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The Toshiba Pro L850-11U's casing is rather more bulbous than that of, for example, the Acer V3-571. But its sober and understated colour scheme, and nicely curved casing and polished lid put it a cut above the typical sub-£500 model. The rough-hewn two-button Synaptics trackpad is vast, but isn't particularly comfortable to use. Nor is it suitably smooth and responsive. toshiba l635-s3020wh battery charging

Most of the keys are of a good size and properly spaced - with the tiny cursor keys being an exceptions. The touch isn't very satisfactory, with very little depth to the buttons, and we didn't find our typing as accurate on the keyboard. toshiba l635-s3012rd battery charging
The Toshiba Pro L850-11U's screen is a substantial 15.6in version. It's good for a cheap laptop, although the resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels is limited for the size; we would expect more detail from such a large panel. toshiba l645d-s4036 battery charging
The matt surface doesn't pick up reflections, which makes it very comfortable to use. Colour palette is a little lacking in bite and vitality though. The colours aren't incorrect, but you don't get the same impression of photo detail that you find on shiny screens. Viewing angles are dire, so you'll need to be sitting directly in front of the screen for the image to remain clearly viewable.
Toshiba Pro L850-11U: Performance toshiba l645d-s4037bn battery charging

The ThinkPad Edge E430 fared pretty well on the LAPTOP File Transfer test, duplicating 4.97GB of mixed media files in 2 minutes and 53 seconds for a rate of 29.4 MBps. That's nearly identical to the category average of 29.9 MBps. toshiba l650-13m battery charging

The E430 also performed well on our OpenOffice Spreadsheet test, matching 20,000 names to their corresponding addresses in 5 minutes and 4 seconds. This showing is just two seconds slower than the Aspire TimelineX, but faster than the category average of 6 minutes. toshiba l650-19w battery charging

Graphics Performance
Having Intel's HD Graphics 3000 on board means you'll be limited to watching HD movies and mostly casual games. On the 3DMark06 benchmark, the Edge E430 scored just 3,822. That's well below the category average of 5,117, and more than 5,000 points below the Acer Aspire TimelineX, which benefits from an Nvidia GeForce GT 540M GPU. toshiba l655-11g battery charging

When we played "World of Warcraft" with the graphics set to autodetect, the Edge E430 managed 34 frames per second, an acceptable frame rate for a nongaming machine. But when we bumped up the graphics to the highest setting, the frame rate dropped to an unplayable 17 fps. By comparison, the average thin-and-light notebook registers 52 and 26 fps, respectively. toshiba l670-10r battery charging

battery charging Life
Click to EnlargeThe ThinkPad Edge E430's 6-cell 62WH lithium ion battery charging provides plenty of endurance for mobile workers. On the LAPTOP battery charging Test, which involves continuous Web surfing with the display brightness set to 40 percent, the Edge E430 lasted 6 hours and 53 minutes. That's 33 minutes longer than Lenovo rated the battery charging and 25 minutes longer than the thin-and-light notebook category average. toshiba l670d-103 battery charging

Configurations
Our E430 came equipped with a 2.5-GHz dual-core Intel Core i5-2450M processor; 4GB of RAM; a 500GB, 7,200-rpm hard drive; an Intel HD Graphics 3000 integrated graphics chip; anti-glare display; 720p webcam ($20); 62WH battery charging ($10) and Windows 7 Professional for $719. The brushed aluminum coating alone cost $50. Note that some online retailers are selling this notebook for as low as $649. toshiba l670d-105 battery charging

If you're looking for something with a bit more oomph, you can pick up an E430 with a 2.1-GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-3612QM processor, 8GB of RAM, a 750GB hard drive and a 16GB Micro SSD ($40) for improved performance for $1,154. toshiba l670d-bt2n22 battery charging

If your budget is tighter, you can buy the base model for just $549. That version comes loaded with a 2.3-GHz dual-core Intel Core i3-2350M processor, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, no webcam, a soft-touch paint job and Windows 7 Home Premium. There's no price difference between the anti-glare display or VibrantView screen. toshiba l670d-st2n02 battery charging

Software
Click to EnlargeLenovo loaded the ThinkPad Edge E430 with some helpful utilities. For instance, Power Controls lets you optimize your system's power settings, and Enhanced Backup and Restore and Airbag Protection, which turns off the hard drive when a fall or other damaging event is detected. In addition to those, the E430 features Lenovo's SimpleTap tool, which provides you with quick access to different notebook features, websites and applications by two-finger tapping the laptop's clickpad twice. toshiba l675d-s7019 battery charging

Lenovo's RapidBoot and RapidBoot Shield features help to improve the system's boot speed by using the E430's RAM to cache boot files and delaying the launch of nonessential programs until Windows is fully started. toshiba m505-s4990-t battery charging

The Edge E430's InstantResume software helps users reconnect to the Web quickly when taking the laptop out of sleep mode. Lenovo says the feature will continuously scan for Wi-Fi connections, allowing the system to connect to the web in less than two seconds when it goes back online. toshiba m645-s4049 battery charging

One of the most useful features Lenovo packed into the E430 is its Mobile HotSpot software. The program lets users configure the E430 to act as a Wi-Fi hotspot for up to five people. The feature works by connecting the Lenovo to an available hotspot, then setting Mobile Hotspot software to begin broadcasting a wireless signal for your co-workers or friends. And since Lenovo lets you set up your own Network SSID and password, the wireless signal you send out will be secure. toshiba m645-s4055 battery charging

Other programs loaded on the E430 include a 30-day trial of Norton Internet Security, 5GB of free online storage through SugarSync and Splashtop Streamer. toshiba pro c650-125 battery charging

Service and Support
Lenovo provides users with its Solutions for Small Business suite. Features include the ability to schedule when you would like the system to perform updates and basic upkeep, configure the E430's USB ports to block users from attaching thumb drives or gaming controllers and set the system to shut down in the evening and restart in the morning. toshiba pro c650-13d battery charging

If you run into any trouble with your ThinkPad Edge E430, Lenovo provides its users with a standard one-year parts and labor warranty. See how Lenovo fared in our Best & Worst Brands Report. toshiba pro c650-18d battery charging

Verdict
Click to EnlargeWith good performance, an excellent keyboard, long battery charging life and top-notch speakers, the $717 Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E430 is a system that will fit well in any office. The easy-to-use fingerprint reader and helpful small business software are other pluses. However, you might want to skip the brushed aluminum lid for the soft-touch red or black option to avoid fingerprints--and save yourself $50 in the process. The only other drawback is this notebook's display, which is dimmer than average. Overall, though, the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E430 is a great choice for small business users. toshiba pro c650-18e battery charging

The Toshiba Pro L850-11U's performance is fairly standard for a sub-£500 model. It makes do with a 2.3GHz Intel Core i3-2350M procesor, yet usefully combined with a substantial 6GB of DDR3 memory. toshiba pro c650-1d8 battery charging
A WorldBench 6 score of 107 points is by no means slow within this price category, although it lacks the pace of some budget laptops. Storage is more upmarket, its Hitachi 5400rpm disk packing a capacious 750GB.
Sub-£500 laptops can offer a surprising amount for the money. Where they typically fall flat on their LCDs is in the gaming arena.
Here, for instance, we see the Pro falter to its underpowered Intel HD 3000 graphics controller. This is primarily from a gaming angle, and when it comes to general computing, the HD 3000 is more than enough for smooth performance. toshiba pro l630-134 battery charging
And remember, the Pro range within which this laptop resides is really aimed at business users, so any gaming ability is really incidental for the target audience.
A score of 15fps in the undemanding FEAR isn't a great start – although still two or three frames ahead of typical laptops with integrated graphics.
Crysis is even less unimpressive. It remains playable in DirectX 9.0 with Low quality settings (56.9fps) but quickly fades to 34.2fps in DirectX 10 mode. At Medium quality levels, it recorded 25.9 and 20.5fps at DX9 and DX10 respectively, and tumbled to unappetising figures of 14.0 and 12.2fps at High levels. toshiba pro l640-ez1410 battery charging
For proper gaming, you'll certainly be wanting to look to a model with a discrete graphics solution. Or for just ocassional gaming, the third-gen Intel Core series processor will now do the trick.
The Toshiba Pro L850-11U had good battery charging life, lasting for 5 hour 46 mins in our MobileMark 2007 Productivity tests. toshiba pro l650-167 battery charging
The speaker system isn't at all bad. We don't expect much from the audio on budget laptops, and you shouldn't be expecting sonic fireworks from the Toshiba, but the speakers were bearable when playing musical tracks.
You'll still be wanting to resort to the headphone socket when possible, but this is far from the worst budget speaker system we've heard.
The webcam is nice, with good resolution (1280 x 800) and a clear image.
The Toshiba Pro L850-11U has a decent sprinkling of ports and connectors. Two USB 3.0 ports (along with one additional USB 2.0) are included, as are external outputs for VGA and HDMI. toshiba pro l650-1cg battery charging
A memory-card reader caters for various flavours of SD card, and gigabit ethernet is also included. Wireless runs to single-band 802.11b/g/n, and Bluetooth 4.0. As a full-size laptop, you're also treated to an internal optical drive. The Samsung SN-208B is a respectable DVD±R reader/writer specified up to 8x speed.
As a business machine, Windows 7 Professional is installed in 64-bit form. The Toshiba comes with a vast array of software titles, including limited version of Microsoft Office and Nero KwikMedia. Many Toshiba utilities carry out a wide range of tasks, from checking the laptop temperature to conserving power. toshiba pro l670-14l battery charging

The Toshiba Portégé Z930 shares the same chassis as its predecessor, the Z830. The Toshiba Z830 was the company's first ultrabook, an attempt to clone the look and specification of the Apple MacBook Air. But as a development of the Z830, it means the Z930 is still not going to win any awards for good looks. toshiba t115-s1108 battery charging

However, this 13in laptop is extremely thin and light, putting a tick by the 'mobile' element of Toshiba's claim. The Z930-108 is a little lighter than Apple's 13in MacBook Air, at just over 1kg against 1.35kg. You can barely feel its impact in a bag. toshiba t115d-s1125 battery charging
The Toshiba Portégé Z930 is also thin, ranging from 15.5mm at the front to 16.9mm at the back, although not nearly as thin as the 8.3mm which Toshiba touts. The power

The keyboard is backlit and the glossy black Scrabble-style keys are easy and fast to type on, but don't offer much travel when pressed.
The relatively small trackpad is responsive and the security conscious user might welcome the fingerprint scanner situated between the mouse buttons.
We found the trackpad could get in the way when typing occasionally but you can always disable it with the dedicated button below the keyboard, and plug in a regular mouse.
One downside to the Portégé Z930-108 is its hefty price tag of £1479. Your money is going towards a very well made product, though. The chassis is entirely made from magnesium alloy which is strong but very light. However the screen is thin and rather bendy. toshiba t130-13k battery charging

Possibly by now you might think the SVS1311N9E has justified its price, but there are a few o ther problems that you won't notice simply by dwelling on the specs. One is the screen. toshiba t135-sp2909a battery charging

Although the S series can be specified with a 1600 x 900 screen, this has a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. Viewing angles aren't great, either, especially vertically, which means that contrast varies massively depending how far back you tilt the screen. It's hugely bright, though, and we like the semi-gloss finish which isn't too reflective.
Another gripe is the backlit keyboard. Light bleeds through around the keys – more so than the labels themselves, which makes it hard to read. At least the keyboard itself is pleasant to type on and has a sensible layout. toshiba u505-s2960 battery charging
The huge touchpad may support gestures, such as scrolling and pinch-to-zoom, but it dispenses with separate buttons. This means you have to avoid resting your thumb where the mouse button would be otherwise the cursor won't move in certain applications. Instead, you'll find yourself zooming in on a web page or document. Since the buttons are hidden beneath the pad, you have to get used to clicking in the middle for a left click, and the bottom-right corner for a right-click. toshiba u505-s2965wh battery charging
Finally, there's the annoying hard disk. In a quiet room, it's unusually loud. When you're doing anything demanding the rear-mounted fan spins up, and the SVS1311N9E makes a lot of noise.
Sony SVS1311N9E: performance

In our benchmarks, the SVS1311N9E managed 124 in WorldBench 6. That's on the slow side of what we'd expect, but the Vaio feels fairly swift in general use. The integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics aren't impressive, though, so expect to be able to play only casual games on this ultraportable. Toshiba L600D battery charging

battery charging life is one highlight. The non-removable unit lasted a shade over seven hours in MobileMark 2007 (just as Sony claims) and you can more than double this by docking the SVS1311N9E on the sheet battery charging which costs £150.
You can configure your own S series on Sony's website, but adding a 1600 x 900 screen, a silent SSD, more RAM, a GeForce GT 640M LE and a Core i7 pushes the price into top-end Ultrabook territory.
Not everyone wants an Ultrabook of course, and the SVS1311N9E has the benefit of its built-in DVD drive (which you can upgrade to Blu-ray for £40). Toshiba L600 battery charging