Digital Trends

Toshiba Dynabook SX April 27th, 2004 | by Nabeel Hyatt

Look and Feel

The Dynabook's shiny magnesium alloy cover and minimal logo-less top certainly fit the bill to draw a crowd. Toshiba has also added a unique stepped-down top, which added to the unique look and was also somehow supposed to help if the notebook was dropped. Whether the odd shape was gratuitous or ingenious is subjective, but we were left rather ambivalent.

But while the slopped hood may seem a nice design feature to some, many of the other design details left a lot to be desired. Partly because of all the empty space supposedly to keep it safe from dropping, the overall notebook had a hollow and pliable feel. Not the solid block you typically expect from a tightly packed notebook. And in general much of the finishing left a lot to be desired, such as the poorly matched plastic for the PC card eject mechanism.

Form and Function

All that empty space helps to make the Dynabook feel even lighter than it looks. Unless you've been sporting the JVC Interlink 7310, you likely have never held a notebook this light. An HP iPaq PDA with a WiFi adapter is actually heavier than the Dynabook. The notebook is so light that its power adapter weighs 20 percent more than the notebook itself. And while that bodes well for the mobile travelers desperately trying to save money on costly back massages, it certainly means compromise.

Like most ultralights, you will be compromising on a smaller monitor and optical drive-free design. At 12.1 inches the monitor wasn't big, but the 1024x768 resolution certainly sufficed for most eyes thanks to a very bright clear screen. For those who worry about the diminutive size of ultralight notebooks, Toshiba has included a convenient one-touch zooming utility that decreases the screen resolution to make for easier reading of text.

On the inside, the Dynabook sports a solid standard of components. Like most ultralights, the Dynabook is a single spindle notebook. Unfortunately for the design-conscious that are likely the target market, Dynamism doesn't sell the matches external CD-Rom drive. But these are common compromises for an ultralight notebook, as very few offer internal optical drives.