2560x1440 Kirabook ultrabook

There was a prototype Series 9 with a 2560x1440 screen, but is this the first production model to feature it? The Toshiba Kirabook has a 13.3" 2560x1440 display and respectable ultraportable specs, though a somewhat high price point. It'll ship May 12, 2013.

Toshiba’s 2560×1440 Kirabook is a high-res laptop for the Windows world | Ars Technica

I have to hand it to Toshiba--I normally think of them as an "also-ran," not a company that pushes the boundaries like this.

 

Hmm ... looks kinda nice! I wonder how sturdy it is....

 

Holly Snapples! I want one of those!

Good find!

 

Toshiba has a proven track record of pushing envelopes - but in a really boring way. The R-series has always pushed portable boundaries but they've never been exciting in the least.

The same, I fear, is what I feel about the KIRA. Apart from the dumb name and the portability aspect for the specs (and again, this is not new for Toshiba) there's nothing interesting about the design whatsoever.

What I'd really love is Dells' former Adamo design team to conspire with Toshiba's ultraportable engineers.

 

Which graphics chip is this using?

 

Intel HD4000.

 

First (?) review is out. Too bad there isn't too much comments on the user experience of the panel in windows environment.

AnandTech | Toshiba KIRAbook Ultrabook Review

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6941/toshiba-kirabook-ultrabook-review

Very nice!!!
I really like the details of the warranty; that's awesome! Also, the full software library is another nice feature.
I may have to grab one of these; hopefully there will be a Haswell version by the end of the year.

 

I just ordered one for my boyfriend. Let you guys know how it turns out. The estimated ship date is May 10 ... which is today ... so I think they're totally lying.

I ordered the cheapest configuration, i5 with Windows 8 (not Pro) and no touchscreen.

Edit

Estimated ship date now reads May 13 ...

 

Let us know what you think of the Kira.

Good luck

 

Woohoo it shipped!

I had to verify my order by telephone after I placed it (Toshiba Direct called me). Order verification is open M-F and Sunday (but not Saturday, weird). I missed their call and it was two days before I could call them back, so it's possible that the unit would've shipped even sooner if I had gotten their call the first time.

I was very skeptical about the shipping dates but I'm happy to say I was wrong!

 

The pricing of the Kirabook makes a LOT more sense when I see the standard warranty. You'd pay a couple hundred extra for that with most other OEMs.

 

The Verge posted an extended review of Kirabook.
There are serious reasons to wait for the model on Haswell and Win Blue. Now Ivy Bridge, unfortunately, stumbles in struggling with such a high resolution.

 

Yeah, waiting to see their 15" Haswell model, with 256GB SSD and 16GB RAM.

 

Other than Photoshop, how would you use the higher rez?

On my old 1200P screen I had to crank everything up to 120 DPI to read 12 point fonts. This made internet with bit mapped graphics a mess but ok with vector graphics.

Now we have a screen with 224.45 DPI!

Does W8 handle all fonts between WEB and Apps correctly for us old guys with glasses?

 

Yeah, I think screen resolution is becoming less and less of a factor in determining how large or small your typefaces look.

 

That's true if everything uses vector fonts. Most new Office products do this, but found a huge amount of web sites that don't. I will wait for reviews but may lurk the Apple forum to read how well OSX handles it....

 

It arrived today! I'm really, really impressed with the shipping speed. To recap, I ordered on Friday, I was called Friday night, but missed it, I called back on Sunday (because they're closed on Saturday), they shipped on Monday and I got it Wednesday!

I made an unboxing photo album on imgur, check it out: KIRAbook unboxing - Imgur.

Initial impressions are very good:

• Doesn't just look thin and light on paper, actually does feel thin and light
• Chassis has nice feel, not cheap and plasticky
• Screen flex is present, true, but who cares? Why would you ever torque your lid?
• Hinge is solid, but still underdamped - lid vibrates after you open the lid or change the angle. Thinkpads don't have this problem.
• Keyboard is not as bad as I feared, certainly better than some recent Toshiba Portégés I've tried. Not as good as a Thinkpad keyboard, but what is?
• Takes forever to log in - I blame Norton

I'm still setting it up right now, but the boyfriend is planning on taking it to work tomorrow for a more thorough test run, so I'll have more details for you later.

Anything in particular you guys want to know?

I think most people are probably curious about the super high PPI experience. I won't lie, I think it's pretty broken in Windows. But it's something I'm willing to deal with in exchange for the option of displaying huge amounts of content on the screen and for viewing anything rendered as a vector image more crisply and beautifully.

Out of the box, the KIRAbook was set to 165% DPI scaling. We turned it down to 125%, which was perfectly usable. When we set it 100% for the image comparison, it was less comfortable, definitely a bit of a strain to use. But maybe we'll get used to it.

On my Surface Pro (208 PPI instead of 221 PPI), I used 125% for a few weeks before I switched to 100%. I haven't looked back since, although I do go through the tedium of tweaking UI font sizes in my most frequently used applications. My browser tweaking, in particular, results in some poor layouts, but I can't say I care or that the layout has been unusably poor.

I bought the KIRAbook now instead of waiting for a Haswell version because I doubt the KIRAbook will succeed. I don't see much of a market for super high PPI on Windows machines, and I'm afraid that the KIRAbook will be a risk Toshiba took that it - and other laptop manufacturers - won't take again. Better to take my chance while I can.

 

Meow9th Great Photoalbum, would you do a youtube video?

 

Thank you for the great information Meow9th !!!
That photo-album with the descriptions is an invaluable resource many of us will be referring to.
Thanks again for taking the time to share with us.

P.S.- How's the battery life? and the speed of the SSD ?

 

Thanks, but I don't have any experience with video...

My boyfriend really hasn't used the KIRA enough to be sure about the battery life, but last night it was reading 4 hr at 70%. Today it's saying 4 hr at 50%. He's doing primarily web browsing so far, so no intense use. The battery life seems in line with what I would expect from a Core i-series ultrabook, anyway. I'm not sure he's charged for it for a couple of days, he's been trying really hard to get it down to 50% but it's taking him awhile.

SSD benchmarks can be found in this Engadget review:
Toshiba Kirabook review: Toshiba tries to reinvent itself with a flagship Ultrabook

According to that benchmark it's fast, although whether that benchmark is any good or not, I don't know. It certainly feels fast, when it doesn't feel randomly slow. I 100% blame the random slownesses on the pre-installed Norton. My boyfriend hasn't played with the Norton settings yet, so until then, I'm prepared to blame any and all performance slowness on Norton.

As someone who has actually experienced a KIRAbook, I feel compelled to respond to the Engadget review in detail.

Two big points of disagreement with Engadget review

I vehemently disagree with pretty much every word of this paragraph. Vehemently.

All the spec sheets say that the KIRAbook has an IPS panel, first of all.

And the viewing angles are GREAT. They are absolutely what I expect from IPS. Maybe they aren't quite as wide as the Surface Pro's, but I would never, ever call them narrow.

Glossy screens reflect. That's what they do (which is why I always prefer matte). Certainly the KIRA's glossy screen is not any worse in this respect compared to any other glossy screens.

For a much more accurate, detailed and objective review of the display, see what Anandtech has to say about it: "Viewing angles are excellent as one would expect ... It's difficult not to be impressed with this panel." - AnandTech | Toshiba KIRAbook Ultrabook Review

Again, vehement disagreement.

I only did one thing that made the fan spin up, and I found the fan noise at high RPM to actually be relatively quiet, compared to my Surface Pro (which sounds like a jet engine) and my T420s (which has a high pitched whine at higher RPMs guaranteed to drive you up the walls). Before I downloaded TPFanControl for my T420s, I found it spun up all the time for seemingly no reason, and wouldn't spin down when I was almost doing nothing. Kira really hasn't performed that badly at all.

It has been operating silently the entire time my boyfriend has been using it (though he's only been surfing the Internet). We will report back when he starts doing more intensive things.

And I don't know about this whole screen freeze/hard reset business. Certainly we haven't done anything to make Kira choke, and it simply doesn't feel like an underperforming computer ready to choke (I own an Atom-based PC too, so I know what that feels like).

Other comments to Engadget review

In my photo album, I mentioned that the KIRA gets vanishingly thin in front, which presents a nice illusion of thinness (it's actually thin, too, but the illusion makes it look even thinner). Since consumers seem to be way obsessed with thinness, manufacturers respond by packaging their laptops to look thin, at the expense of just about everything else, including in-hand comfort. If people would just stop with the thinness obsession, then we wouldn't have these problems. Toshiba is just trying to make the KIRAbook attractive.

Also in my initial impressions post, I mentioned that the keyboard seemed to be decent, better than other Toshiba keyboards I've briefly experienced. I take it all back. After having spent a little bit more time with Kira (as she's affectionately known at home), I find the keyboard awful. So mushy that I cringe every time I use it. However, this is coming from somebody who almost exclusively uses Thinkpad keyboards (I even got one for my desktop ...).

My boyfriend, on the other hand, is not at all picky about his keyboards and doesn't mind Kira's keyboard in the least. It doesn't bother him even a smidge.

Actually I'm pretty impressed with the included suite of Toshiba utilities. I haven't had a chance to explore all of them thoroughly yet, but they all look useful and give you a degree of customizability that I've come to expect with enterprise grade machines like Thinkpads and really miss with my consumer grade Surface Pro.

I've already given my opinion on waiting for Haswell and other high-res Windows laptops. I will be very glad - and very surprised - if it does happen.

 

Thanks for the additional infos. While I read Engadget regularly I never read their hardware tests, other sites are way better and more in-depth.

 

I don't normally read Engadget reviews, but my bf passed it on to me to answer the SSD question. When I started reading through it I just got so outraged I had to say something.

The Anandtech review, on the other hand, leaves me totally calm. I actually completely disagree with the conclusion of the review, but the complaints Anandtech had - screen flex and lack of 5Ghz connectivity - are objectively true and it's up to you whether you care or not (I absolutely do not). The other observations in the review were all fair or objective (in the sense of collecting benchmark data).

One thing I want to point out, although I've mentioned it in passing before, is what a superior job Toshiba is doing delivering the KIRAbook. My basis of comparison is the Surface Pro and Thinkpad Helix launches.

Toshiba promised, then delivered on that promise. There was no waiting, no anger, no depression, no blaming this that and the other thing. Microsoft and Lenovo, on the other hand, came nowhere close delivering on their promises.

Rumours of the Surface Pro had been floating around since November 2012, at least. NDAs on review sites were lifted around Feb 5. Launch date was heavily publicized as being Feb 9, with wide retail distribution through the Microsoft Store (including online), Best Buy and Staples. Two models were offered, 128 gb SSD and 64 gb SSD. There was a secret pre-order option available at Best Buy and the Microsoft Store. On launch day, there were almost no Surface Pros to be found, except for those who preordered. Staples had nothing. Microsoft Store was sold out by 9 or 10 am. Best Buy had floor models and 64 gb models. It was another week before I got my Surface Pro, and I used the secret pre-order method with Best Buy. Twice the Microsoft Store online order page went live, and twice it sold out again. The Surface Pro launch is widely accounted a debacle. Those not in the US or Canada are probably still waiting.

Rumours of the Thinkpad Helix have been floating around almost as long. Lenovo advertised launch to be in 'spring' (pushed back from Q1 earlier). Leaked internal documents showed limited release in April, wide release in May. It's mid, almost late May now, and the Helix is only available from resellers. Lenovo's Helix order page has yet to go live.

In comparison, the earliest mention I can find of the KIRAbook is Apr 1. NDAs were lifted in mid-April. Promised launch date was May 12. I ordered on May 10, the laptop shipped on May 13, and I received the laptop on May 15. The one day difference between launch and ship could very well have been my fault, not Toshiba's. Easy, smooth, what was said was what was done.

 

I have had my Kirabook for a few days now and I agree with meow9th almost completely.
My biggest issue so far is the WiFi. I cannot use the Kirabook in places at home where my other devices (Ipad, Dell XPS 12) still have connections fast enough for youtube. The Kirabook looses the connection frequently. If I get even 10 feet closer, it suddenly works again. So it seems it has issues with weaker WiFi signals. Weaker is of course relative since the signal is strong enough for all my other devices. I updated the Intel drivers, no change.
The battery life is ok. I get about 3.5 hours on mixed use.

I also removed Norton after a few days, since it made web browsing soooo much slower and I hated the frequent random pop-ups.

Any questions., let me know!.

 

That's surprising to hear the troubles of the WIFI of the KiraBook [considering it comes with an Intel WIFI card].

Keep us updated with any other news.

PS - What's your opinion of the speed of the SSD? Pretty fast?

 

After I removed Norton, the speed is great. Could not ask for more! Before that, web pages would take long to load, PDF files would hang up, etc.

 

My wife's spins the fan up to literally the loudest laptop fan noise I have ever heard, including a gaming laptop I'm comparing it to. She doesn't have to even do anything-- just starting windows is sufficient for the fan to quickly ramp up to a screaming, high-pitched wail. I'm wondering if they have a manufacturing issue that affects some units. This is definitely the loudest laptop I have ever seen, including laptops with 120-watt power supplies and huge GPUs, and it gets loud under zero load.

It's (sorta) good to hear that other units are quiet-- that gives me hope that whatever it is can be resolved, but I'm sick to death of dealing with "defective out of the box" laptops, and had hoped that the high-end warranty and price were enough to avoid that hassle for her.

 

Mine does spin up occasionally and then sound like a 747 taking off. One of the loudest notebooks I ever had. But it does not happen too often. I was in a meeting last week and it suddenly did that. Got some nasty looks....

 

May be worth putting that "Enhanced" warranty to use and speaking to one of the US based customer support reps regarding the "loud fan" issue.

I know the portege z830, when it first came out, had a similar issue. Enough people complained and Toshiba ended up releasing a BIOS update that helped address some of the issues.


Good luck

 

Hi, newby here and not really a big computer guy but I want to share my story with you about the noisy fan issue in the Kira.
The Toshiba guy came around and found two things
1st: Adobe Reader was running in the background ("dah" moment for me, didn't show up in task manager but was running in the background using 30% CPU juice and keeping things unnecessarily hot). That is now disabled unless required.
2nd and most importantly. When he took the back off to replace the fan and heat sink he found that the dielectric grease between the heat sink and processor was only covering about half of the surface. He cleaned the surfaces off and replaced with new grease and full coverage. Oozing out the sides when he screwed it back together.

Good news is this, NO MORE NOISE and in fact the computer has been running since 7:30 this morning (now 3:45pm) and the fan hasn't even fired up once, not that I could hear anyways. If it's running it is inaudible. There is heat along the frame at the back near the screen but no fan screaming any more.

Get on to Toshiba and have them fix it or do it yourself.

Hope this helps you guys.

G