The Tecra A50C is powered by an Intel Core i5-6200U CPU. Mine is clocked at 2.30GHZ and comes standard with 4 GB of DDR3 ram. I was able to upgrade to 8 GB of ram to make sure all my server and cloud usage would not tax the machine while on the road. There is a 500GB Toshiba hard drive for storage and it is 7200RPM and works very quick to shuffle data around and has a great transfer rate. An Intel chip set powers the network connections which includes AC capable WiFi and gigabit Ethernet for being wired into the network.
On the left side you can see you have your Ethernet port along with 2 USB 3 ports and the head phone jack. A slim line DVD Burner completes the line up for the left side items.
On the right side you have your ac adapter plug in which is a smaller power brick to keep weight down. Then you have a fan vent for cooling along with your VGA and HDMI inputs for monitors and projectors. 2 more USB 3 slots round out the right side and then a SD Card slot for memory cards. They did away with the worthless dust cover for the SD card slot which is a good thing, one less thing to get lost as you transport your laptop to and from.
The keyboard has been completely redesigned and the key spacing is very well done. HP has always been number 1 for me with keyboard layouts but this toshiba really shines when you need to do some heavy typing. Also gone is the horrible track pad of old that used to click randomly even if your palms sat no where near it. The new track pad is a full featured pad that has built in right and left click buttons and feels very fluid and smooth to move and click with. There is also a track ball and keys if your used to the track ball coming from a Lenovo laptop. Both work very well to move around the screen and the amount of mis clicks is very minimal. Im just now getting used to the scrolling which makes more sense to scroll with 2 fingers on the pad rather than one finger on the far right of the pad as HP used to have setup.
The lower part of the laptop below the track pad has a very well placed finger print reader that works very well once setup. You can use Toshiba's finger print software to manage log ins or you can use Windows Hello which was very easy to setup and execute. Did I mention the keyboard is backlit? That alone sold me on swapping my laptop. I sometimes sit in bed at night with the laptop (Yeah I know blue light is killing my sleep and all...) And being able to find the keys and see them easier is very convenient. Most laptops at this 800-900 dollar price point should have this feature and some do not.
Lets discuss the one thing that is my most important feature in a new laptop and that is the battery life. It has to get me 6 hours or more to win my approval and my old laptop only did that with the help of a larger capacity battery that was bulky and added more weight to carry around. Thankfully this laptop is powered by a 45 Watt 4 cell battery that can achieve 6 hours of usage with medium screen brightness which is more than easier to see while typing away. The charge time can be long as now I ran the battery completely down for the first time and the chart is telling me it will charge fully in 2 and a half hours. The battery is removable so you could buy an extra to keep with you for long travel if your not going to be near an outlet for a while.
There is DTS studio sound and the speaker is very loud and crisp. No tinny sounding videos for the traveling professional! The screen is a 15.6 inch HD TFT LED Backlit screen and has 1366x768 screen resolution and supports 720p content, 16:9 aspect ratio. Pictures and videos are very clear and crisp and the Intel video chipset has a world of features if you want to tweak color settings and gamma options. There are also plenty of power settings that can be used to tweak the most juice from the battery to keep the laptop going longer when away from a power source.
The laptop has the docking station connector on the bottom and is compatible with the same docking station as last years model which is a savings of not having to buy a new docking station.
The laptop configuration that we order comes with the Windows 7 downgrade installed and the discs included if you want to upgrade to Windows 10. Being that my home desktop runs windows 10 and has no issues I did a quick backup of Windows 7 and upgraded to Windows 10 as soon as I setup the machine. My settings for my profile carried right over and the performance of the system felt very snappy and bug free. I have been using the laptop heavy for the last few weeks and it has not given me issues yet.
Did I mention its light? A mere 5 pounds which is a great thing when travelling. I already have a lot of weight with my extras in my bag and this will help keep the shoulder from complaining much when carrying around the laptop in the bag. Its light enough to walk around with and hold to look at the screen if there is no table or chair to rest it on while working. The build quality feels very solid and the tecra series was always well designed for long life and usage for the business professional. Some might say "why no touch screen?" Well our configuration we build we opted out of that as its not needed in the line of work we are in and it would possible confuse some of our end users while they were working in the cloud. I am also not sure that I personally would use it that much.
All in all this is a very solid laptop and a great value to purchase and use if you need a lighter laptop and something that is durable and will last for some time.
What are some of your favorite models laptops that you use for work? Comment and let me know.
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