toshibakirabook
Latest
Toshiba Kirabook review: Toshiba tries to reinvent itself with a flagship Ultrabook
More Info Toshiba's Kirabook rocks a 2,560 x 1,440 display, arrives May 12th starting at $1,600 Toshiba Kirabook hands-on Chromebook Pixel review It's not like Toshiba is new to laptops -- it's been making them for decades -- but for whatever reason, US consumers don't seem to trust the company with top-shelf products. Four-hundred-dollar machines, maybe, but a designer laptop? An Ultrabook, no less? Toshiba has an image problem, to be sure, and the executives in Tokyo know it. The answer, they hope, is to start fresh with a clean slate. The company recently announced a new family of premium devices, called Kira, with the 13-inch Kirabook being the inaugural product. At first blush, it has all the trappings of a flagship machine, with an all-metal chassis, backlit keyboard, 8GB of RAM, a two-year warranty and a 2,560 x 1,440 display, one sharp enough to rival the Chromebook Pixel and Retina display MacBook Pro. In fact, this is the first Windows laptop to offer such a high-resolution panel, which gives Toshiba a big opportunity indeed: to lure people who still haven't found their perfect Ultrabook. The problem with "perfect," of course, is that it comes at a price: $1,600 and up, in this case, and the touchscreen isn't even standard. That leaves just one question, then: is it worth it?%Gallery-187940%
The After Math: Intel's revenue billions, Android's active millions and a few new Earth-like planets
Welcome to The After Math, where we attempt to summarize this week's tech news through numbers, decimal places and percentages As we scratch our head and puzzle over the almost-daily financial results for the last quarter, this week's missive takes a slightly sentimental look at how two tech companies were faring a decade earlier. Is it unfair to compare the yesteryear Nokia to Google? Possibly. But it was the same year that a certain Engadget regular claimed a best-selling album -- so it wasn't all bad. Toshiba also unveiled a new pin-sharp Ultrabook to stand up to Apple's Retina displays, and NASA continued the search for habitable planets.
Toshiba Kirabook hands-on (video)
Take a stroll through the laptop section at Best Buy recently? If you have, you know Toshiba's got a firm stronghold on the cheapie notebook market. The thing is, $400 systems don't exactly offer high margins -- a problem when people aren't buying that many PCs to begin with. And besides, who wants to be known for shoddy build quality and ho-hum designs? Not Toshiba, anyway. The suits in Tokyo were so fed up with the company's low-rent reputation that they decided to launch a premium line to prove Toshiba is indeed capable of making high-end machines. That line is called Kira, though for now there's just one product to speak of: the Kirabook, a 13-inch ultraportable starting at $1,600. For the money, you get a mix of modern design, top-shelf components and a whole lot of sucking-up from Toshiba's technical support. Topping the list is a 2,560 x 1,440 display, making this the first Windows Ultrabook to sport such a high-res screen. (We've already seen similar panels on the Chromebook Pixel and the Retina display MacBooks.) Additionally, users receive two years of warranty coverage and a dedicated support line, with near-instant pick-up times and a US-based staff (something customers have been asking for, says Toshiba). Also included: full versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 and Premiere Elements 11, along with 25GB of online storage and a two-year Norton subscription -- something HP already bundles on select machines. The Kirabook will be sold in the US, Japan and Australia, with prices ranging from $1,600 to $2,000. It'll ship May 12th and go up for pre-order on May 3rd, but for now, we've got a detailed walk-through video waiting after the break, along with some early impressions. So come join us -- because who doesn't enjoy laptop porn?
