[A strange comparison] Toshiba Portégé R200 vs Portégé R500 | NotebookReview

Psychnology Newbie

Reputations:: 0

Messages:: 3

Likes Received:: 0

Trophy Points:: 5

This review could appear a little unusual because I'm going to compare two notebooks that belong to different generations. Toshiba Portégé R200 is a 4 years old laptop, its announcement referring to 20 April 2005 (you can read here: http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/5936.html). By contrast Toshiba announced Portégé R500 in June 2007 t ( http://archive.laptopmag.com/News/N...ces-Portege-R500-S5001-and-Tecra-M8-S8011.htm) and it is still in production also if the successor Portégé R600 is now entering the market ( http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/10/15/new-toshiba-portege-r600-ultra-portable-notebook).

I had the opportunity to have these two notebooks together with me at the same time. I will avoid to consider aspects related to hardware configuration because it is obvious that the R500 would be the winner. Instead I'm interested in the comparison of the following aspects:

1. Appearance
2. Size
3. Weight
4. Build quality
5. Layout
6. Screen
6. Noise and heat
7. Connections and expansions
8. Autonomy

You can find the technical specifications of these two products doing an easy search on the web.

1. Appearance
I'm speaking about something that is relative and questionable by definition. Also if internet is plenty of photos of these two laptops I prefer to put my original photos:

Toshiba R200 and R500

Toshiba R200

Toshiba R500

In my opinion both the notebooks are two splendid pieces of modern art. The grey keyboard of the R500 is very nice and it is a good compromise between the too delicate white keyboards and the boring traditional black versions. I also discovered that a grey keyboard is easier to use in dark environments because black letters over grey show up better. In any case the best solution is the dedicated light that characterises my stunning IBM ThinkPad T42, a totally different piece of art that many people don't appreciate and that I absolutely love.
The chromium-plated area of the touch pad makes precious the R200 but also appears a little excessive, I definitely prefer the more moderate and gentle R500 solution. Also, I don't like to see the edge around the display and the R500 has a thinner one.
Finally my preference is very little for the R500, but I would have both...

2. Size
Size was a "surprise" for me because I thought that R500 was "remarkably" smaller than R200, relatively speaking... As you see, they are very similar in dimension (consider that one has a resolution of 1024x768 and the other one of 1280x800):

Apparently the R500 seems to be thicker than the R200 but we notice the two raising supports in the bottom of the R500 that make the difference. This solution should guarantee a better ergonomics during word processing and a better aeration of the processor. The R500 is a little smaller in depth and practically the same in width. So I put their size at the same level. These are the data from Toshiba we site:
R200 (lxdxh): 286 x 229.0 x 9.90 (front) / 19.8 (rear) mm
R500 (lxdxh): 283 x 215.8 x 19.5 (front) / 25.5 (rear) mm

3. Weight
Now the history changes quite a lot! Here is where the R500 does "the miracle" :

R200

R500

It means that engineers in Toshiba did an amazing job putting into diet everything was possible, from the motherboard to the chassis. As stated by Toshiba, "engineers have been able to shrink the size of the notebook's motherboard by 35 per cent". Toshiba's Portégé uses Toshiba's proprietary High Density Mounting Technology process to enable dual-sided motherboard component mounting. Also, the chassis appears to be very thin, under the keyboard and behind the screen.
Really we should notice that this incredible result also depends from the reduced capacity of the battery. The R200 utilises a six cells 3800 mAh battery while the R200 only a three cells 2900 mAh battery. This corresponds to a difference in weight of about 0.1kg (0.2lb):

R200

R500

R200 and R500

R500 is clearly the winner. It is so light that when you take it in your hands it seems "false", more a toy for babies than a true business laptop. But it's not a bad sensation, and when you put it in your bag, it simply disappears.

4. Build quality
I firstly want to reject the claims read in some reviews that the R500 is made by plastic: how can you say that? It's clear that Toshiba adopted an advanced magnesium-alloy case. This case contributes to the R500's light weight, but what's most interesting is its flexibility. While some manufacturers publicise their cases' rigidity, the R500's lid flexes and bends seemingly with the glass in the display to make for a uniquely durable case:

R500

R500

The lid of the R200 is more traditional, in fact it doesn't flexes. Both the displays don't make ripples when you press on the back of the screen. I mean this type effect (photo is taken from another laptop):

It's impossible to deny that the R200 feels stronger at the first impression. Human beings learned by Nature that, given certain conditions, heavier and more rigid equals stronger. But this is not the case.

5. Layout

I state that the layout of the Portégé is not convincing at all:

Why did they put the "Windows", "delete" and "angle bracket" buttons in so strange positions and reduce the "enter" button? The point is that people normally switch from one pc to another, particularly when you consider an ultra mobile laptop that is often used in combination with another pc. I don't see any practical reason for this layout but eventually only technical. When you remove the battery you see that it takes a lot of space. This could explain because all that space taken by the touch pad, that Toshiba (probably) tried to fill with the large chromium-plated edge. The remaining space on the left near the keyboard is a true waste of space in a 12" notebook. I'm quite sure that it depends from the limitations in width of the keyboard. The position of the left/right keys of the touch pad remain too backward. The palm is too long and the keyboard is a little too distant from the front line.
The layout of the R500 doesn't have big drawbacks and here is the clear winner:

The keyboard fills all the space perfectly from one side to another, is rigid enough and responds in a nice way (also if I prefer a little the sharp response of the R200). The only bad thing in the R500 are the left/right buttons of the touch pad, if you try to click in their external portion they hardly react to the input. So you need to push in the internal portion to receive the right feeling. The palm rest is correctly sized and it is also pleasantly inclined to improve ergonomics.

6. Screen

I show you the images that say a lot for them self:

If you search some reviews of the R500 WXGA 1280x800 Transflective LED display you'll find some disappointed users. I report some comments doing a simple copy-paste:

Opinion n°1:
"high brightness" screen? Look and feel like old passive matrix screen";
Opinion n°2:
"The R500 is an absolutely beautiful machine - until you turn it on. The screen is deplorable for such a high end machine. Unless you look directly at it, it becomes almost unviewable. I know that this particular screen has been designed to use outside as well as inside, but it seems a big sacrifice to make for viewing quality indoors";
Opinion n°3:
"The screen is another sticking point. On the one hand.... On the other hand, the display also has its limitations. Viewing angles are distinctly limited, so you have to keep the screen and your head at the correct angle to each other (tricky when you need to show someone else your work), and the backlight is uneven, which means some areas of the screen appear darker than others. That's disappointing, and not only does it make the R500 poorly suited to creative work or presentations, it also makes it less usable as a media player...".

Ok, I stop here with the demolition. Like always, you can find users happy for the screen of the R500, I personally prefer to stay with the front of the "disappointed". As I read in a forum it's possible that there are different suppliers of this type of screen so it can be a question of lucky, that is absolutely not acceptably in a notebook that costs that costs more than € 2500. In any case the great advantages of the new technology are outdoor, not indoor.
The Portégé R200 utilises a glossy XGA polysilicon TFT display and the results are better at least in my "indoor" experience. Honestly is not the best 12" screen out of there but it does the job. I'm not a lover of the lucid displays so popular today in multimedia devices and I continue to prefer the glossy treatment. My main laptop is a ThinkPad T42 with a 1400x1050 resolution glossy display and you can see it in every condition and from any angle, also from the back (IBM called it "Flexview").

6. Noise and heat

Silence is a fundamental characteristic for me. I don't accept to hear the fan of my laptops running continuously, also I don't like to hear the fan work intermittently. Honestly I would have the fan always switched off and it is a reasonable request considering the non-demanding applications I run (Firefox, Office, some light graphic applications, iTunes, eMule).
I must say I'm disappointed from both the notebooks, because their fan runs too much, not only for my taste. I had a lovely Dell X300 in the past (Centrino 1.2 ULV, 1.1kg) and I have a fantastic memory of it: very light, ergonomic, beautiful and silent, much more silent of these two "mixers". In both the cases the only solution (thank you to some suggestions found in the web) is to set the processor permanently at a low frequency. A big shame because you waste a lot of computing capabilities. I'm very disappointed about this fact.

7. Connections and expansions
I don't want to spend many words about this question. I'm happy with both the laptops because they have Wi-Fi (today standard) and Bluetooth (that I love and use a lot). I really appreciate the three USB ports of the R500 (vs. two USB of the R200) and I consider three the perfect compromise for an everyday use. I try to use wireless as much as possible because I hate cables, so I have a Wi-Fi router, a Wi-Fi printer, a Wi-Fi hard drive and a Bluetooth mouse. I'm not interested in firewire and other ports (hdmi, etc), I need only a VGA for my presentations.
Expansions are also adequate, both have a pcmcia expansion slot and a sd card reader that becomes particularly interesting if you want to use the ready boost option in Vista.
Finally, maybe a webcam could be a nice add-on. Toshiba probably saw this lack and now a webcam is present in the new Portégé R600.

8. Autonomy
Autonomy is something I didn't directly test but I read something about it. With the R500 is very important to distinguish between my version with a solid state drive, a 3 cells battery without a DVD drive and the version with a classic hard drive, a DVD drive and with a six cells battery.

That's all!