Toshiba Portégé R500-S5002

Pros Incredibly thin and light; built-in optical drive; impressive battery life; comfortable keyboard Cons Merely adequate performance; no option for built-in Webcam or wireless broadband; only one speaker; case feels too flexible Editors' Take Toshiba's Portégé R500 is an amazing ultraportable laptop with only a couple of minor shortcomings keeping it from perfection. Key Specs : Processor: 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo U7600 Memory: 1GB DDR2 Storage: 120GB hard drive Optical Drives: Double-layer DVD±RW Display: 12.1-inch TFT Graphics: Integrated Intel GMA 950 Operating System: Windows Vista Business Edition Review : If you've ever lugged around a 7-pound notebook all day, you've probably dreamed of a smaller, lighter model that gave you all the benefits of a big machine: a roomy screen and keyboard, and a built-in optical drive. Well, you were dreaming about the 2.4-pound Toshiba Portégé R500. A near-perfect road companion with a head-turning design, the R500 (we tested the $2,149 R500-S5002 model) measures a trim 0.8x11.1x8.5 inches and weighs barely more than its carrying case. Even counting its (very compact) power supply, the R500 tips the scales at little more than 3 pounds. Remarkably, you still get a bright 1,280x800-resolution, 12.1-inch wide-screen LCD (backlit by LEDs) and a comfortable, full-size, spill-resistant keyboard. The touch pad and its buttons are a decent size, too, and there's a fingerprint reader between the two buttons. What's more remarkable, though, is what you'll find around the sides of the R500. On the left are a VGA plug, two USB 2.0 ports, a mini-FireWire connection, headphone and mic jacks, and a small volume dial. Along the right is an SD memory-card slot, an Ethernet jack, a third USB port, and an on/off switch for the 802.11n Wi-Fi. Finally, next to the PC Card slot is the pièce de résistance: a very slim, drawer-style DVD±RW optical drive, something you see rarely—if ever—in an ultraslim model. There are a few minor deficiencies in the design, however. There's no option to get integrated wireless-broadband circuitry, something that more business notebooks are offering. You can always pop in a wireless-broadband PC Card, but the omission is still disappointing. Also, there's no built-in Webcam, and Toshiba could find room for only one speaker (positioned above the left side of the keyboard and power button). Finally, though the case is made of magnesium alloy, the body feels a little too flexible, especially right below the optical-drive bay. Toshiba did, however, build in shock absorption and hard drive protection. As for performance, our test model's ultra-low-voltage 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor is more than adequate for office tasks and basic entertainment. But its multitasking is a touch lackluster, no doubt due to the skimpy 1GB of memory on the motherboard. (There's a single open slot for raising the total RAM to 2GB.) On FutureMark's PCMark05 test, the notebook managed a score of only 1,866—and a mere 122 on 3DMark06. On Cinebench 9.5, the R500 scored 363, and it took an interminable 13 minutes and 40 seconds to complete our Windows Media Encoder test. That said, these results are in line with those of other ultraportables. More important, battery life was great, thanks to the miserly CPU and energy-efficient, LED-backlit display. On our DVD rundown test with Vista's power management set to high performance, the R500 lasted 2 hours and 41 minutes, and on balanced performance we got nearly 4 hours. Want to save even more power? Work outside. Above the keyboard on the right is a button to turn off the LCD's backlight. The transreflective screen then uses natural light to brighten the display. Like too many systems these days, the R500 comes bloated with software titles that clutter the desktop with shortcut icons, so be prepared to do a lot of uninstalling. On the plus side, because this is considered a business system, Toshiba includes a three-year parts-and-labor warranty. (Consumer notebooks usually get just one year.) If you don't mind trading some performance for light weight and high style, the Toshiba Portégé R500 is an excellent choice.