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Home > Windows Tablet Reviews > Ultrabook Reviews > Toshiba Portege WT20-B2100

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Toshiba Portege WT20

Editor's rating (1-5): rating starrating starrating starrating star

What's Hot: Great build and quality magnesium alloy casing. Fanless design is silent. Optional keyboard dock transforms it into a laptop.

What's Not: A bit expensive at $899 for a tablet. Display brightness not great, few ports and they're micro sized.

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Reviewed October 11, 2015 by , Editor in Chief (twitter: @lisagade)

Toshiba Portege WT20

The Toshiba Portege WT20 might look like another Surface Pro competitor, and it certainly is that, among other things. More important to Toshiba is that it's the more affordable alternative to the well-received though perhaps not high volume selling Portege Z20t. In fact, the WT20 is essentially the base model Z20t minus the keyboard dock and active digitizer/pen support. Since the very capable dock and the pen were the two features that made the Z20t lust worthy, we're not as bullish on the WT20. The WT20 sells for $899 and that nets you a 5th generation Intel Core M CPU, a fanless design, 4 gigs of RAM and a 128 gig SSD. It has a 12.5" 1920 x 1080 touchscreen display. The tablet has dual band Intel AC7265 WiFi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1, a front 2MP camera and rear 5MP camera.

Design and Ports

Standalone tablets are a hard sell when they're priced near the $1,000 mark. Microsoft has carved a strong niche with the Surface Pro line, but even that took a few generations and a screen size increase to gain momentum. Toshiba positions this as a business machine, and those tend to be priced higher while ensuring quality components and decent (as computer support goes) tech support. This is certainly not a budget Toshiba consumer product--finish and materials are excellent, the components are indeed good stuff and the magnesium-encased tablet feels sturdy despite the relatively light 1.6 lbs. weight and crazy slim 8.8mm chassis.

Toshiba Portege WT20

This is a 16:9 aspect ratio tablet, and as such it's much more comfortable to use in landscape mode. In portrait orientation it feels awkwardly tall and skinny. Ports are minimal and micro: there's a micro USB 2.0 port, micro HDMI and a microSD card slot. For the price we'd like to see USB 3.0. The tablet also has a 3.5mm audio jack and the usual built-in mic and webcam (2MP). There's a passable 5MP camera on the rear that can capture 1080p video. The $269 dock originally designed for and included with the Portege Z20t also fits the WT20, and it makes this a much more versatile machine, even if Toshiba envisions you not buying it. It adds a very usable keyboard, trackpad, secondary battery and a host of full size ports including Ethernet, USB 3.0 ports, VGA and HDMI. Of course, you could just buy the Z20t instead, couldn't you? If you did buy the Z20t you'd get a Wacom pen in the deal, which is perfect for note takers, artists and vertical market users.

Horsepower, Noise and Temperature

This is an Intel Broadwell 5th generation Core M-5Y10c 800 MHz tablet with Turbo Boost to 2 GHz (Core M spends a lot of time in Turbo Boost, unlike Core i CPUs). This is a 4.5 watt CPU vs. 15 watts for Ultrabook U series Core i CPUs, and it has Intel HD 5300 integrated graphics. Core M isn't as fast as the Core i5 in workhorse Ultrabooks, but it's fine for productivity use, playing 1080p video and editing photos from 24MP dSLRs. I wouldn't want to use it for serious video editing hours per week, and code compiles won't be lickety-split. The benefit is that it uses less power, generates less heat and doesn't require a fan. Thus the tablet is silent. The back will get toasty warm but not burning hot (it is slim and metal conducts heat).

Toshiba Portege WT20

The tablet has 4 gigs of RAM and a 128 gig SSD. This isn't an easy product to open for upgrades and we didn't chance it with our review loaner. I'd expect the RAM to be soldered on and not upgradable and the SSD to be socketed and upgradable (if you were brave enough to open it up). The 3 cell, 36 Whr battery is sealed inside. That keyboard dock we mentioned doubles runtimes and battery capacity. Toshiba claims up to 8 hours for the tablet itself, and in our tests with WiFi on and brightness set to 66% (we usually use 50% but this display isn't very bright), it averaged 6 hours in mixed productivity and video streaming tests.

Toshiba Portege WT20

Benchmark Scores

PCMark 8 (Home, accelerated): 2447

wPrime: 24.37 sec.

Geekbench 3: 2213/4556

 

Deals and Shopping:

 

Toshiba Portege WT20 Video Review

 

Toshiba Portege WT20

Display

The 12.5" glossy IPS touch screen looks quite lovely, in fact it looks better than the test numbers would seem to indicate. It's not a very bright panel at 200 nits, and color gamut is below average in this price class at 68% of sRGB and 51% of Adobe RGB. The average is 95% of sRGB and 75% of Adobe RGB in the near $1,000 class. But as I said, it looks more vivid than you'd expect from the numbers, and contrast is quite pleasing at 670:1. If you're a graphics pro this isn't your tablet, otherwise it's perfectly enjoyable unless you work in bright environments where the lackluster 200 nits won't cut it.

Toshiba Portege WT20

Above: the optional keyboard dock.

Conclusion

The Toshiba Portege WT20 is a good looking and well made tablet with a responsive touch screen, silent operation and Windows 10 inside. At 1.6 lbs. it's as light as Surface Pro 4 or the tablet section of the Surface Book, and it's every bit as solidly built, even if it's not as stylish. Indeed, the Portege WT20 faces serious competition from Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and 4, as well as Toshiba's own expensive but more well-rounded Portege Z20t that's both a laptop and a tablet. Ports are sparse and they're micro-sized and thus not terribly convenient. Without the magic of a keyboard dock to turn this into a 2-in-1 with the versatility most crave at this price, it's a hard sell.

Price: $899 (tablet only, keyboard dock is an additional $269)

Website: www.toshiba.com

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Specs:

Display: 12.5", 1920 x 1080 IPS touch screen display. Intel HD 5300 integrated graphics. Micro HDMI port.

Battery: 3 cell, 36 Whr Lithium Ion rechargeable.

Performance: 800 MHz Intel Core M-5Y10c (5th generation, Broadwell) with Turbo Boost to 2 GHz. 4 gigs RAM, 128 gig SSD.

Size: 4.47 x 2.78 x .53 inches. Weight: 4.67 pounds.

Camera: 2MP webcam and 5MP rear camera with 1080p video recording.

Audio: Built-in stereo speakers, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack.

Networking: Intel AC7265 dual band WiFi 802.11b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth.

Software: Windows 10 Pro.

Expansion and Ports: 1 micro USB 2.0 port, micro HDMI, 3.5mm audio and microSD card slot.

 

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