Toshiba Portege R705 review

Stuck on the Toshiba Portege R705's magnesium alloy palmrest is a shiny sticker celebrating the company's 25 years of "laptop innovation." Now, we're the first to hate on the plethora of decals that festoon Windows laptops these days -- and this one also deserves to be peeled off and tossed into the garbage -- but the sticker actually happens to speaks volumes about why the $800 R705 is such a big deal. We promise to keep the history lesson short, but for years the Portege series has been Toshiba's top-of-the-line ultraportable brand, featuring the latest CPUs while usually setting the standard for portability, and always been attached to seriously hefty price tags. Take the Portege R500, which was the worlds lightest laptop in 2007, and cost two grand.

The Portege R705, which is exclusive to Best Buy for now, changes that formula. And in celebration of the big two-five, Toshiba's put out a 3.2-pound, Core i3-powered stunner that's less than half the price of past Porteges. Oh, and did we mention it has an on-board optical drive, 500GB of storage, Intel's wireless display technology and promises 8.5 hours of battery life? We won't beat around the bush -- it's impressive. But did Toshiba maintain the same Portege standards when creating the R705, or did it cut quality along with the dollar signs? That's been our main question, and we'll answer it and others after the break in our full review.

Toshiba Portege R705 review

Look and feel

The R705 looks a lot like past Porteges, and even though it'll be found on the shelves of Best Buy it still looks like a laptop for the business professional. While the dark navy colored (it looks black in some lighting) lid isn't glossy, the matte, magnesium alloy surface still picks up fingerprints and will need the occasional rubdown. The chrome screen hinges add a little something to the design, and they're also quite sturdy – unlike the Acer TimelineX 4820T, the screen doesn't wobble at all. Speaking of build quality, Toshiba's come up with a new honeycomb structure under the base and palmrest to give the entire system some added rigidly. That fear about the R705 feeling cheap quickly disappeared -- it's actually pretty remarkable how solid the system feels for its size and weight.

Perhaps the R705's subdued aesthetic is Toshiba's way of not detracting attention from its insanely thin and light chassis. The system measures an inch at its thickest point and weighs an unbelievable 3.2 pounds. Carrying this machine home for the night made our 4.5-pound Macbook Pro feel like a bag of bricks. Toshiba actually claims it's the lightest 13.3-inch laptop in the world with an optical drive – and we can't seem to find any information that proves otherwise. In addition to that optical drive, the chassis also makes room for two USB ports, an USB/eSATA, Ethernet, VGA, HDMI, headphone and microphone jacks. There's also an SD card reader slot built into the right side of the palmrest.

Keyboard, touchpad and screen

Like every other laptop we've reviewed in the last few months, the R705 has a chiclet keyboard. The black, squared-off keys are a lot like those on Toshiba's Mini NB305 netbook in terms of their Technia font, and they're similarly quite small. We're just not sure why they're shrunken – there's certainty enough space on the deck to fit larger keys -- but there's more room in between each one, so maybe that's the idea. This may end up bothering some with larger fingers, but for what it's worth, we typed this review quite comfortably. By the way, the R705 is definitely the sort of laptop you'd expect to have a backlit keyboard, but it's just not an option. Believe us, we looked for a switch more often than we'd like to mention.

The plastic touchpad is decently sized and comfortable for pushing around the cursor. The pad does support multitouch gestures, and while pinch-to-zoom worked fine, two-finger scrolling failed more often than not and the right side doesn't function as a scroll strip. Yep, we were forced to scroll the entire length of Engadget the good old fashioned way. There's two dedicated left and right mouse buttons, though we wish they were raised a bit more.

Usually this is where we'd spend some time criticizing Toshiba choice of a super glossy screen, but we're about to change our tune. The 13.3-inch, 1366x768-resolution display is glossy, but far less glossy than those we've seen on laptops lately -- particularly the worst offenders from Sony and Acer. We'd say it's actually got the perfect amount of gloss for a laptop like this, not to mention it's plenty bright and colors appeared quite crisp. Still, the viewing angles are disappointing. We could see the screen while sitting to the side of it, but tilting it caused colors to distort. The two small speakers above the keyboard were tinny, but were fine for sharing the reaction to a double complete rainbow on YouTube with a friend sitting close by.

Intel Wireless Display performance

We really didn't end up watching much video on the 13.3-inch display itself since the R705 boasts Intel's Wireless Display technology, otherwise known as WiDi. Unlike the Toshiba Satellite E205, it doesn't come with the $100 Netgear Push2TV, which is the other key ingredient needed to wirelessly beam video to the big screen. It's a bummer that the box isn't included, but if you do happen to hook your computer up to your TV to watch videos or listen to music we'd recommend adding it at checkout. As we mentioned in our review of the E205, the whole thing couldn't be easier to set up. There's still a two second delay on the TV, but it doesn't make much difference if you're just watching some video. In addition, with the recent WiDi firmware update, you can extend the desktop – we actually wrote most of this review on the laptop screen while iTunes was open on our 40-inch HDTV. We'll get to the graphics in a bit, but a streaming episode of Mad Men and a local 1080p file played smoothly on the big screen.

Performance and battery life

Performance-wise, the R705 was very comparable to the number of Core i3 laptops we've reviewed lately. Actually, just like the Acer TimelineX 4820T and the Sony EC Series, it's configured with a 2.26GHz Core i3-350M and 4GB of RAM. It kept up with our everyday routine of writing in Microsoft Word, checking our Twitter feed in TweetDeck, surfing the web in Firefox, and chatting through Trillian. Watching a DVD with those programs open in the background was also a breeze. For those that demand more power, the Toshiba R700 has the same chassis, but will be configurable on Toshiba's site with Core i5 / i7 CPUs as well as with solid state drive options. Our unit had a 500GB hard drive with Windows 7 Home Premium. The hard drive accelerometer is a nice safety addition, but it's rather sensitive, so you'll probably want to disable the alerts.

The R705 relies on Intel's integrated HD graphics, and though we've been thinking the machine would be a perfect candidate for NVIDIA's Optimus, unfortunately for now we've yet to see any laptops with the two technologies (though, NVIDIA claims they can live in harmony). Regardless, the integrated option was fine for playing back high-def YouTube videos and regular flash video on Hulu and Amazon, but it won't satisfy those that want to play some high resolution games.

	PCMarkVantage	3DMark06	Battery Life
Toshiba Portege R705 (Intel Core i3-350M)	5024	1759	4:25
Acer TimelineX 4820T (Intel Core i3-350M)	4926	1724	5:04
Dell Vostro V13 (Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300)	2687	556	2:39
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13 (Core 2 Duo SU7300)	N/A	905	5:12
ASUS U30Jc (Core i3-350M, NVIDIA)	4841	1739/3686	4:10
ASUS UL50Vf (Core 2 Duo SU7300)	3724	827/3438	6:10

One of our major – and frankly one of our only -- concerns about the R705 has to do with its warm temperatures. Toshiba has worked on a new Airflow cooling technology that pulls fresh air from the fan on the bottom left of the system, and then directs the warm air out the left vent. It's a cool idea (oh yes, pun intended), but the left edge of the laptop does become incredibly warm during CPU-intensive tasks like playing Flash content -- and when we watched an episode of Mad Men the bottom of the system became quite warm as well. We'd say the heat on the R705 was worse than that on the TimelineX 4820T, actually. However, during our normal everyday usage -- surfing the web, chatting, listening to music -- we weren't bothered by the heat even when we had the machine on our lap.

Toshiba's promised 8.5 hours of battery life seemed quite unrealistic to us, and in reality it was actually about half of that. The R750's 66Wh six-cell battery lasted four hours and 25 minutes on our video rundown test, which loops the same standard definition video with screen brightness set at 65 percent. That's very comparable to the TimelineX 4820T, and in our everyday use with WiFi on and brightness at 85 percent we squeezed about five hours out. It's a decent runtime, but it's not going to last the flight from New York to London.

It was a relief to boot up the R705 and find the desktop virtually spot free – the little Recycle Bin icon in the top left corner was no bother. However, Toshiba still loads up the ultraportable with some added software, including its Bulletin Board and webcam programs. Also, because the system is a special to Best Buy, it comes with Best Buy's own software installer. Blech.

Wrap-up

Remind us to thank Toshiba for celebrating its 25th year in the laptop business with the R705. Despite some heat issues, the $800 Portege R705 was simply impressive. Flat out, consumers haven't been able to get such a feature-packed ultraportable at such an affordable price until now, and the cheaper price tag doesn't result in a shoddy build as we expected it might. If you're looking for a thin and light 13-inch laptop under $900, the R705 beats all the others on the market – and that's not something we say often. Hey, Toshiba, how do you feel about celebrating every birthday this way?

[ConceptVBS Posted Jul 12th 2010 11:21PM]

I've played with this model at Best Buy. Its incredibly light. Its got optical drive, core i3, 500gb HD, great build quality $899!, HDMI, E-SATA.

Just perfect.

[novel127 Posted Jul 13th 2010 12:19AM]

One thing I hate about toshiba is the hugh "toshiba" logo at the center of lid. It's too flashy and unnecessary.

[tepuku Posted Jul 13th 2010 12:45AM]

All well and good but the NZ RRP is $6,772.50 NZD. Holy Markup, Batman!

[Peytral Posted Jul 13th 2010 12:48AM]

Joanna, I love your laptop reviews =D

[tybert7 Posted Jul 13th 2010 1:00AM]

I saw this in best buy recently. Sony must despise Toshiba for this machine and this pricepoint. Alot of people would be very happy with that lightness and pricepoint. Not me, I want more power in my systems gpu wise, but for many who don't really get into games, this is very nice.

[10basetom Posted Jul 13th 2010 4:32AM]

"Toshiba actually claims it's the lightest 13.3-inch laptop in the world with an optical drive – and we can't seem to find any information that proves otherwise."

The R705 may be the lightest 13.3-inch laptop with an optical drive, but the lightest 14.1-inch laptop with an optical drive is the Panasonic Toughbook Y series. It has that bigger screen with a superior resolution (1400x1050) and weighs only 3.3 lb. Oh yeah, it actually lasts a full 8-hour workday doing real work -- I know because I've been using a CF-Y5 for the past two years (though now a full charge is down to about 6 hours and change). The fact that it's a Toughbook means that you can spill coffee on the keyboard and accidently drive over it without worrying about losing your work (I haven't actually driven over it, but I've stood on top of it with the lid closed and it stood up fine).

[MGDdrinker Posted Jul 13th 2010 7:07AM]

Nice review. This laptop has a great combination of price, size, performance. But I'm very partial to Thinkpads. I'm hoping good ol' crazy Lenovo will engineer a 13.3" model comparable to this Toshiba. The Thinkpad edge line isn't as sexy as this, and the Thinkpad X301 is too pricey for me, and I'd also like to see better screens in Thinkpads, something with good contrast and viewing angles.

But what I'd really like to see more off are those ultra ultra thin and lights Intel previewed back in June 2010 (link below). Something like that might be worth holding out for, hopping they have screens bigger than 10".

http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/01/intel-canoe-lake-prototype-netbook-hands-on/

I always wonder if anyone reads my comments. I invite you to drop a reply if your into that sort of thing. :)

[threedeuce5 Posted Jul 13th 2010 8:36AM]

This is a beast of a laptop and fortunately I've been able to work with one. Power for price is insane, but I still have a couple of gripes

1. When you're marketing an ultra-light portable laptop you need a backlit keyboard on it....
2. No slot-loading DVD drive? When are we going to get away from those terribly flimsy tray drives??

That's it really...otherwise this is an awesome lappy for the money

[raggywow Posted Jul 13th 2010 9:18AM]

You have to admit that is one nice looking machine dude.

Lou
www.privacy-tools.es.tc

[hiroo Posted Jul 13th 2010 10:32AM]

$800!!?!?!? The same model costs nearly (or over) US$2K in Japan. I'm going to get one on my next biz trip to NY.

[eyhk Posted Jul 13th 2010 2:29PM]

@hiroo

Are you sure you are looking at the same model? The R700 is in the $1000s and the other Porteges are usually $2k+. This R705 model seems to be the only one less than $1k

[mbensimon Posted Jul 13th 2010 1:32PM]

It looks like the Portege R700-S1311 is a better deal on Toshiba's website if you select the one for $999.00. You get the following:

1 - 3-Year Priority Service Warranty adds $69.00 to the $999.00
2 - Genuine Windows® 7 Professional (32-bit) with Windows XP Professional downgrade, Genuine Windows® 7 Professional (64-bit) with Windows XP Professional downgrade
3 - Bluetooth® V2.1 + EDR

Total before tax is $1068.00

Best Buy's 2-Year Standard Protection Plan is $179.99
Windows 7 Home Premium to Professional Upgrade is $89.99
Bluetooth dongles $19.99

Total before tax is 1088.97

[eyhk Posted Jul 13th 2010 2:37PM]

@mbensimon

Unless you don't need the above and just want a thin and light laptop with decent performance at under $1k. At the $1k price point and above, you get into the premium product pricing where there is much more competition and better products. You can even get a Macbook Pro for that price if you are into Macs.

I think this might be perfect for people who don't want to pay too much, but don't want to compromise too much either. Really tempted to get one. That being said, the 4hr actual battery life and integrated graphics is some sour points for me. Better battery life and Nvidia Optimus would make this a grand slam.

[Samunosuke Posted Jul 13th 2010 4:52PM]

This should be directly compared to the Acer TimelineX 4820, which in my opinion is better. At $800, you get an Acer TimelineX 4820TG with:
Core i3 processor
320 GB HDD
4GB RAM
*ATI Radeon 5650*
14'' 1366x768 screen

And I also believe the 13'' Acer can be gotten for about the same price sans optical drive.

[23542354 Posted Jul 13th 2010 9:56PM]

so i am looking for something that is good for the new star wars MMO, and other stuff, btw i have a good desktop but i want to get a laptop my budget ideally i wont want to break the $1,000 mark seeing as i should only have ~1.7k by summers end(as a student)....and i want to get a new Golfbag(~200), i need money for stuff and i would like that to be as large as possible.


SO my options for the computer is the MX11 Core2 Duo(i believe thats total 2.6Ghz, with 4gigs of ram a 320gig 7200 SATA HDD, 1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 335M)

OR

this computer but i NEED to know the graphics card inside this thing, and if the MX11 with those specs(as above) and this will match up

[ngstores Posted Jul 15th 2010 5:06AM]

Portege is one of my favourites. here you can find more Portege models
Toshiba

[dockehr Posted Jul 19th 2010 6:30PM]

Joanna, sorry to comment so late, but I've been with grandkids. I purchased the Portege R705 on the first day it was available at Best Buy. What may prove interesting to you and others relative to the battery life is that my "new" 66Wh battery had already lost 8.5% of its capacity. That's right, try as I could I could not get it past 60Wh! I tested it on various battery programs and they all gave the same reading. I have gotten nothing but the run around from Toshiba. Obviously, this 8.5% capacity loss can be significant when one is looking at extended battery run times. It would be similar to purchasing a car with a stated 15 gallon gas tank that as it turns out is only a 12 gallon gas tank. You're just not going to get the distance that you expected. I have 5 laptops, including an Portege R500 ( that is close to 4 years old) that shows the most battery "wear" at 11.5%!!

I am especially concerned that this may not be an isolated incident as others have complained of mislabelled batteries from other manufacturers and OEMs.

I have owned over 13 laptops in the past 10 years with no issues and I am hopeful that Toshiba will send me a "full capacity" battery. Otherwise,I am prepared to file a formal complaint with the appropriate agencies and Consumers Report.

[signorenessuno Posted Jul 23rd 2010 10:52PM]

I spent an hour playing with an R705 at a Best Buy today. This machine has been at the very top of my want list since I first read about it. Nothing else out right now quite equals its balance or price-performance-portability. But after getting my hands on one, I'm dropping it way down my list. Here's why: I seriously dislike the keyboard. Most keyboards use keys that are roughly square, but the R705 keys are "vertically challenged," significantly shorter top to bottom than they are wide. They look squashed, simply put. Why? The deck has plenty of wasted vertical space for standard form factor keys. I pulled up a Wordpad window and typed for half an hour (studiously ignored by every Best Buy employee), and my typing accuracy was horrible. (I tried typing on several other laptops there for an instant comparison. The R705 was almost the worst for me, surpassed only by cheap Acer netbooks. The very best? MacBook Pro and Sony Vaio Z.) I'm a writer and an average typist with average size hands, and this keyboard is less usable for me than most ten-inch netbooks. Would I adjust to it? Probably, but I'd be cursing this keyboard every minute for weeks. It also feels rather "cheap," subjectively, slightly mushy and yet noisy. The key characters and labels look bright white in the photos I've seen, but in Best Buy's lighting the effect was more gray on black. This thing just begs for taller keys and backlighting. It was impossible to form a real impression of the R705's performance capabilities at the store, but it did happily open lots of windows with great dispatch. Does it do what it's designed to do? Probably. It does feel very light too, but my sample was semi-trapped in a Best Buy anti-theft rig. The chassis feels solid, but the lid felt far from "rock solid" to me; the hinges felt good, but the dark-blue lid feels very thin and deforms alarmingly in the center very easily with one finger. That dark-blue, by the way, looked almost dead black under Best Buy's fluorescents. The R705 is so subdued looking I walked right past it twice, and it was the only thing I was there to see! Much has been made of this Portege being a major price/performance breakthrough, after previous Porteges were selling in the $1500-3000 range, and I agree, but the unit I handled felt very underwhelming to me. A big disappointment to me in ergonomics, looks and feel, user experience. All in all, I couldn't bring myself to spend $800 on it, and I came prepared to buy. Maybe when it goes on sale...

[gadgetfanboy Posted Jul 29th 2010 12:17AM]

@signorenessuno

very helpful, thanks for posting that. looking at buying one too, but i guess i'll go spend some time with it before i decide. also looking at the acer timeline x 3820t

[signorenessuno Posted Jul 29th 2010 3:38AM]

@gadgetfanboy

My pleasure, glad I helped. Here's an update. There's a big debate going on in the Portege forum on the Toshiba website over the actual battery life of this thing in normal service. Many owners apparently are only seeing 3 to 3.5 or 4 hours of useful life; nothing like the 8 to 8.5 Toshiba is advertising. Laptop Mag got about 6 hours in their test, engadget here got about 4.5, cnet got just under 4. I'd be happy with 5 to 6, but 3 or 4 is too short for my needs, and I think too short for something this portable, that you could easily lug around all day. I looked at this unit again and I did a little measuring: The R705 keycaps are just about 85% as tall as they are wide, rather than the typical 95-100%, so the whole keyboard layout is about 15% shallower than normal, from top to bottom. That makes a big difference in typing feel and accuracy. In my typing test my fingers were often hitting the tops of the keys below my target keys, or the gaps between the keys, and my thumb was often striking the dead space below the space bar. :( I'd probably adjust to this layout eventually, I know, but it would be very aggravating for me to get there, and for many people, especially fast touch typists. (Fast on *normal* keyboards, that is.) There looks to be plenty of room for a much better keyboard, so this is a really puzzling lapse in design and execution. My subjective take on the R705's looks & feel: I was surprised how dull and flat and "uninviting" this thing looked, even in Best Buy's bright lighting. And it doesn't have that elegant all-black ThinkPad look either, it just looks dull and gloomy, not crisp and business-like. Except for the peculiar bright shiny hinges, of course, which stick out like two (chromed) sore thumbs. They look like they were just slapped on from some very shiny kitchen appliance, like maybe a toaster. Very disappointing visual design, in spite of the solid specs and internals. I really wanted to like this thing too. I like Toshiba laptops in general and the R705 is very hard to beat right now in terms of price-performance-portability, but it made a pretty bad first impression on me. It's simply aggravating that Toshiba might have deliberately inflated the advertised battery life (or else shipped out a lot of deficient batteries), and that the keyboard could be much better if they'd simply make better use of a lousy centimeter of the available space on the deck. Looks like a near-miss for me. Maybe I'll buy a MacBook Pro after all...

[gadgetfanboy Posted Jul 31st 2010 2:40PM]

@signorenessuno Hmm, now that's really interesting that you are looking to ditch the machine. How has the heat been, is it getting as hot as some people claim?

I was also thinking of going the route of the R700 direct from Toshiba, they might have better batteries, and there are more options available, but then again the price creeps up then too. I actually have a MBP13 (latest version) and love it, so you won't be disappointed. It's the best laptop I've ever had. Totally silent, doesnt get hot, excellent hardware, etc. However, it's still a bit heavy than I'd like at 4.5 lbs. My purpose for the R705 is actually for my gf to be carrying it to grad school, so portability is more important and she actually doesn't want a Mac, she's more comfortable in Windows.

So, I'm going to take a much closer look at the Acer Aspire TimelineX 3820T, it seems to be the only really close competitor to the R705. It's a little heavier, despite not having the optical drive, but I see less complaints about heat and battery life than I do the R705, and the keys are normal size.

Touch call! Thanks again

[signorenessuno Posted Aug 7th 2010 2:05AM]

@gadgetfanboy

Another update! I didn't "ditch" the machine, I just moved it way down my list and reconsidered other machinery. In fact, I just bought an R705 after all--for my wife. She likes the more compact keyboard a lot, it seems to suit her smaller hands. Best Buy threw in a free copy of Kaspersky and didn't charge me any tax; it's a tax holiday weekend here in Virginia. The machine is only a few hours old here, but so far it's behaving perfectly. Some notes: Try this unit before you buy it! The slightly shrunken keyboard might fit you like a glove, or it might drive you right up the wall. My wife likes it, also the looks and the blue lid. It does get warm top left, as noted. Build quality feels excellent overall, but those shiny hinges are an eyesore (to me). It is VERY light and VERY thin, it's a win there. Be prepared for a few hours of Windows updates. Battery life is reading as five-plus hours so far, but I haven't tried it yet in "ECO Mode," which is certainly what Toshiba is using to get anywhere close to their advertising puffery of "up to eight hours." If it really runs for four or five, it will serve my wife's needs very well. And remember ALL batteries need to be "conditioned" first to achieve maximum endurance and lifespan: Drawn down from full charge to zero charge at least once, some say three times, some say more (google it for maximum confusion).

Best and most comparable current alternative to the R705, IMHO: The revised 2nd gen Sony VAIO Y. A comparable $769 for the basic unit with an i3 ULV, or configure it on their website with the faster i5 ULV and the dedicated GPU. Comes to about $900 that way, and it should then perform nearly as well as the Toshiba and similar size and shape and build quality but with tradeoffs: a much better keyboard but a little more weight and no DVD drive. And it's a Sony, so it comes in fuchsia or purple too. :) Make mine silver. Next step up would be the Sony S at $1049 or the Macbook Pro 13 at $1199...

[Dynomike Posted Aug 6th 2010 2:40PM]

Not sure what the author is talking about when he mentions that the right side of the mousepad doesn't function as a scroll-wheel -- it does indeed. I'm typing this from an r705 that I just bought, so I know.

His concerns about the computer being hot are definitely true, the top left side of the labtop does get pretty hot while plugged in. The speakers leave much to be desired and this labtop definitely isn't meant to be a gaming machine. However, for what it is, a labtop with netbook weight and decent battery life, the R705 excels. Very light and performance is good for a great price.