Toshiba Tecra R840 review

Toshiba has launched something of an oddity into the laptop market with its new Tecra R840-12F – a thin and light laptop with a larger-than-usual 14in screen. But will that be enough to make it stand out from the competition? Tom Morgan finds out.

IT Pro Verdict

Apart from the slightly larger screen, there’s very little to differentiate the Tecra R840 from the 13in competition. Thankfully, it excels in many other areas, including performance, battery life and connectivity. If you don’t mind carrying a little extra weight, it’s the ideal business laptop for the frequent traveller that can’t do without essentials such as an optical drive and desktop-level performance.

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The BIOS has a fairly comprehensive list of ports and services that can be disabled by a system administrator but oddly not the USB ports or memory card reader.

The BIOS has a fairly comprehensive list of ports and services that can be disabled by a system administrator, including the Ethernet and SATA ports, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, the integrated webcam and the built-in pointing devices, but oddly not the USB ports or memory card reader. Unless your company is especially concerned with data security, this shouldn't be a massive problem though.Aside from the slightly larger screen, we don't think that Toshiba has done a huge amount more with the Tecra R840 than it would do normally with a 13in laptop. Since the screen resolution remains the same, there's very little actually gained from choosing it over a 13in competitor.

Thankfully, the laptop as a whole still manages to deliver in other areas that make it worth considering for anyone looking for an ultra-portable laptop that doesn't sacrifice performance for mobility. The connectivity options are excellent and battery life is good. At 986 ex VAT it's more expensive than Dell's Vostro 3350 which also has longer battery life, but we feel that the extra performance and improved connectivity make it worth the trade-off for most people.

So what's our verdict?

Verdict

Apart from the slightly larger screen, there’s very little to differentiate the Tecra R840 from the 13in competition. Thankfully, it excels in many other areas, including performance, battery life and connectivity. If you don’t mind carrying a little extra weight, it’s the ideal business laptop for the frequent traveller that can’t do without essentials such as an optical drive and desktop-level performance.

Processor: Intel Core i7-2620M 2.7GHz Memory: 6GB 1,333MHz DDR3 RAM Graphics: Intel HD Graphics Hard disk: 500GB HDD Display: 14in 1,366x768 pixel, LED-backlit screen Features: 0.3 megapixel webcam, microphone, stereo speaker Connectivity: 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, 3G WWAN modem Ports: 1 x USB3, 1x eSATA (shared with USB2), 1 x USB2, 1 x 8-in-one card reader, 1 x VGA, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x ExpressCard/34, 1 x smart card reader, 1x 3.5mm headphone output, 1x 3.5mm microphone input Dimensions: 341x229x27mm (WxDxH) Weight: 1.99kg Warranty: three years collect and return warranty OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Part code: PT42GE-00N006EN BENCHMARK RESULTS Image editing 92 Video encoding 59 Multiple apps 58 Overall 64 Light usage battery life – 8h 37m POWER CONSUMPTION Sleep 1W Idle 14W Active 49W

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