Toshiba R9 Series Hands-On

Where would Toshiba be without a nice, sturdy mainstream range of somewhat business-centric notebooks? The Toshiba R9 Series may not have the fancy widescreen of the U840W, but the Ivy Bridge based 14-inch Tecra R940 and 15.6-inch Tecra R950, and their ultraportable 13.3-inch Portégé R930 sibling, would all go well in your briefcase.

Up to 16GB of RAM and optional integrated AMD Radeon graphics are on the table, along with up to 500GB of HDD storage or alternatively up to 256GB of SSD. There's WiFi a/b/g/n as standard across the board, together with Bluetooth 4.0, with 3G HSPA optional.

Connectivity includes Intel WiDi, two USB 3.0, a USB/eSATA and VGA. The R940 throws in DisplayPort, gigabit ethernet and an SD card reader, while the R950 adds to that a further USB 2.0 port. The R930 makes do with HDMI not DisplayPort, but has a 1.3-megapixel webcam versus its larger counterparts' 1-megapixel camera.

Battery life is rated at up to 9hrs on the two smaller models, with the R950 dipping to up to 7hrs. As you'd expect, there are various enterprise-centric security features, including a TPM security module, optional self-encrypting drives and a bundled subscription to Intel Anti-Theft firmware for remote wipe, tracking and shutdown.

All three models will go on sale from Q3 2012, priced from £899 ($1,383) in the UK.