The new Toshiba Portégé R400 has got to be one of the slickest notebooks around, fodder material for wankers who like to flaunt it. These are the same people who have been keeping BMW in business for the last 20 years.
They have money, love to impress and above all, love to own a brand that tells others in life that they are "really" making it. The Portégé R400 does all of this and a lot more. Firstly it comes from Toshiba, a company that for many has been a leader in the notebook market, and secondly it is well thought out for today's notebook warrior. The first thing you notice is that it relies heavily on a touch screen interface but is not as heavy as a lot of other touch screen notebooks we have reviewed.
Unless you're collecting signatures while delivering packages or have some sort of grudge against clipboards, how much one-handed computing are you really going to do? Probably not much. However this beast is ideal for those one off presentations when one can twist the screen so others can see while you drive the keyboard.
Being able to convert your laptop into a tablet and back again is a great option, and one that's becoming more common as touch screens continue to get cheaper. In fact, picking a laptop this year is all about options—the ones you want, the ones you don't and the ones that are so new you have no idea what to make of them.
The option-wealthy Toshiba Portégé R400, which has a great touch screen display, as well as a tiny OLED screen that's visible when the computer is closed. This Personal Information Assistant can only display one line of text and a few icons, but it lets you scroll through e-mail headers when new messages hit your Outlook inbox. It would have looked good in a James Bond Movie.
