Skip to main content

Review: Toshiba Tecra A11 laptop

View a larger image
The Tecra A11 weighs 2.5kg and has a clear 15.6in screen

Daniel Robinson

The Toshiba Tecra A11 is intended as a desktop substitute for business users, and is designed with an emphasis on performance and features rather than portability. Despite this, it is not excessively weighty at 2.5kg, but its short battery life means the system can scarcely be used much while away from mains power.

Available since February, the Tecra A11 models have a 15.6in widescreen display with Intel Core i3 and Core i5 processors, optical drive as standard, plus a whole range of I/O ports and business features such as fingerprint scanner, smartcard reader and Trusted Platform Module security chip.

Our review unit was the Tecra A11-11H, which has a dual-core 2.4GHz Core i5 M520 processor, 2GB of DDR3 memory (expandable to 8GB) and a 250GB Sata hard drive, with a built-in DVD Super Multi drive that can record as well as read DVD and CD media.

Windows 7 Professional is supplied as the operating system, with downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional if required.

Display
We found the Tecra's main appeal is the large 15.6in display with its 1,366x768 resolution that makes for comfortable viewing of spreadsheets and web pages, while its size also means there is plenty of space to rest your palms while using the keyboard. This resolution is a bit low for a screen of this size, but users can obtain resolutions up to 2,048x1,536 on an external display.

In terms of performance, the 2.4GHz Core i5 processor, which looks like four CPUs to the system because of Intel's Hyperthreading technology, seemed to make little difference in normal use. That was until we tried an action such as opening a graphics-heavy PDF, which the Tecra took in its stride, while another PC we viewed it on struggled to display it, especially when scrolling up and down.

The Windows Experience Index in Windows 7 rated the Tecra at just 3.9, but this result is pegged back by the performance of the Intel graphics built into the processor itself, with the processor, memory and disk subsystems all showing high scores of 5.1 and above.

Battery life
Another point worth noting is the relatively poor battery life of this model. Toshiba quotes a life of four hours and 40 minutes from the 55Wh lithium ion battery, but we found that it lasted no longer than one hour and 23 minutes in our tests using the Battery Eater Pro benchmark.

This suggests that, while the Tecra A11 is a good overall workhorse machine, it should be regarded as a portable computer for lugging between sites where there is mains power, rather than to be used much on batteries while travelling.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Sony Ericsson MW600 Review

If you're someone who regularly finds themselves driving, or cycling, or skiing, or cooking, or cleaning, or doing anything - for that matter - which requires your hands and at least a portion of your concentration, then you'll know the value of a Bluetooth headset. But in the more energetic of the aforementioned pursuits, you'll find that a regular ol' one-eared headset won't do. They fall out. When you're halfway down a Colorado piste, or leaning over your stew, the last thing you want that little bit of expensive plastic to do is fall out. Enter Sony Ericsson's MW600 - a teeny-tiny device with a big clip that lets you turn any pair of headphones into a Bluetooth headset. But is it worth shelling out your hard-earned cash for? Do you really need the MW600 in your life? Look down at your little finger on your left hand. The MW600 is about the same size as that. It has a clip on the back that reaches two-thirds of the w...

Samsung i8510 INNOV8

The Samsung i8510 INNOV8 is also known as the Samsung i8510 & the Samsung INNOV8 which is a stylish 3G Smartphone. The casing is sleek & sophisticated which comes in a glossy black coloured casing complete with a simplistic slide opening mechanism. The slide opening system allows the user to open the handset to access the numeric keypad complete with letter entry facilities. The casing is 17.2mm deep by 106.5mm tall by 53.9mm when measured in its slide closed position. The i8510 INNOV8 is from the Samsung Smartphone range which includes other Smartphone's such as the Samsung i560 , Samsung i780 & the Samsung i900 . The Smartphone comes with a large screen which is 2.8 Inches in size & has a display resolution of 240 pixels by 320 pixels & the screen displays up to sixteen million colours on the TFT screen. The i8510 INNOV8 is available in an 8 gigabyte version or a 16 gigabyte version which both support an expandable memory card which supports a further 16 giga...

Sony Ericsson W395- cell phone

Different high tech mobile phones are introduced by Sony Ericsson lately targeting the high strata of the society. All models of this brand come with exclusive designs as well as advanced technology. From clamshells to sliders to candy bar handsets, are really worthwhile extravaganza of this innovative brand. So many series of handsets like K-series, W-series etc., are available in the worldwide market. The young appealing model namely the Sony Ericsson W395 is blessed with numbers of user friendly features. It has 2 inches TFT display that delivers the resolution of 176 x 220 pixels and supports 265 colours. This phone is completely a slider phone and has an amazing design. Capturing of image is a simple task for the 2 mega pixel camera of this gadget. You can collect several good quality pics of your beautiful moments. To facilitate you in capturing distant images, the camera menu is supported by 2.5 x digital zoom. By zooming, you can come more close to the image subject ...