Toshiba’s Protégé X20W-D Business Ultrabook Is Tough And Reliable

Toshiba’s new business ultrabook, the X20W-D is the sort of computer you want to have with you all the time. It’s slightly smaller than the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and only slightly thicker and heavier than that tablet.

However it comes with a real keyboard, a stylus, a full high-definition screen and a collection of security features that most tablets and 2 in 1 computers lack.

This is a modern business 2–in–1 model that like others of its kind it can operate in a number of configurations, including as a laptop and tablet, as you would expect.

But it also can be folded over in a tent-style mode for watching videos and a presentation mode with the keyboard folded under the screen to act as a base. It’s set up so that Windows can change screens depending on the configuration.

Toshiba Protégé X20W-D

The Protégé is easy to use in most of the important ways. The screen is clear and it responds readily to multi-touch input. Toshiba includes a Wacom AES pen, although there’s no place to store it on the laptop as there was on the Lenovo X1 Yoga we recently reviewed. But the X20W is smaller than the Yoga, which may mean there’s no place for a pen.

Like many similar computers, the keyboard is slightly sunken below into the case so that the screen can be closed tightly. This makes for a very thin laptop, but it also makes typing more difficult – something that the Yoga solved by making the keyboard raise and lower when the lid with its built in HD display is opened and closed.

The pen serves as writing device as well as a pointer that works well on the touch screen, a handy feature for those with fat fingers—like me, for example. The Protégé comes with a trial version of Adobe Sketchbook. However, when I tried it, there was significant latency before anything I drew actually appeared.

The $2,059 tag on the review machine covers an Intel i7-7600U vPro processor, 16 GB of system memory, but only 256 GB in storage on a solid state drive. A larger 512 GB SSD is available from Toshiba. Toshiba also makes less expensive versions of this laptop available with slower processors, less memory and a lower price.

Toshiba has included a number of valuable features, including a fingerprint pad embedded on the touchpad and backlighting under the keys. However alternate key functions are printed in a dark gray that’s hard to read in anything but very bright light, or by using the flashlight function on your phone, which is what I did.

Originally published on eWeek

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