Toshiba’s Portege R500-S5002Now this time again Toshiba comes with Toshiba’s Portege R500-S5002.It is one of today’s most ultra portable laptop. The screen is 12-inches but it is still lighter than Sony’s 11-inch VAIO TZ150. This is a quite expensive ultra portable laptop, you will be able to find many cheaper alternatives but not with high-end facilities like this. 

The laptop features a Core 2 Duo processor from Intel and 2GB memory. The laptop’s performance is average. If you are running many applications ate the same time it tends to slow down and lag from time to time. This was with Windows Vista, but I bet it would run a lot better in XP. You won’t be able to do much gaming on this laptop because the Intel GMA965 is way too weak for that. However this laptop is not meant for games anyway.

The Toshiba’s Portege R500-S5002 manages to fit in a decent-sized keyboard which made for comfortable typing, and even avoids the annoying ultra portable trap of eliminating important keys, squeezing in separate page-up and page-down keys. A fingerprint reader sits between the two mouse buttons, but unlike the VAIO TZ, there’s no Webcam. Aside from brightness mode button and a button for launching Toshiba’s proprietary help utility, there are no quick-launch or media controls on the keyboard tray. 

USB (three!), PC Card, Firewire, and an SD card reader. Not exactly a powerhouse, it at least survived our gaming benchmarks—10.2 fps on Quake 4. Big hard drive (120GB) for a laptop of this size. Respectable battery life: 2 hours, 40 minutes. 

The 12.1-inch display has a native resolution of 1,280×800, lower than that of the smaller VAIO TZ screen, but we think its just right for a laptop this size. Anything higher, and text and icons become hard to see without going through the hassle of zooming in or changing the resolution. The Toshiba’s Portege R500 had a matte screen, which we generally prefer, but the antiglare coating made for terrible off-angle viewing. 

This baby has all the good qualities you expect from an ultra light. It weighs a measly 2.4 pounds, and it’s only 0.77 inches thick. But you’re not sacrificing features or functionality. The Toshiba’s Portege R500 sports a 12-inch LED backlit display, which even has an “indoor-outdoor” button, so you can work outside without glare. Yes, they squeezed a CD drive into it. No, the keyboard doesn’t feel cramped. Yes, you get a full 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, Bluetooth, 802.11a/g/n, a PCMCIA slot and Gigabit Ethernet. Battery life is decent. There’s even a fingerprint reader. 

Configuration:-

# Processor                 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7600

# Chipset                      Intel 965

# Memory                    1GB, 667MHz DDR2

# Hard drive                 120GB 5,400rpm

# Operating system     Windows Vista Premium

# Graphics                    Mobile Intel Express 950GM (integrated)

# Dimensions                11.1 x 8.5 x .77 inches

# Screen size                 12.1 inches

# System weight           2.4/3.1 pounds                    Toshiba’s Portege R500-S50021

Toshiba Portege R500-S5002 Reviews:-

# Reviews.cnet Review: - With a laptop this small, there are inevitably concessions to be made in terms of ports and connectivity. In this case, we were disappointed to see only an SD card slot, instead of the multifunction card readers found in most laptops. But our main complaint was the lack of a mobile broadband antenna, or even the option for adding one. You’ll have to find a PC Card antenna from your mobile provider in order to add this functionality aftermarket, as EV-DO is rapidly becoming a must-have for mobile professionals. Toshiba is planning updated versions of the R500, which will no doubt include this missing feature. 

# Laptopadvisor Review:- This is a small ultra portable lightweight laptop with good facilities. It is simply perfect for a business man or a student with the matte screen and cool design. The battery life is also great it and beat the Vaio TZ with 20 minutes when testing the battery eater program. So far this is one of the best ultra portable machines out there. 

# wired Review: - The R500 includes both a DVD burner and a 12.1-inch screen. Other laptops, like the 2.7-pound Asus U1F typically drop the optical drive and give you a tiny 11-inch LCD. Venturing outside? Punch a button in the corner to shift the LED-backlit screen into transflective mode, so you can actually read the display, even in direct sunlight. Best of all, Toshiba doesn’t gouge you on the price.

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