Toshiba’s tough new notebooks double-down on biometric security

Toshiba has revealed a pair of new laptops which are thin and light portables targeted at professionals in the business world.

There are two new notebooks, the 13.3-inch Portégé X30 (pictured above and below) and 14-inch Tecra X40, both of which are unsurprisingly powered by Intel’s latest Kaby Lake processors, and benefit from a premium build that includes a magnesium ‘ToughBody’ chassis with built-in shock absorption to protect the machine in case of an accidental drop.

They also come with Windows 10 Pro installed, and have Full HD non-glare screens (with an option on a touchscreen).

Both offerings have a backlit keyboard featuring slightly larger keys to ensure a better typing experience when you’re working away from the office.

Face and fingerprint

Security is also well-catered for as you would expect with a business-focused notebook, with biometric and facial recognition on board, courtesy of a touchpad which has an integrated fingerprint reader, and an infrared camera for signing into Windows Hello simply using your face.

You also get PCIe SSDs for speedy storage and DDR4 system memory, and on the audio front, there’s Harman Kardon speakers along with DTS Sound software.

As mentioned, both models are ultra-light and svelte laptops, with the Tecra X40 being 16.9mm thin and weighing in at 1.25kg, while the Portégé X30 is even thinner at 15.9mm with a weight of 1.05kg.

Toshiba further notes that the laptops have an optional Thunderbolt 3 dock which offers a host of ports including a pair of USB-C connectors, a USB 3.0 port along with an HDMI one, with a microSD slot thrown in for good measure.

Both notebooks are set to go on sale in the second quarter of this year, so they could potentially turn up as early as next month. Pricing is still to be confirmed.

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).