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.

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Toshiba Portege R705 review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.