{"id":5270,"date":"2014-04-09T10:00:06","date_gmt":"2014-04-09T14:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nccomputertech.com\/?p=5270"},"modified":"2014-04-09T10:00:06","modified_gmt":"2014-04-09T14:00:06","slug":"haswell-saves-another-ultrabook-the-2014-toshiba-kirabook-reviewed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2014\/04\/09\/haswell-saves-another-ultrabook-the-2014-toshiba-kirabook-reviewed\/","title":{"rendered":"Haswell saves another Ultrabook: the 2014 Toshiba Kirabook reviewed"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
\n
Enlarge<\/a> \/ Toshiba’s Kirabook is back, this time with a Haswell CPU.<\/div>\n
Andrew Cunningham<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

Intel’s\u00a0Haswell\u00a0CPUs have been good to\u00a0Ultrabook\u00a0makers. Use them, and you get an essentially “free” battery life boost without sacrificing any performance. Most of the PC OEMs\u2014Acer<\/a>,\u00a0Dell<\/a>,\u00a0Apple<\/a>, and\u00a0Lenovo<\/a>\u00a0among them\u2014have simply dropped\u00a0Haswell\u00a0processors into lightly-modified versions of their Ivy Bridge\u00a0Ultrabooks\u00a0and called it a day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Now Toshiba is joining the party with a new,\u00a0Haswell-toting version of its high-resolution\u00a0Kirabook<\/a>. We liked last year’s version, but it was much more expensive than other comparable\u00a0Ultrabooks\u00a0despite being late to the Ivy Bridge party. We’ve got the new version in our hands, and we can say that the\u00a0Kirabook’s\u00a0second go-round comes much closer to succeeding than the first.<\/p>\n

Body, build quality, and screen<\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>
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Enlarge<\/a> \/<\/span> From the outside, the new Kirabook is the same as the old one. This isn’t a bad thing.<\/div>\n
Andrew Cunningham<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Specs at a glance: Toshiba Kirabook (Haswell)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Screen<\/th>\n2560\u00d71440\u00a0at 13.3″ (221 ppi)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
OS<\/th>\nWindows 8 Pro 64-bit<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CPU<\/th>\n1.8GHz Intel Core i7-4500U (Turbo up to 3.GHz)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
RAM<\/th>\n8GB 1600MHz DDR3 (non-upgradeable)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
GPU<\/th>\nIntel HD Graphics 4400 (integrated)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
HDD<\/th>\n256GB solid-state drive<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Networking<\/th>\nDual-band 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ports<\/th>\n3x USB 3.0, HDMI, card reader, headphones<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Size<\/th>\n12.44″ \u00d7 8.15″ \u00d7 0.7″ (315.98 \u00d7 207.01 \u00d7 17.78mm)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Weight<\/th>\n2.97 lbs (1.35kg)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Battery<\/th>\n3380 mAh<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Warranty<\/th>\n2 years<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Starting price<\/th>\n$1,499.99<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Price as reviewed<\/th>\n$1,699.99<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Other perks<\/th>\nWebcam, backlit keyboard<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\n

Toshiba has changed basically nothing about the\u00a0Kirabook’s\u00a0appearance, build quality, or port layout\u2014you wouldn’t be able to tell the new one from the old one if they were sitting next to each other. The lid and palm rest area are still a\u00a0brushed “magnesium alloy,” while the underside is a smooth version of the same material that looks and feels a little more like plastic. The lid flexes and bends a bit under pressure, but overall it’s a\u00a0nice-looking\u00a0laptop that holds together well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The laptop’s hinge is\u00a0sturdy, and it holds the screen firmly in place even if you’re poking at it with your finger. You will, however, need two hands to comfortably open the laptop\u2014try to lift the lid with one hand and the bottom will follow it. All of the laptop’s ports are lined up on the left and right edges of the laptop: there’s an HDMI port and two USB 3.0 ports on the left side, and an SD card slot, a headphone jack, and another USB 3.0 port on the right.<\/p>\n

Compared to other\u00a0Ultrabooks\u00a0with a 13.3-inch screen, the\u00a0Kirabook\u00a0remains a little thicker (0.7 inches, compared to 0.5 for the Aspire S7) but has a smaller footprint overall. The display’s bezels are narrower than they are in other touchscreen\u00a0Ultrabooks, and Toshiba was able to make the entire laptop smaller as a result. The\u00a0Kirabook\u00a0looks and feels a bit more like a 12-inch laptop than a 13-inch one.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
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Enlarge<\/a> \/<\/span> The Kirabook (top) feels a little thicker than other Ultrabooks, but it has a smaller footprint.<\/div>\n
Andrew Cunningham<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The screen itself is still a nice-looking\u00a02560\u00d71440\u00a0panel with bright colors and good viewing angles\u2014it’s not quite as high-resolution as the 3200\u00d71800 display on Lenovo’s Yoga 2 Pro, but there’s nothing to complain about here. All\u00a0Kirabook\u00a0models now include a 10-point touchscreen, eliminating the entry-level non-touch version from last year. The screen includes no active digitizer for use with styluses or other pens, but this is arguably less important on a laptop than it is on a convertible or tablet.<\/p>\n

Two small complaints about the screen: first, there’s the extremely reflective layer of glass over the top of it, which is pretty quick to show smudges. This is par for the course for almost any touch-enabled computer, though. Next, it doesn’t get quite as bright as other screens we’ve seen. This won’t be a problem indoors, though it might make the screen more difficult to see outdoors.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
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Enlarge<\/a> \/<\/span> Toshiba’s keyboard is nice to type on once you get used to the rectangular keys.<\/div>\n
Andrew Cunningham<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Finally, the most important thing for any good laptop: the keyboard and\u00a0trackpad. Toshiba still uses keys that are just a little shorter than most, meaning most of the keys are sort-of-rectangular in size than perfectly square. Once you adjust to the spacing, the\u00a0Kirabook\u00a0is easy to type on, and the keys feature pretty good travel (for a\u00a0chiclet\u00a0keyboard) and a nice, even backlight. The\u00a0Synaptics\u00a0touchpad is about as good as Windows laptops get\u2014it’s reasonably accurate. We had no issues with palm rejection, and the Windows 8 touchpad gestures and other functions like two-finger\u00a0scrolling worked as expected. It does what it needs to do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Software: Bundled\u00a0stuff, scaling issues<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
\n

The\u00a0Kirabook\u00a0includes a relatively\u00a0bloatware-free installation of Windows 8.1 or Windows 8.1 Pro (on top of which we’ve installed the upcoming\u00a0Windows 8.1 Update<\/a>\u00a0from Microsoft’s developer site). It includes a smattering of Toshiba-added Live Tiles,\u00a0an easily-removed evaluation of Norton Internet Security, the standard Microsoft Office demo, and a smattering of Toshiba support applications. These are harmless but mostly redundant\u2014the best of them is probably the Toshiba Display Utility, and even that is just another way to adjust Windows’ built-in scaling settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
\n
Enlarge<\/a> \/<\/span> Toshiba’s built-in tools are sometimes redundant but mostly inoffensive.<\/div>\n
Andrew Cunningham<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n

As in the previous model, the most useful utilities here are the pre-installed versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 and Premiere Elements 11, which are basic but useful photo and video editing applications. These applications also demonstrate the problems you’ll run into using Windows desktop applications with high-density displays, a problem we also touched upon in our\u00a0original\u00a0Kirabook\u00a0review<\/a>, the\u00a0Yoga\u00a02\u00a0Pro\u00a0review<\/a>, and\u00a0other\u00a0places\u00a0besides<\/a>. Look what happens when you open these fully-updated, pre-installed applications on a screen set to 150 percent scaling:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
\n
Enlarge<\/a> \/<\/span> Well, this isn’t promising. Premiere respects the scaling settings and just looks blurry, while Photoshop (left) ignores it entirely and just shows up tiny.<\/div>\n
Andrew Cunningham<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n
Enlarge<\/a> \/<\/span> Click through, and both<\/em> apps ignore Windows’ scaling settings. UI elements are probably too small to use if your eyesight is poor.<\/div>\n
Andrew Cunningham<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The story is the same as always: Stick to first-party Microsoft applications and Modern apps installed through the Windows store, and things mostly look great on the\u00a0Kirabook’s\u00a0screen. Stray from that path, and things get much messier.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Via ArsTechnica<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enlarge \/ Toshiba’s Kirabook is back, this time with a Haswell CPU. Andrew Cunningham   Intel’s\u00a0Haswell\u00a0CPUs have been good to\u00a0Ultrabook\u00a0makers. 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