Toshiba Portege R500-S5001X

The Bottom Line
Toshiba's Portege R500-S5001X is an amazing marvel of technology. The fact that this ultraportable notebook can be so thin and yet be fully featured including an internal DVD burner is something that was almost unimaginable. This is certinaly the notebook for those looking for a highly portable system to take while on a business trip.

Pros

* Very Powerful Performance
* Thinnest Ultraportable With Internal DVD On The Market
* Very Bright LED Backlit Display

Cons

* Lacks Dial-Up Modem
* Expensive

Description

* Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 Ultra Low Voltage Mobile Processor
* 1GB PC2-5300 DDR2 Memory
* 120GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
* 8x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Burner
* 12.1" WXGA (1280x800) LED Backlit Display With Intel GMA 950 Integrated Graphics
* Gigabit Ehternet, 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless, Bluetooth 2.0
* Three USB 2.0, One FireWire, Type II PC Card Slot, SD Card Slot, Fingerprint Scanner
* 11.1" x 8.5" x .8" @ 2.4 lbs.
* Windows XP Professional, Ulead DVD MovieFactory, Norton Internet Security

Guide Review - Toshiba Portege R500-S5001X

9/13/07 – Toshiba's has strived to provide one of the thinnest notebook computers on the market with their Portege R series of systems. This has led to some interesting designs included the R400 that featured a touchscreen interface. One thing they always lacked though was an internal optical drive. Toshiba has finally solved that problem with the new R500. Even with its .8” thin design, they were able to put in a dual layer DVD burner.

One might think that in order to fit this in, they had to sacrifice other features. In fact, there is only one thing that they seemed to have dropped from the notebook, the dial-up modem. With the widespread use of wireless networks, this isn't much of a loss for the Portege R500 system but it could impact some.

System performance from the Portege R500-S5001X is no slouch either. Toshiba has chosen to use the new Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 ultra low voltage mobile processor. This provides strong overall performance while use very less power. The one gigabyte of PC2-5300 allows the system to run very smoothly, especially since it comes with the Windows XP Professional operating system rather than the more memory intensive Vista.

One of the other features Toshiba has used to reduce the size of the Portege R500 is a new LED backlight. This system is smaller than the more traditional CCFL designs and actually provides a brighter and more colorful display as well.

All of this add up to a highly portable notebook computer system that still provides the performance one might expect from a larger system. Of course, the price might put some off from selecting the Portege R500, but it is hard to top such features in so small of a package.