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Toshiba puts its business laptops on a diet, intros the Portege R830, Tecra R840, and Tecra R850
Toshiba's thin-but-full-powered Portege R700 was such a hit among business types that the company is now designing other machines in its svelte image. Tosh just unveiled the Tecra R840 and R850 -- both of which ape the R700's slim build -- along with the Portege R830, a refresh to the R700 itself. The R830 looks the same, though it has a strip on the edge of the lid that looks like it's made of magnesium alloy, but is actually plastic -- a material that's expected to improve the signals of the the various antennae housed underneath it. And -- surprise, surprise -- this refresh adds a USB 3.0 port and Intel Sandy Bridge processor, which the company says should bump the rated battery life to a max of 11 hours, up from eight. Not the corporate type? The company will also sell an $889 consumer version, the R835, that has a one-, not three-year, warranty, and loses enterprise-grade features -- namely, Intel's vPro technology, a docking connector, and an ExpressCard slot. Meanwhile, the 14-inch R840 and 15.6-inch R850 are also getting Sandy Bridge CPUs, USB 3.0 ports, chiclet keyboards and all-around trimmer silhouettes. These laptops are now made with fiberglass-reinforced casing and the same Honeycomb rib structure that made last year's R700 sturdy enough to grab one-handed. Of the two, the R840's slim-down is more dramatic: it's 25 percent thinner than the last-generation Tecra M11, as you can see in the comparison shots past the break. That's largely thanks to Intel's Airflow Cooling technology, which rearranges all of the heat-generating components in a row and draws in cool air from outside the notebook, instead of within. And Tosh claims the battery can last up to ten hours on a charge (11 with an SSD) -- a vast improvement over the five and a half to six hours it promised the last time around. Moving up in size to the R850 will get you a number pad, but not that cooling technology. But it is about an inch thick at its thinnest, a point the PC maker is pleased as punch about. The R830, R840, and R850 start at $1,049, $899, and $879, respectively, and are available now on Toshiba's site, with the consumer-friendly R835 on sale at Best Buy and through the Microsoft Store. %Gallery-120886% %Gallery-120738%
Toshiba Satellite R830, R840, and R850 laptops unveiled at MWC
There have been a lot of phone and tablet announcements here at MWC 2011, but laptops? Not so much. Toshiba's not following the crowd here, though. Instead, it's touched down in Barcelona with three fresh Satellites -- the 13.3-inch R830, 14-inch R840, and 15.6-inch R850. Aesthetically, they should look very familiar as Toshiba's basically refreshed its Portege R700 series with Intel's latest Core i5 and i7 Sandy Bridge processors and enhanced its cooling system. The company was a bit vague on specific configuration details (though, we took some shots of the system properties in the gallery below), but its press release does list that the rigs will be available with up to 8GB of RAM and 640GB of hard disk storage, SSDs, and USB 3.0. The R830 (pictured above) is still one of our favorites, and like the R705, it is made of magnesium, only weighs 3.2 pounds, and still has a optical drive. The R840 and R850 have been slightly retooled with subtlety striped lids, which we are told of made of a high stiffness resin. Both models have chiclet keyboards and regular touchpads with two mouse buttons, though the 14- and 15-inchers have pointing sticks. All three models will be hitting in April, but Tosh is keeping quiet on pricing. Hit the first gallery for a few shots of the rigs and the second for a look at the special copper airflow cooling system Toshiba's cooked up. %Gallery-116841% %Gallery-116874%
