Toshiba aiming to fill boardrooms with new Portege and Tecra laptops

Toshiba's Portege Z30, Tecra Z50 and Tecra Z40
Toshiba's Portege Z30, Tecra Z50 and Tecra Z40

Toshiba is looking to spoil business users for choice by adding six new models to its Portege and Tecra ranges of enterprise-class laptops.

The 13-inch Portege Z30, 14-inch Tecra Z40 and 15-inch Tecra Z50 are powered by Intel's fourth-generation Haswell processor, feature LED backlit keyboards and provide "all-day battery life" according to Toshiba.

The Z30 can be equipped with an optional HD touchscreen (it's 1366 x 768 pixels on the standard model), along with a 512GB SSD. it measures 17.9mm at its thickest point and weighs 1.2kg, slightly less than the larger and chunkier Tecra Z40, which measures 21mm at its thickest point.

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The Z30, Z40 and Z50 all use the same disk images to make it easy for IT administrators to wipe and reinstall operating systems, and admins can also chop and change between Toshiba's docking stations.

Toshiba has outed the Portege R30 alongside them, a "premium business laptop with powerful performance" that succeeds the Portege R930. It gets Haswell, up to 16GB RAM, onboard Intel graphics and the option of a HD matte display.

For the security conscious, the R30 can be fitted with a self-encrypted drive, a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and a Kensington security lock. If you're dead set on a HD display, the R30 comes with such an option and features VGA, HDMI, SD and three USB 3.0 ports as standard.

Quadro power

Moving on, the Tecra W50 is a mobile workstation that gets its graphical grunt courtesy of Nvidia Quadro graphics.

It's been fitted with Haswell, is available in a SSD, HDD or hybrid storage option and gets a dedicated docking station that lets professionals back up data to a hard drive or network.

Finally there's Toshiba's Tecra A50, a 15.6-inch laptop that's been designed to withstand "intensive usage", according to the Japanese electronics giant. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, five USB ports (two 3.0 and three 2.0) and Intel Wi-Di for beaming documents to a bigger HD display or via DisplayPort.

All of Toshiba's new laptops will be available in the fourth quarter of 2013. Pricing is yet to be confirmed.

Kane Fulton
Kane has been fascinated by the endless possibilities of computers since first getting his hands on an Amiga 500+ back in 1991. These days he mostly lives in realm of VR, where he's working his way into the world Paddleball rankings in Rec Room.