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Toshiba's Radius 11 puts a Chromebook's price on a convertible Windows 8 laptop

Toshiba's Radius 11 puts a Chromebook's price on a convertible Windows 8 laptop

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Looking at it sitting among Toshiba's range of laptops, the new Satellite Radius 11 doesn't immediately stand out. But push back against its staid appearance and you'll find its screen flexing a full 360 degrees. This unassuming 11.6-inch Windows 8.1 machine includes a touchscreen and a hinge that converts it into an impromptu tablet when the need arises. That's still not all that impressive, but then Toshiba told us the price for the Radius, which is an extremely affordable £329 in the UK. Lenovo's Yoga PCs have led the way with this variety of flexible computer, and they are still more refined in their design than Toshiba's Radius, but they've never been quite this cheap. Of course, that necessitates an otherwise barebones spec sheet for the Radius, with 4GB of RAM and 500GB of HDD storage allied to an Intel Celeron processor and 1366 x 768 resolution.

The Radius 11 is well built and its all-important hinge has just the right amount of stiffness to adopt and maintain whatever position you want to situate it in. Its touchscreen is also responsive and the keyboard's decent, however the display's quality is below average and there's reason to doubt it'll have quite enough performance to drive a perfectly fluid Windows 8 experience. We came across a fair bit of lag in our quick hands-on with it here at IFA. Still, there's a lot to like about this new PC, which should be coming out in the fourth quarter of this year.

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