Toshiba Radius 12 review
Toshiba's Radius 12 convertible has the ingredients of a great ultraportable laptop, but unfortunately, it would seem that its greatest asset is also its greatest weakness: That gorgeous 4K, Technicolor-certified screen option results in worst-in-class battery life. Hopefully, with future chip improvements, Toshiba won't have to make this kind of compromise.
The Radius 12 is a halo product, but you wouldn't necessarily know it at first glance, with the machine powered down. Though the lid is fashioned out of faintly brushed metal, the smooth, plasticky surfaces throughout make the device feel less than premium.
Then you pick it up. The machine is so light that it nearly excuses the drab design. (I say "nearly" because there are, in fact, machines like the 12-inch MacBook that weigh even less and manage to feel more luxurious in-hand.) And while it might not be much to look at, it's well-built underneath its ho-hum surface; the screen doesn't wobble when touched, and the palm rest doesn't flex when you grip it between your fingers.
On a practical level, too, the chassis is home to a useful selection of ports, including a full-sized HDMI socket, two USB 3.0 connections, a smaller USB Type-C port, a full-sized SD card reader, a headphone jack and a volume rocker for when the device is in tablet mode. Compare that to the MacBook, which makes do with one measly USB Type-C connection, and doesn't even come with a dongle in the box.
So far in our tour we haven't yet powered on the Radius 12, but now would be a good time: The optional 4K display is likely the reason you're considering buying this in the first place. The glass stretches virtually from edge to edge, with the skinniest of bezels acting as a nominal buffer between the display and the rest of the machine. I remain unconvinced that 3,840 x 2,160 resolution is necessary on a display this small -- a slightly lower pixel count would still look sharp and would be less devastating on battery life, and there's not yet much 4K content to watch anyway. Even so, there's no question that the pixel density helps make the screen as gorgeous as it is.
It would be inaccurate to say that Toshiba didn't cut corners -- it clearly made some tradeoffs here -- but when it comes to certain key specs, like display quality and internals, the company clearly wasn't messing around. The configuration I tested (valued at $1,300) makes use of a 2.5GHz dual-core Core i7-6500U CPU, along with 8GB of RAM, integrated Intel HD 520 graphics and a 512GB solid-state drive.
