% performance: 40% mobility: 90%

67%Toshiba Portégé R500
Source: PC Pro (English)
In the face of it, the Sony TZ12 and the Toshiba Portégé R500 have plenty in common. They weigh practically the same, have similar-sized screens, and share ridiculously tiny dimensions. Both use Intel's ultra-low voltage range of Core 2 Duos and both will happily fit into the very smallest of shoulder bags. Yet while the Sony costs £2,099 (inc VAT), the Toshiba weighs in at nearly £800 less. If you think that means there's no reason to be tempted by the more expensive Sony, though, think again - the R500's build quality is noticeably less impressive than that of the TZ12. In particular, the Portégé's chassis has a plasticky feel, with a little too much flex in the palmrest for our comfort. As such, the R500 is just that little less reassuring when the time comes to stuffing it in a bag or running for that train. The different scale of budget shows through when it comes to usability, too: the keyboard in particular feels noticeably spongy.
eher kurz gehaltener Test; online abrufbar

4 von 6
Single Review, online available, Short, Date: 08/20/2007
Rating: Total score: 67%

70%Toshiba Portégé R500
Source: Laptop Mag (English)
Toshiba redefines the ultraportable with the thinnest and lightest notebook with a 12.1-inch widescreen display and an optical drive. One look at the Toshiba Portégé R500 and you know you're in the presence of a breakthrough. Weighing a mere 2.4 pounds, this notebook has all of the makings of a true no-compromise ultraportable. The silver magnesium-alloy chassis is sophisticated chic, and we love the full-sized keyboard that doesn't waste even a centimeter of surrounding space. This superthin, superlight machine is easy to grab and go in a hurry. The lack of mobile broadband is a bummer, and the razor-thin display lacks the punch of some other ultraportables, but overall this is a very good laptop for users who care more about portability than sheer power. At its thinnest point, the R500 measures 0.8 inches thick, widening to one inch on the backside. The subtle wedge design makes the notebook easy to slide into a tote bag.
eher kurz gehaltener Test; online abrufbar

3.5 von 5, Leistung exzellent, Display mangelhaft, Mobilität gut
Single Review, online available, Short, Date: 07/30/2007
Rating: Total score: 70% performance: 95% display: 50% mobility: 80%

79%Toshiba Portege R500-S5002
Source: CNet (English)
Perhaps the laptop we've been most looking forward to checking out this year, Toshiba's Portege R500 is very close to the final word in ultraportable systems. Incredibly thin and light, it manages to squeeze a 12-inch display into a package even lighter than Sony's 11-inch VAIO TZ150. While there have been some less expensive ultraportables we've liked recently (such as the Averatec 1579), both the R500 and VAIO TZ are premium products, with configurations ranging from $2,000 to 3,000, thanks to high-end options, including solid state hard drives. While the VAIO and the R500 have similar prices and features, there are trade-offs. We were disappointed by the lack of mobile broadband in our R500, but we also found it offered better performance than the VAIO (largely Sony's fault for packing their system with enough bloatware to slow it to a crawl).
ausführlicher Test mit Geräteaufbau und Testwerten und Bildern; online abrufbar

(von 10): 7.9, Leistung 7, Ausstattung 7, Mobilität 8
Single Review, online available, Short, Date: 06/30/2007
Rating: Total score: 79% performance: 70% features: 70% mobility: 80%

70%Toshiba Portégé R500
Source: PC Mag (English)
Bottom line: The Toshiba Portégé R500 is a 2.4-pound ultraportable that performs the impressive feat of integrating an optical drive, though the system is strictly made for heavy travel schedules and light workloads. Pros: Integrated optical drive at 2.4-pounds. 120GB hard drive. Sleek design. Full-size keyboard. Three USB ports. LED backlights. Cons: DVD burner generates a lot of noise. Mouse buttons can be a nuisance. You'll need to bump the RAM up to 2GB.
eher kurz gehaltener Test; online abrufbar

3.5 von 5
Single Review, online available, Short, Date: 06/05/2007
Rating: Total score: 70%

Foreign Reviews

Schlank und supermobil!
Source: e-media - 6/08 (German)
, Medium, Date: 05/01/2008
Rating: price: 30% mobility: 70%

Toshiba Portégé R500
Source: AON.at (German)
online available, Short, Date: 04/24/2008
Rating: price: 40% display: 80% ergonomy: 80%

Immer dabei!
Source: mobile Zeit - 3/08 (German)
, Length Unknown, Date: 04/09/2008
Rating: mobility: 80%

Klein aber oho
Source: Connect - 5/08 (German)
, Length Unknown, Date: 04/07/2008
Rating: performance: 80% mobility: 40%

80%Klein aber oho
Source: Connect - 5/08 (German)
, Medium, Date: 04/07/2008
Rating: Total score: 80% performance: 84% features: 74% mobility: 69% ergonomy: 90%

90%Toshiba Portégé R500 HDD-Version
Source: Notebookjournal (German)
online available, Long, Date: 03/11/2008
Rating: Total score: 90% price: 70% performance: 70% features: 30% display: 10% mobility: 70% workmanship: 50% ergonomy: 50% emissions: 50%

80%Toshiba Portégé R500 SSD-Version
Source: Notebookjournal (German)
online available, Medium, Date: 03/03/2008
Rating: Total score: 80% price: 60% performance: 50% features: 30% display: 10% mobility: 50% workmanship: 50% ergonomy: 50% emissions: 50%

86%Test Toshiba Portégé R500 Subnotebook
Source: Notebookcheck (German)
online available, Long, Date: 03/03/2008
Rating: Total score: 86% performance: 62% display: 84% mobility: 88% workmanship: 90% ergonomy: 82% emissions: 85%

All you need is the Air?
Source: WCM - 4/08 (German)
, Long, Date: 03/01/2008
Rating: price: 40% display: 80% workmanship: 50%

Mobilität in einer neuen Dimension
Source: SFT - 3/08 (German)
, Length Unknown, Date: 02/27/2008
Rating: display: 50% mobility: 80% workmanship: 50%

80%Toshiba Portégé R500
Source: ZDNet (German)
online available, Long, Date: 09/28/2007
Rating: Total score: 80% price: 50% mobility: 90%

90%Klein wonder - Toshiba Portégé R500
Source: Hardware.info (Dutch)
Single Review, online available, Medium, Date: 09/03/2007
Rating: Total score: 90% price: 50% performance: 70% mobility: 80%

Comment

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100 is an integrated (onboard) graphic chip on a Mobile Intel 965GM chipset. It is the successor of GMA 950 and features a fully programmable pipeline (supports Aero Glass fully and DirectX 10 with newest drivers). The peformance of the X3100 is clearly better than the GMA 950, still demanding modern games won't run fluently.

Only older games can be played fluently with these graphics chips (if they were not too demanding). Shared memory graphic cores in this category got the advantage of less heat production and longer battery runtimes. For office, internet, image processing, and video editing tasks these graphics chips are still useable without any restrictions.

Intel Core 2 Duo: This is the Core Duo and Core Solo successor with a longer pipeline and 5-20% more speed without more power consumption. As an addition to the Core Duo design there exists a fourth decoder, an amplified SSE-unit and an additional arithmetical logical unit (ALU).

The Core 2 Duo for laptops is identical to the desktop Core 2 Duo processors but the notebook-processors work with lower voltages (0.95 to 1188 Volt) and a lower Frontside bus clock (1066 vs 667 MHz). The performance of equally clocked notebooks is 20-25% lower than Desktop PCs because of the lower Frontside bus clock and the slower hard disks.

U7600:
>> Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.

12.1": This is the most common display format for subnotebooks and an average size for subnotebooks.
The advantage is, that the subnotebook can be small dimensioned and can be carried easily. Further the tiny display has the advantage, that it needs less power, which improves the battery runtime and in consequence the mobility. The disadvantage is that reading of texts is very exhausting vor the eyes. High resolutions can hardly be used.
>> To find out how fine a display is, see our DPI List.

1.1 kg: This subnotebook is one of the most lightweight of all notebooks and can be carried very easily. There exist hardly any models in this extreme class of weight. 7-9 inch displays are normal for this class of weight.

Toshiba: Toshiba is one of the biggest international notebook-manufacturer. There exist many reviews for Toshiba models. The ratings of German magazines are very positive, but the relation of price and value is evaluated rather average. The ratings according the features and display are also quite well for Toshiba notebooks.

78.06%: This rating is not convincing. It must be considered, that there exist hardly any laptops, which receive a rating below 60%. This notebook is evaluated below average, this is not really a recommendation for purchase.

>> Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.