Toshiba Tecra R10 Review

by Jerry Jackson

The Toshiba Tecra R10 is an attractive 14.1" business notebook featuring the latest Intel processors and Nvidia Quadro NVS 150M wrapped inside an impressively thin shell.  The Tecra R10 inherits its good looks from Toshiba's Portege line of business notebooks, but are good looks and an impressive spec sheet enough to meet the demands of road warriors?  Take a look and see what we have to say about this sleek laptop.

Our review unit of Toshiba Tecra R10 features the following configuration:

• Intel Core 2 Duo P9300 Processor (2.26GHz, 6MB L2, 1066MHz FSB)
• Microsoft Genuine Windows Vista Business (64-bit)
• 14.1-inch WXGA LED backlit screen (1280 x 800)
• 128MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS 150M graphics
• 3GB DDR2 800MHz SDRAM
• 160GB 7200RPM Toshiba 2.5" HDD
• DVD-SuperMulti drive (+/-R double layer)
• Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and Bluetooth V2.1 + EDR connectivity
• 5100mAh Li-Ion Battery
• 3-Year Standard Limited Warranty
• Dimensions: 1.13" x 13.3" x 9.9"
• Weight: 4.34lbs
• MSRP: $1,549

Build and Design
The Toshiba Tecra R10 is a business notebook designed for corporate road warriors who want a thin and attractive laptop with enough power to get most jobs done. The Tecra line has been popular with large business clients for years, but Toshiba realized the need to improve the overall design and decided to borrow key elements from the ultraportable "Portege" series of notebooks. Does the R10 succeed in making the Tecra line more appealing? You bet.

The main body of the laptop is made of a plastic and aluminum outer shell that is scratch resistant but suffers from some flex around the palmrests. The base of the laptop feels very strong thanks to a metal substructure that provides additional support, so this laptop should survive many bumps and bruises in your backpack or car. There is an unfortunate amount of flex in the keyboard, but not enough to cause serious problems while typing. Overall, the R10 isn't rugged enough for you to stand on, but it should prove rugged enough for average use.

The outer shell of the screen casing is made of plastic with a metal support structure underneath. The laptop screen housing sufferes from a fair amount of flex, but pressing on the back of the display doesn't cause any screen ripples or distortion.

Display
The Tecra R10 comes equipped with a 14.1" anti-glare widescreen with 1280 x 800 resolution and LED backlighting. This certainly isn't the most impressive screen resolution on the market, but it's more than enough for a 14-inch display.  The most important thing to consider might be the fact that this screen has excellent readability under bright sunlight, so if you're a road warrior it's easy to read the screen while you're on the road.

When viewing the screen from straight ahead, colors are rich and the contrast is excellent. Horizontal viewing angles are almost as impressive, but the vertical viewing angles from above and below aren't quite as impressive.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The 85-key keyboard on the R10 is nice with matte silver keys that are clearly visible in low light. Each key has a good amount of feedback but the overall keyboard lacks enough support to prevent flex when you apply heavy typing pressure.

The layout of the keyboard is just slightly different than what you might find on most 14-inch notebooks due to the location of the quick launch keys. Toshiba includes three shortcut keys for power, the "Toshiba Assist" button, and a Windows Mobility Center button. Because these buttons are located on the left side of hte keyboard Toshiba had to make several keyboard keys smaller ... which can lead to a few typos if you're a touch typist who never looks at the keyboard. 

The touchpad features the same silver finish used on the keyboard and held up well during our tests. The touchpad in our review unit is an Alps touchpad, but unlike most Alps touchpads we've reviewed this touchpad was quite responsive and free from any cursor lag issues. The only negative issues we had with the touchpad were the relatively small size of the touchpad and the fact that the touchpad buttons are a little painful to use. The polished silver touchpad buttons have extremely shallow presses so if you tend to press hard with your thumb you will end up with a sore thumb by the end of an 8-hour work day. Also, since the fingerprint reader is located between the touchpad buttons it's easy to accidentally trigger the fingerprint reader with your thumb and get an error message on the screen ... if the fingerprint reader is active.

Speakers
The built-in stereo speakers produce average quality sound for a 14-inch notebook with a good range of highs, middles, but virtually no bass. The overall sound quality is a little tinny, but not bad for a business notebook.  The highest volume settings are more than loud enough to fill an office with sound for a presentation, but are still clear and not distorted.

The headphone jack on the left side of the R10 works well with the two different brands of earphones I used during the test. No static or other noise was noticed through the jack besides imperfections in the audio source itself. I also appreciated the physical volume wheel on the notebook which made it quick and easy to adjust volume levels.