Toshiba has made available their only Windows 8 touchscreen Ultrabook, the Toshiba Satellite U925T. This is a hybrid slider which also goes by the name U920T depending upon the region. Chippy got a great hands on of the U925T back at IDF 2012 in September and the design seems unchanged since then. This is one of a few hybrid Ultrabooks currently shipping with NFC.
The Toshiba Satellite U925T is now available from the company at $1149. This is the U925T-S2300 model which comes with a Core i5-3317U professor, 4GB of 1600MHz RAM, and a 128GB SSD. For ports you’ll find a full SD slot, 2x USB 3.0, full HDMI, and 3.5mm headphone/mic combo port. There’s also a good set of sensors inside: 3-axis gyroscope, 3-axis magnetometer, accelerometer, ambient light sensor, and GPS. WiDi is also onboard. The weight is around 1.5kg which is on the heavy end of the spectrum (relative to other Ultrabooks) for a device with a 12.5″ screen. This is expected, of course, because of the sliding mechanism.
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Here’s a fresh gallery of the U925T:
$1149 is a bit pricey next to some other devices like the MSI S20 slider which features a full HD screen next to the U925T’s 1366×768 12.5″ display. Though it isn’t full HD, the U925T’s panel is IPS which should give it better viewing angles and colors than a standard screen. The U925T scores some points for retaining a trackpad while others, like the Sony Duo 11, rely on other solutions for mouse input. Furthermore the hybrid slider comes with NFC standard which can be used for quick checkouts and other wireless functionality as Chippy demos here:
The U925T / U920T is available for order now from Toshiba, but Toshiba’s site currently says the unit “usually ships in 4-5 weeks” (you can find the U925T / U920T a bit cheaper on Amazon, and it’s possible that The Big A will ship sooner than Toshiba Direct).
Sony Vaio Duo 11 also has NFC.
You’re right, this one slipped my mind, thanks David!
For people who have used these convertibles as tablets, how unwieldy are they because of the large size and heavy weight? Even 11.6″ (assuming small bezels) and detachable ones seem annoying to use.
The MSI S20 beats this one in price, Full HD screen, and…. weight but a lot !!! According to the article of ENGADGET, the MSI S20 weights only 1 kg, (not 1,3 kilos according to this site’s report). The targeted price of the Toshiba AND the MSI are over the reasonable. None of this units should go above $999 in the USA in the very near future.
3 cell (38Wh) battery is too small. Toshiba should have used the 8 cell (47Wh) battery that they use in some of their other Ultrabooks.
I bought this a few days ago and can’t seem to get the GPS to work in Streets & Trips 2013. Has anyone got it working? I see the GNSS on/off slider in devices under Win8 Pro and I see the Broadcom geolocation sensor in device manager, but I can’t seem to get it to work.