Toshiba Portege X20W-D - Review 2022

Judging from our recent reviews of convertible 2-in-1s for business, manufacturers can agree on a CPU—Intel'southward Core i7-7600U, a 2.8GHz dual-core with vPro manageability features—but can't agree on a screen size. The Editors' Option HP EliteBook x360 1030 G2 is 13.3 inches. The Dell Latitude 5289 is 12.5 inches. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga (second Gen, OLED) is xiv inches. Now Toshiba has introduced a flip-and-fold hybrid that breaks the tie: The Portege X20W-D (starts at $999, $2,059 as tested) has a 12.5-inch full Hd display, making it supremely compact and easy to behave. It also comes impressively close to unseating the EliteBook atop our business laptop/tablet ranks.

The X20W-D starts at $999 for a model aimed at education, with a Cadre i3 and skimpy 4GB of memory and 128GB solid-state drive. Our loaded test unit has the Core i7-7600U processor, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB PCIe SSD. You'll find arguably the best deal in between, where a Core i5 version with 8GB of memory and 256GB SSD is $1,399.99. All come up with what Toshiba calls a TruPen stylus with Wacom Feel for sketching and scribbling in Tablet mode. All are backed by a iii-year international warranty.

Remarkably Calorie-free Yet Solid

At 0.61 by 11.eight by eight.6 inches, the Portege is a chip slimmer than the Dell 5289 (0.73 by 12 past 8.three inches) and narrower than the HP x360 (0.59 by 12.five by 8.6 inches). At 2.43 pounds, information technology's noticeably lighter than either the two.97-pound Latitude or 2.84-pound EliteBook. What we almost called its brushed aluminum (actually, information technology'southward magnesium blend) chassis is in a grayish shade that Toshiba calls Onyx Bluish.

The slender slab'southward beveled edges make it like shooting fish in a barrel to open, while two hinges let you fold the display dorsum from Laptop to Tablet mode or, as with other Yoga workalikes, position it in betwixt for easel-fashion presentations or lay it flat for desktop collaboration. There'south some wobble when you tap the screen in Laptop way, but little flex if you grasp the corners or press the keyboard deck.

Probably the almost jarring thing when you wait at the Portege is how few ports there are: On the organisation'southward right side are the power push button, a USB 3.0 port, and a security lock slot. On the left are an audio jack and a Thunderbolt three/USB-C port used for charging the computer, and that's it. Toshiba supplies a USB-C-to-HDMI dongle with power pass-through, and so you tin plug into Air conditioning power and an external monitor at the same fourth dimension, but for anything more elaborate you'll need the visitor's Thunderbolt 3 docking station ($282.99). 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth handle wireless connections.

Out of Context

The X20W-D's keyboard avoids our usual criticisms by offering inverted-T cursor arrow keys and dedicated Domicile and Cease (on the top row) and Page Up and Folio Downwards (to the right of Right Shift) keys, but the keys are slightly smaller than normal—just half an inch high. Add shallow travel, and you've got a keyboard that takes a couple of hours' getting used to instead of the usual 10 to 30 minutes, but after that aligning period you tin can savor its quietly snappy typing feel. There are two levels of keyboard backlighting (plus off). A Fn cardinal teams with atomic top-row keys to control arrangement operations such as screen brightness and airplane manner.

We are less pleased with the Toshiba's buttonless Synaptics touchpad, which exhibited occasional weird quirks: Information technology seemed to have likewise many swipes to traverse the screen and we registered several hypersensitive or phantom left-clicks, selecting an unwanted app in the Showtime menu or causing the correct-click context carte du jour to disappear earlier we had a chance to movement the cursor to the line we wanted. As well, the X20W-D'southward fingerprint reader takes up a pocket-size part of the touchpad area; we prefer designs that keep the 2 separate.

By contrast, touch-screen operations are shine and precise, as is the ink-on-paper-like experience of using the AAAA-battery-powered TruPen. The latter registers 2,048 levels of pressure in compatible apps, with virtually no lag and excellent palm rejection. While the stylus has a pocket prune, at that place's no place to store it within the Portege, so y'all'll have to be careful not to lose information technology or its cap.

The one,920-by-i,080 display is one of the few touch screens with an anti-glare blanket that eliminates reflections, letting you relish its IPS engineering's broad viewing angles even to extremes. The screen itself is first-rate, with vivid colors and plenty of effulgence even when turned down a few notches to salve bombardment power. Photos, videos, and plain text all looked great, with crisp detail and contrast.

For any audio more elaborate than Skype conversations, you'll demand headphones; the two speakers mounted on the Toshiba's bottom forepart sound as flat and thin as the laptop itself. The webcam higher up the screen—a second, Windows Howdy face up recognition camera is a $40 selection our system lacked—captures averagely bright and detailed, slightly grainy selfies.

Perky Performance

The likes of Give-and-take, Excel, and PowerPoint are a walk in the park for the Portege, which posted an impressive score of iii,444 points in our PCMark 8 overall productivity benchmark, edging the Latitude 5289 (3,387 points) and the EliteBook x360 (iii,296).

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The Toshiba joined those two convertibles in finishing a quarter-step behind the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga in our Cinebench CPU and Handbrake video-editing tests, but in real-world employ you lot'd need a stopwatch to notice the difference. Ditto for its time of 3 minutes and 31 seconds to the EliteBook'south three:15 in our Adobe Photoshop paradigm-editing workload.

The Toshiba was competitive within a generally uncompetitive field in our 3DMark, Heaven, and Valley graphics and gaming benchmarks—none of these 2-in-1s tin hold a candle to laptops with discrete rather than integrated graphics, and all were miles abroad from the xxx frames per second threshold for smooth gameplay at total resolution with epitome quality turned upwards. Stick to solitaire games.

The systems shone in our battery rundown test, with the Portege, the EliteBook, and the Breadth all lasting more than than 14 hours—enough to get yous through a full workday, an evening of Netflix watching or coincidental gaming in tablet mode, and and then some.

Joining an Elite Group

All told, the Toshiba Portege X20W-D joins the Dell Latitude 5289 and the HP EliteBook x360 1030 G2 as worthy of a spot on your short listing if you're seeking a 2-in-1 for business, and maybe a spot at the head of the listing if you lot're interested in a unit that comes with a stylus for inking applications. The HP remains our tiptop choice in the category due to its superior port selection and pocket-sized conveniences such every bit the WorkWise app that unlocks or locks the PC as you lot approach or depart with your smartphone in your pocket.