Toshiba's Radius 12 is a stunning hybrid laptop with some comfort issues
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If you want a cheap laptop, Toshiba has often been the way to go.
But now they're shooting a little bit higher up the totem pole.
Hi, I'm Sean Hollister with CNet, and we're taking a look at the Toshiba Satellite Radius 12.
It's a 12 and a half inch laptop with a 4k screen.
A nice thin, light, convertible system that flips all the way around.
This laptop crams a Core i7 processor, 8 gigabytes of memory and 256 gigabytes of solid state storage into an all-metal body.
It's just 15.5 mm thin and weights about 2.9 pounds, on par with other thin and light laptops its size.
Only this one has a 4K screen that's been Technicolor certified.
It's got a 100% Adobe RGB color gamut.
And from what we've seen of it so far, it definitely is a bright, crisp, clear, and colorful display.
Couple problems One of them is the amount of glare you'll see off of this screen.
It's so reflective that when the display is off it looks like a mirror.
And even with it on you can be watching a 4K movie on this screen and see reflections of what's going on behind you.
The other problem is what you're going to watch on this screen.
Even though it has a beautiful 4k display, there isn't a lot of content out there.
Netflix and Amazon both have their 4K videos available, but not on the web.
You can't view them on a PC.
Only on a 4K television.
YouTube does allow you to watch 4K video on a PC, but even with a fast core i7 chip in here, even if you let the stream buffer a little bit, let that data cache, we still see a bit of stutter And make no mistake, what you're paying for here is the 4k screen, not the rest of this laptop's chassis.
Some of the creature comforts aren't as good as we'd like.
The keyboard's a little bit mushy.
Even though the touchpad has a brushed metal surface, it's a little bit uneven, as I move my finger around the touchpad Some places it's smooth, other places it's rough for no particular reason.
Still you do get a lot of speed for your money here and the Toshiba Satellite Radius 12 has a few cool tricks up its sleeve.
You can bend the screen over backwards like a Lenovo Yoga system, it's a trick they picked up from that line, all the way back down into a tablet configuration if you like.
There's a search button on the side so you can jump right into Cortana, Microsoft's voice assistant and ask her a question if you like.
The 256 gigabyte solid state drive in this machine makes it lightning fast to boot up and there's a pair of facial recognition cameras mounted right over the display that'll log you in without entering a pin or password, you just have to present your face.
There's a full-size HDMI socket that can output 4k video, one of those fancy new USB type c-ports.
We've got a full-size, full-depth SD card slot.
One of our big concerns with a laptop this thin with such a high resolution display, is how long the battery's going to last.
[UNKNOWN] We know that fourcase screens drink up the juice like nobody's business, and competitors in this space are quoting nine, ten, eleven hours of battery life.
Toshiba says this one will give you six and a half hours.
For a $1300 laptop, that may not be enough for you and it's something you may want to consider when you're deciding where to spend your money.
I'm Sean Hollister with CNET and this was the Toshiba Satellite Radius 12.
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