Laptop Review: Toshiba Portege R700's Top 10

Is the Toshiba Portege R700-S1310 the ultimate ultraportable? Frankly, it comes as close as any we've tried lately, impressing us in a number of ways. Here are ten notable traits of Toshiba's 3.2-pound slimline.

First and foremost, it costs $999. This is a big deal as well as a good one; the Portege brand has always been one of Toshiba's premium labels, commanding price tags well into four figures (and sometimes north of $3,000). The R700 is the first Portege we'd consider affordable enough for corporate deployment as well as executive-perk detail (and its R705 sibling is positively a steal -- more on that below).

Despite its light weight, the R700 packs an optical drive -- the DVD±RW burner missing from most ultralights, still an essential convenience for backing up data, installing software, ripping audio CDs, and watching DVDs.

And despite its compact size -- 8.9 by 12.4 by 1.0 inches -- the Portege flaunts an easy-on-the-eyes 13.3-inch display instead of the 11.6- or 12.1-inch screens of other minis. Almost as vanishingly slim as the Apple MacBook Air's, the bright, colorful 1,366 by 768-pixel panel is suitable for squint-free work with even small text and icons, as well as informal presentations to audiences of three or four.

The keyboard and touchpad rate as highly as the screen, with well-spaced keys, a firm typing feel, and a no-unpleasant-surprises layout plus a sizable, smooth-gliding touchpad. A mnemonic plus: Press the Fn key and an on-screen row of icons appears to remind you of its function-key combinations (such as Fn-F6 and -F7 to adjust screen brightness, though audio volume, quirkily enough, is controlled by Fn and the numbers 3 and 4).

Thanks to Intel's Core i3-350M (a 2.27GHz processor with 3MB of Level 3 cache), 4GB of DDR3 and a 500GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive, the R700's performance is solid. We saw benchmark results that flirted with those of some Core i5 portables, such as 3.7 frames per second in the Heaven game simulation and PCMark Vantage and Geekbench scores of 4,592 and 3,723, respectively. Multitasking was zippy and app launches were prompt.

Battery life was satisfactory, too, with five hours of DVD viewing and six hours of general Web surfing, word processing, and photo browsing.

Another top tenner is the Portege's connectivity, with both Bluetooth and 802.11a/g/n wireless as well as Gigabit Ethernet and both VGA and HDMI video ports as well as microphone and headphone jacks. You'll also find Secure Digital and ExpressCard/54 slots plus three USB 2.0 ports, one of the latter a combo eSATA port that also serves to recharge USB devices even while the computer's asleep.

At the risk of wretched excess -- CCleaner found nearly 30 programs and utilities loaded at system startup -- the Toshiba offers a slew of software and security items, such as both fingerprint and face recognition and an Eco Utility that controls a number of power-saving functions at the touch of a button. The OS is 32-bit Windows 7 Professional; preloaded software includes Microsoft Office Starter 2010 and trials of Norton Internet Security and Toshiba Online Backup.

Finally, our ninth and tenth favorite things about the Portege R700 are two other available configurations besides our test model. For executives missing the days mentioned above when a Portege was a pricey status symbol, there's the R700-S1331, which steps up to $1,599 with a pair of hot-rod performance parts: a 128GB solid-state drive instead of the 500GB hard disk (which trims system weight to an even three pounds) and a sizzling Core i7-620M processor. The latter is overkill for a productivity machine of this size, but gives va-va-voom that's hard to resist.

If we were buying out of pocket, however, we'd head to Best Buy for a blue- instead of black-clad Portege: the R705-P35. Essentially the same machine as our test unit, this consumer edition substitutes WiMax mobile broadband (data subscription not included) for Bluetooth, Win 7 Home Premium for Professional, and a one-year for the R700's three-year warranty. It also offers Intel's Wireless Display, which wirelessly transmits streamed or downloaded movies, photos, and music from the Toshiba to an HDTV via an optional adapter. It's priced at $780.

Whichever of the three Porteges you prefer, you'll get an ultraportable -- OK, a 13.3-inch notebook that straddles the line between ultraportable and thin and light -- with ample style and elegant engineering. It should be on your short list of lightweight contenders.