Toshiba talks up 4K and computers that “click”

There are so many new computers this week, it’s hard to keep track, but just in case you hadn’t had your fill of uber new laptop goodness, two more are on the way from Tosh.

The creator of the laptop PC appears keen to shake up the formula this year, and has taken the time to announce new laptops that it hopes will persuade you to take a chance on its brand.

Sure, you might be looking for new processors, faster speeds, and better battery life, but two options from Toshiba are coming, with a focus on quality displays for one section of the market, while looking hard at battery life for another.

Let’s do the high-end screen option first, because this has been an ongoing conversation with computer makers for what seems like ages. We can even remember talking to Toshiba about it years ago, because while the computer company had put out some truly lovely displays — paging Kirabook, anyone? — most of its screens, and indeed most laptop screens out there just didn’t pass muster.

Look at the last Toshiba we reviewed for an example of this, because back in June, the Toshiba Satellite Radius L10W had such an appealing screen, we were on the verge of throwing the whole machine out of a window. It probably would have been doing Toshiba a favour.

 

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Toshiba’s Satellite Radius L10W was not a good example of a computer. It was barely a good example of a door stop.

The good thing about making mistakes like that, however, is that you can learn from them, and this week’s announcement of a new Radius — the Toshiba Satellite Radius 12 — might just go a long way to fix the travesty of that screen.

We say those because the screen is one of the biggest parts about this new Radius computer, and yet while it’s a big deal, it is also quite small.

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For this laptop, Toshiba is equipping a 12.5 inch panel with the world’s first 4K Ultra HD resolution at that size.

Referred to as “4K2K” by many in the computer world, it’s a resolution that will not only bring Technicolour certified colour across the angle-friendly In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology, but will also deliver a pixel clarity of roughly 352 pixels per inch, over one hundred higher than the 12 inch screen found in Apple’s already excellent MacBook (226ppi).

That potentially means visuals that pop off the screen, with a sense of clarity and sharpness that exceeds what you’re used to.

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Colour accuracy is also a big deal here, with 100% of the Adobe RGB colour space supported, while the actual computer itself will be a 2-in-1 hybrid, relying on a 360 degree hinge to let you work in the regular clamshell laptop mode, but push the screen around to the other side to turn it into a tablet, too.

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With a weight of 1.32 kilograms, it’s not a remarkably heavy machine, and with Corning’s scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass NBT protecting the display, it should even take a bit of impact, too.

Plus, we’re seeing that Toshiba is packing in a USB 3.1 Type-C port, which will at least future proof it to some degree for high speed downloads. We’re not sure if this means the Radius 12 will be charged through this — our guess is no — but at least supported hard drives will be faster with up to 10Gbps transfer speeds.

As you can imagine, we’re eager to get this in for review, but you can find this one in stores shortly yourself, with the Radius 12 available from $2399.

Joining it is a computer if a different kind meant for people without quite so heavy a budget, as Toshiba retries the student market.

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For this, you’ll find the Satellite Click 10, what Toshiba describes as a “school BYOD friendly” product offering a 10.1 inch “Wideview” Full HD screen that we hope offers as wide a viewing angle as the display suggests, an Intel Atom processor, up to 4GB RAM, up to 64GB storage, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a form-factor that throws all the hardware behind the screen with a separate keyboard you can click the display into.

And it’s not just a keyboard, Toshiba wants to make that clear.

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While it’s quite apparent that there is a mouse in the keyboard section as well, hidden beneath the island keys of the keyboard is a battery capable of roughly doubling the 8 hour battery life of the tablet to up to 15 when connected with the keyboard section.

Unfortunately, there’s no USB Type-C port here, and strangely there isn’t even a USB 3.0 port, with Toshiba only including a microUSB port on the tablet section and two USB 2.0 ports on the keyboard section.

Hopefully this won’t stop this laptop in its tracks, but we’re a little confused why Toshiba would fix the screen (yay!) but then skip out on more up-to-date ports like USB 3.0 and Type C, as other companies are featuring.

If that doesn’t bother you, though, you’ll find Toshiba’s Satellite Click 10 in stores shortly for a recommended retail price of $699.

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