Portege R700 - the thin and light 13.3"

also - anyone try out the new BIOS dated 7-13-10 from Toshiba? Wondering if it may help with battery life.

 

how can we see our battery wear?

 

BatteryBar is a free program that you can download - it works pretty well and it will show you the battery wear.
Osiris Development - BatteryBar, the most accurate battery meter for Windows

 

oh i see.

i installed it and my battery wear is 8.5%

 

I checked in HWMonitor, and it shows 8% wear level as well. My other 3 laptops all have 2% or less and are older... not good.

 

geez... WTH is going on here? I guess that partially explains why everyone is getting less than expected battery life, nearly 10% is gone right off the bat. That's unbelievable and I really do hope Toshiba covers this under warranty. If not, this is going back to Best Buy.

Ok, here's an update to my battery test, even with the 8.5% battery wear. Simply out of curiosity, I wanted to see how long I could stretch the battery life on this R705. I left it turned on over night and it has been exactly 6 hours and the battery is currently at 33.3%. At this rate, it should be good to go 8 hours and 20 minutes. This is at eco settings, screen brightness all the way down, and wifi turned off. Also, the screen was set to turn off after 2 minutes. Obviously not a realistic scenario, so we'll never see in day to day use. However, reaching 6 hours is entirely possible with max battery saving settings. Now, I'm almost convinced the people complaining about 3.5 hrs are using their laptops like they normally do when it is plugged in.

I'm pretty sure that's where the problem is. At my battery saving settings, eco utility hovers around 9-11. As soon as I bump the brightness up all the way, it pretty much doubles the usage and hovers around 17-21. So if I can get ~6 hours, that explains why they're getting ~3-3.5 hours. Once my new HDD comes in, I'll do a clean install and see if that helps at all. There is a TON of bloatware on this thing, Toshiba has 20 programs/utilities. While some, like eco utility may be useful, I probably will never use the others.

They better replace it under warranty, a worn battery will only rapidly wear more compared to what should be a brand new one. If my above assumption is off about people getting crappy battery life, I'm willing to bet it's because their batteries are at <10% battery wear. Yeah, not quite sure why it takes so long to recharge. My HP TM2 also has a 65w charger and it takes about 1 hr to recharge from 0-80% and another 1 hr to recharge 80-100%. It's got a dedicated GPU, unlike the R705, so it's probably drawing more power while running too.

 

another update... just got off the phone with Toshiba.
WOW... is their customer service really THAT bad? I've made multiple calls to HP's customer support line and they have always been pleasant and tried to help (keyword: tried). Toshiba's rep came off sounding like a d*ck, tried to tell me that the battery wear is because I didn't fully charge the battery for 6-8 hours while the laptop was turned off when I first opened it. I also mentioned how sh*tty the power supply is, it takes 7 hours to recharge from 3% if the laptop is turned on! He's trying to tell me the laptop must be turned off to recharge the battery. Even then, laptopmag reported about 4 hours to recharge.
The difference in customer support is astounding. Toshiba will try to bullsh*t you to avoid solving the problem. On the other hand, although HP reps are clearly reading from a script and English isn't their first language, they are courteous and will continue to work with you until the issue is resolved. Hell, they even called me back a couple of times to follow up on the issue. And trust me, I gave Toshiba's rep nothing but respect and courtesy on the phone, at least until I realized he was unwilling to help in any way.
LOL... so the Toshiba rep told me to go to their acclaim warranty site. After punching in my information, Toshiba handles their warranties by charging/authorizing your card, sending out the replacement part, and then refunding the amount of the part when they receive the original part. What a joke. I guess I've just been spoiled by HP's customer service. When a rubber foot fell off my HP notebook, they overnighted an entire kit to me (8 replacement rubber feet, HDD cover, RAM cover, screen hinge cover).


So far, I'm loving everything about this laptop... but the battery wear, recharge time, and Toshiba's customer support are a major turn off.

 

I just ordered a Tecra R700 (in Canada, its a Tecra, not a Portege). Hoping that there are no battery problems when I get it, and maybe its just an R705/Bestbuy thing. We'll see.

 

You can find this out for yourself by running task manager on your current pc. Just leave it on in the background, in the performance tab. Occasionally glance at the memory usage graph. If you are anywhere near approaching 2GB then you should get more, but I doubt that given your description of tasks.

More memory is handy for running lots of things at once, as well as for processing giant files (like what photoshop and moviemaker programs do)

 

I ordered the R700 from NewEgg; should be tomorrow or Thursday. Can't wait!

Anyone have a list of suggestions for what to do upon getting it as far as uninstalling software, battery, etc.? 57 pages is a little daunting to read through.

 

I hear you - a great laptop - but this battery issue is just not acceptable.

 

Anyone with an R700 out there care to comment on battery wear and battery life? I'm wondering if these problems are exclusive to the r705 somehow.

What is everyone's charge rate when they are plugged in?

 

How's the wireless performance you all are seeing on R705/700? Mine seems a bit slower than my other notebooks - not terrible, but not great. Overall system is very snappy and nice - just wish we had batteries with less than 8% ware...

 

today at the coffeeshop, i had my wifi off and the screen at mid-low brightness to read some notes and the battery life indicator showed 6 hrs of battery life. oh yea turned off the dvd drive too

i mean the battery life issue is less than ideal but i still love this laptop.
maybe later i'll get a 9 cell battery if the battery degrades further...

kinda retarded that a new laptop has such a screwed up battery..
(lol great idea Toshiba. for your 25th anniversary, give us a great laptop with a messed up battery)

on a side note, does the r700 and r705 use the same batteries?

 

wow i just check the best buy website to see if there were any more new reviews...

apparently, all the stores in my city sold out of the r705.

i'm so glad i made a trip to go get one of the few remaining ones before it sold out at that store too.

 

Yeah, I picked up the second to last one in my area on Sunday (we have 5 BBs in fairly close radius). They are selling very well.

 

Just a few follow ups:

- I think the bottom of my case is magnesium like the rest of the panels (R700), not plastic. The removable compartment are plastic, though.

- My <1week old battery also reads 8.5% "used" by batterybar.

- I get about 4-4.5 hours "estimated" by battery bar on eco mode with brightness max and wifi on the i7.

- Your battery is 60-66 Watt-Hours. You can get a good idea of your battery life at your current settings by dividing 66WH by the power consumption (avg) reported by the Eco utility. For instance, if your brightness, wifi, and background activities are drawing 20W, you can expect your laptop to last no longer than about 3 hours or so. With full brightness and eco mode idle, my i7 R700 draws about 10-12W. If your idling laptop is drawing more than that, some program or service is using cpu time and power.

-

 

I wonder if the R705 bottom is plastic and the R700 is magnesium like random45678 stated. If so, that may explain the BB price of $799 vs the higher Toshiba Direct price for a similar configuration... Thoughts?

 

That's really bizarre that Toshiba would ship out all these laptops with exactly 8.5% battery wear.
If you file a claim with Toshiba's warranty, you have to pay $149 for a 6 cell, until they receive your "defective" battery.
At that point, you might as well spring for the 9 cell battery for $120 (with coupon) and have 2 batteries in possession. However, who's to say the "brand new" 9 cell won't already have wear? Then you'll have to pay ANOTHER $120 while they look into it. But who would want a 9 cell battery? You could put it on the charger overnight and it will probably only be charged to 50%
Ahh... what a mess of a company...

 

Looks like the $999 Tecra R700(Canada) has 2GB RAM/160GB HD unlike the $999 Portege R700(US) which has 4GB/500GB HD. I wonder what the international 3yr warranty coverage is for US purchased R700's in Canada. Looking at the Toshiba USA 3yr pdf it refers to a URL but doesn't have any specific information about canada.

The US version also doesn't have the bilingual keyboard which is nice for non-french speakers.

 

but then $999 cdn =/= $999 usd

and yes, no bilingual kb for me thats y i ordered from the states, waiting for mine to arrive

 

Sure, but these days alot of electronics are priced at par.

Did you check into what options there are for warranty once the laptop is up here?

 

I am wondering if the BIOS update does anything to decrease charge time. Can anyone confirm this?

 

dont think so

didn't notice any difference

 

the wireless on my r705 (best buy version) is astounding. We currently have 4 laptops in our house, and I've gone through several laptops in the last year, and this Toshiba has by far the best reception and throughput of any laptop I've owned.

I think it's got the same advanced centrino card you find in the business oriented Lenovo thinkpad laptops. Can't remember where I've read that, but I do remember reading it.

Our house is funny about wireless, and every laptop I've owned has had issues with the wireless in our house (all have N cards). The toshiba NEVER drops signal, and I do a LOT of downloading. It also has full bars, regardless if I'm next to the router or standing downstairs in the basement, 2 floors down (the router is upstairs in my office). Our house is about 5000sq ft, so that should tell you something.

 

Thanks for the info - might just be my router...

 

How's your battery life? I wonder if the new BIOS helps in that area...

 

didn't see any difference after updating.

same old same old

 

Has anyone bought on buy thru ebay? You get 8% bing + 2% ebay bucks.

Is battery life between this and Sony Vaio Y the same?

 

Just received my R700 from Buy.com on Ebay. Got 8% BCB and $19.76 ebay bucks.

My battery also says 8.5% wear.

 

Is the bottom of your R700 plastic or magnesium alloy?
Looks like the R700 has the same ware issues as the R705. Maybe a battery manufacturing defect for the initial batch?

 

how come 8.5% for all r700/r705? i mean it is weird that every one of them has 8.5% consistent wear could that be the software? can you guys try batterycare and try to see if the reading is same?

BatteryCare - Download

 

People have already seen wear on their R700/705?? It's been out for about a month!

Can you post pics of the "wear" you are seeing?

 

I was referring to the battery ware - not physical ware of the notebook bottom panel.

 

LOL my mistake!

 

no worries! I should have made it a bit more clear.

 

Question for people who got the R700 or are thinking of getting one, which OS did you get since W7 professional comes with 32-bit or 64-bit version? and why? I am thinking of getting one from buy.com but it is only available with 32-bit. I think the 64-bit version can fully take advantage of the 4GB memory.

 

Maybe that's how they're listing it, but I believe all R700 models are shipping right now with the Toshiba installer that allows you to choose 32-bit or 64-bit at first bootup. Recovery discs will also allow this same choice.

Look on Amazon and eBay, as buy.com is selling more models on Amazon than they do on their own web site (and are usually offering the lowest price). I bought my 1320 that way. Other posters have mentioned buy.com on eBay.

 

It could be just a software bug on the battery status. Maybe if more people let Toshiba know,they will fix it.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I am getting the R700 from buy.com on eBay because of the 8% BCB. I am not sure how I can get eBay bucks. Anyway, W7 pro with 32-bit is listed, and according to you I should have the option of installing 64-bit at first bootup. Is that what you went through?

 

The bottom of my R700 is magnesium alloy. I checked out the R705 at BB, and I'm pretty sure it's magnesium alloy too. The paint finish makes it feel like plastic, but if you take out the battery and look at the cross section of the bottom panel, you can tell it's metallic with a coat of black paint.

Also, I bought a replacement R700-series battery off ebay and it also starts out with 8.5% battery life gone, just like the battery that came with the laptop. Either all the batteries they're shipping have this "defect," or it's a bug or miscalculation in batterybar.

 

the 3.2 pounds weight, is it with the 6-cell shipping battery or with a 4-cell battery?

 

I don't think it's an error or miscalculation from Battery Bar as it shows ~60mWh when it's supposed to have 66mWh. Others have confirmed the battery wear with other programs.

I'm really surprised no one has mentioned anything about the recharge time... +7 hours to recharge while laptop is on and +4 hours when turned off??? I guess I'm just really picky, but I can't live with a laptop that takes longer to recharge than it does to drain the battery. If it were an Asus G73 I'd completely understand... but we're talking about a portable 13" laptop with core i3 and integrated graphics and average battery capacity.
Regardless, I've decided to return my R705 today... the battery wear and recharge rate is unacceptable, not to mention Toshiba's terrible customer service. Otherwise, the R700/705 is the ideal portable laptop for the right price. If Toshiba ever gets stuff sorted, I'll buy another R700/705. But if the Acer 3820TG gets to the US before then, that seems to be the next best alternative.

 

They only offer 6 cell (standard) and 9 cell

 

Well, I like my R700. It's superfast, superlight, and I can get >4h off a charge. I personally don't care if it takes 4-8 hours to charge. It's not like I stare at my laptop while it's charging, or I can't use it at the same time. Slow charging actually improves battery longevity by a significant margin. Rapid charging is bad for current LiIon batteries. Also, slower charging means your AC adapter brick can be lighter too (remember this adds weight when you travel with it). A new Toshiba battery is <$80 shipped on ebay (after BCB), so I could care less if it's 66WH or 60WH.

 

valid points
but I guess for the way I use my laptop, unplugged more often than plugged in, I can't sit around waiting all day for the laptop to charge. In that sense, it sort of defeats the whole purpose of being an ultra portable since the laptop will always be charging. I'd hate it if I were rushing out the door to get to class and to find that the laptop isn't charged enough, even though it spent the better half of the day on the charger. I'd rather just have a quick charging battery and have to replace it every year or two, since like you mentioned, they only cost ~$80 on ebay.
Trust me, I love the R700/705 too, it really is in a class of it's own for the price range. But those small details were the dealbreaker for me.

 

Yes, both after unboxing and again with the recovery discs (after I installed my SSD).

 

Hey random45678, can you tell me which seller you used to buy a replacement battery? could you give me a link?
tried searching, couldn't find any on ebay


how many hrs of battery do you get with a 9 cell?

thanks!

 

random 45678 - thanks for checking the bottom of the notebook - good to know that R700/705 has an all around strong magnesium alloy structure.

terrible_lie - sorry to hear that you are returning the R705 back - all in all I think it is a pretty good notebook - especially considering what is out there at BB (granted not the best place to get state of the art computing equipment). I think I am going to hold on to the R705 for a bit longer. Though, the battery ware issue is very interesting - I don't think the batterybar software is wrong - my guess is maybe a bad batch of batteries or a manufacturing issue...

 

Thanks.
Did you get wind 7 installation DVD disc with your R700?