www.HUBCanada.com

HUB VIP Award Winner: Portege a powerful stowaway
By Sean Carruthers, posted 11/10/2003 2:09:04 PM

For the traveler who's always on the go, finding the perfect notebook companion can be pretty tough. If you want a machine with computing power, you're often saddled with a notebook that's so heavy you end up with one shoulder permanently lower than the other from toting it around. If you're looking for something lighter, chances are you'll have to sacrifice on the processing power and possibly settle for a shorter runtime, because your battery will have to be smaller to fit into the compact notebook housing.

With Toshiba's Centrino-based Portégé R100, you may not have to choose. The notebook is quite compact, at 28.6x22.9x1.98 cm -- and that measurement includes the extra battery that comes as standard gear with the R100. You can reduce the thickness by another 0.49 cm (to 1. 49 cm) by skipping that second battery, but you'll also cut the runtime by about two-thirds. Since the notebook is only 1.4 kg with the extra battery (or just a touch over 3 lb.), it only makes sense to jettison it when every gram counts.

Despite the small size, the notebook packs in the features. The TFT screen is only 12 inches, but features 1,024x768 resolution. In addition to the network and modem connectors, the R100 also has built-in WiFi networking (and if you're trying to conserve power, there's an on/off switch for the wireless component). The R100 comes with a 40 GB hard drive, but no floppy or optical drive; instead, you can connect a CD or DVD drive via the PC Card slot or one of the two USB 2.0 ports. There's also a SecureDigital slot on the side so you can transfer digital photographs to your notebook directly from an SD memory card (if your camera uses this type of removable memory, of course).

Because the Portégé R100 uses Centrino technology, it can achieve longer battery life even while maintaining a fairly high level of performance. You just have to choose between the 900 MHz or 1 GHz processor -- either will do a good job.

If we have complaints about the R100, they're mostly size-related: The smaller overall size means a more compact keyboard, which may take some adjustment -- especially for those with larger hands. Also, because the touchpad is so close to the keyboard, it can be a bit awkward, especially because it's set to a high sensitivity level right out of the box. (If you're like me, you'll want to change that immediately and disable tap-to-click, to avoid unfortunate incidents while trying to work.)

Tested in action
I managed to get my hands on the Portégé R100 just before heading off on a week-long business trip to Japan, and the timing was perfect: I was going to be in a different place every day, and rather than leaving the notebook at the hotel, I wanted to have something lightweight that I could sling onto my back even while wandering around taking pictures. Since I would be loading photographs onto the machine on a fairly regular basis, I also wanted something with good battery life.

As soon as I got onto the plane in Vancouver, I discovered that there weren't any electrical outlets, so power was at a premium. Happily, the battery life was sufficient to take me most of the way across the ocean -- about eight hours -- and I was able to finish four short articles before having to shut down. (Back home I ran the battery test component of madonion.com's PCMark 2002 benchmark software; even with regular hard drive access and intensive CPU usage, the notebook lasted 5 hours and 11 minutes -- impressive.)

The notebook's size was a real plus, as it fit neatly into my bag, and even with the extra battery, it never felt like my shoulder was about to fall off, even after a week. The keyboard and touchpad took a bit of getting used to, but were usable even on the plane, train, and bus.

It all adds up to a winning combination: long runtime, CPU power, and compactness.

For that reason, Toshiba's Portégé R100 is a natural for the HUB VIP Award.