Toshiba Tecra R850: Business Class on a Budget
by Dustin Sklavos on June 6, 2011 12:01 AM ESTApplication and Futuremark Performance
I'm anxious to see how well Intel's fastest dual-core mobile Sandy Bridge performs, but the scales aren't quite as unfair this time as they were between Arrandale and Clarksfield: Sandy Bridge is a more efficient architecture, and the mobile quad-core chips scale impressively.
As Jarred has mentioned before, we've updated our benchmarking suite somewhat. PCMark05, 3DMark03, and 3DMark05 are no more. In their stead we've added PCMark 7, 3DMark 11, and Cinebench R11.5.
Since we don't really have any comparison points in PCMark 7 just yet, there's no sense in posting a graph with just one or two values, but the Tecra R850's score there was 1472 for reference.
As for everything else, the i7-2620M is clearly at the top of the dual-core heap, but while last generation's i7-620M and i7-720QM were able to tangle, the budget-minded i7-2630QM is generally a healthy upgrade from the 2620M--the exception being single-threaded workloads where the higher single-core puts it 17% ahead of the closest 2630QM. There are just some things a quad-core can do that a dual-core can't, and with Turbo Boost the advantages of dual-core are largely negated. Still, the Tecra R850 ranks very high on most of our charts.
Unfortunately the Radeon HD 6450M seems to have a hard time hanging with Intel's HD 3000 integrated graphics in 3DMark, and worse, it takes a substantial performance hit from the 6470M in HP's EliteBook 8460p. Neither of these solutions are ideal, but the 150MHz deficit on the core clock going down to the 6450M hurts, and it's likely that the 200MHz deficit on the memory hurts even more so considering the 64-bit memory bus. It's worth noting that Intel still lacks support for DX11, so we can't generate a 3DMark11 score, but we'll see if 3DMark correlates with actual gaming potential next.
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Roland00 - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link
I meant TG not THrel - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link
I'd like a notebook designed like this except with the GT555 GPU. 1080p high contrast screen is a must.FlyBri - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link
Totally agree. I don't get why it's so difficult to offer a 1080p option. It's not just for watching Blu-Ray movies -- I got my current laptop with a 1080p screen specifically to have more screen real estate for work. And please, for the love of god, give us choices for a high quality screen! It just seems like laptop manufacturers just don't get it...jackpro - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link
It would be nice to know if the screen is aAS-IPS, cPVA, H-IPS, IPS, MVA, P-IPS, P-MVA, PVA, S-IPS, S-PVA, TN
as it would really help with understanding the colour accuracy possible.
like this excellent site does
http://pricespy.co.nz/category.php?k=393
Dustin Sklavos - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link
For notebooks, it's going to be TN 99% of the time. We'll only specify when it's something else.Pratheek - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link
If there were a good 1080p display along much more battery capacity, I would have certainly booked it...nitrousoxide - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link
For a 1000-dollar-laptop with a crappy screen.JarredWalton - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link
Editor's Choice for a high quality build with great general performance; put on a real screen and this would have been Silver at least.Gigantopithecus - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link
I almost purchased an R700 but did not because of three issues: its poor screen quality, the terrible keyboard (the keys had so little travel that typing wasn't unpleasant, it was downright painful), and the fact that it got ball-burning hot. I'm glad Toshiba fixed the heat issue, but it looks like the other two remain.I strongly suggest anyone interested in this laptop try it out in the store if possible (Best Buy should be carrying it). That keyboard is imho *terrible.*
TrackSmart - Monday, June 6, 2011 - link
I have the Toshiba R705. It's a great form factor, but yes, the screen is very poor in all metrics (viewing angles, contrast, color reproduction) except for brightness. The other issues are minor by comparison (e.g. the heat is not that bad and the keyboard isn't terrible once you get acclimated). But that screen...