Toshiba redefines the hybrid as the small and portable computing platform
I find it fascinating that Microsoft with the Surface range has convinced everyone that hybrid designs are the future, when there is no commercial evidence at all.
Lenovo, HP, Acer and Dell are all making them, and here we have one of Toshiba’s hats in that ring, the small and well-specified Satellite Click 10.
What printed pictures don’t well convey is how small a mobile PC the Click 10 is. It’s just 25.5cm wide, with a 10.1” display, making this a system that’s designed to travel easily at a few grams over 1kg.
What that scale doesn’t allow for is much space on the keyboard, with some of the minor keys reduced to just 1cm wide. That said, it’s possible even for me to type on it, and the rest of the specification is actually better than I was expecting.
Built around Intel’s Atom x5-Z8300 processor (Cherry Trail), it comes with 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and Windows 10 Home 64-bit already installed.
As notebook hardware goes, that’s not at all bad, and it also has a rather lovely 1080p IPS touch display that’s remarkably crisp and colour vibrant.
Normally, this type of machine would get away with omitting touch, but the Click 10 doesn't have that option, because the screen portion can entirely detach and function independently as a tablet.
But that isn’t as great an idea as it might initially seem, because once you do that, you no longer have access to the two full-sized USB 2.0 ports on the keyboard part, and that also disconnects a second battery. And because the charger plugs into the tablet part, you can only charge them both when they’re connected again.
Having used this for just a few hours, I began to realise that most people will rarely, if ever, disconnect the two parts – partly for the previously mentioned reasons, but also because it forces you to hold the tablet where connected to the keyboard it stands up entirely unaided.
However it’s held, the display is certainly a strong point, and so is the great battery life. Toshiba makes the rather bold claim that it can work for 15 hours on both batteries, but that really depends what you do with it. More than ten hours is believable with some power management, and even heavy users should get a working day out of the Click10.
The x5-Z8300 processor is also significantly more responsive than the previous Atom generation, and for typical Office jobs, this is a perfectly workman-like solution.
That’s where my review would have ended, had Microsoft not released the November Upgrade to Windows 10 – something that caused massive capacity problems with this machine.
It wasn’t what Microsoft released as much as how it was meant to download and install onto a working system with just 15GB free. The download and install process took hours, quite literally.
When it had finally elevated the version number, there was barely 5GB left free, disturbingly. Remember, this is a machine that I’ve not installed any apps or data onto; it was entirely fresh from Toshiba. Had I taken up 5GB or more of space, I suspect it would not have been possible to upgrade without external storage.
You can get some of that space back by dumping the ability to regress to the previous version, if you’re technically minded enough to find that option.
It didn’t really help that Toshiba treated the Click 10 like one of its desktop machines, installing all manner of junk on it for the customers to delete later at their leisure. There's easily a gigabyte taken up that way, which it could well do with back.
The current Universal App selection makes this a dubious tablet but an acceptable notebook system, but you’ll need to add more storage via micro-SD card, because 32GB just isn’t enough to be really useful.
Even with 64GB, this machine would be transformed, and you wouldn’t need to worry about what upgrades Microsoft might have planned going forward.
Nothing about this actually convinces me that hybrid machines aren’t just a compromise that most people would do without. However, on the upside, it does make for better quality displays even in cheap laptops, and that development should be warmly welcomed. Mark Pickavance
A good notebook and a mediocre tablet in one.
Specifications
• Model number: Click 10 lx0w-c-104.
• Display: 10.1" 1080p IPS multi-touch panel
• OS: Windows 10 Home 64-Bit pre-installed
• CPU: 1.5GHz Intel Atom intel atom z8300 quad-core processor.
• Memory: 2GB RAM, 32 GB internal storage.
• Networking: Wi-fi, Bluetooth
• Ports: 2 x USB 2.0. mini-HDMI. micro-USB. 3.5mm stereo headphone jack.
• Extra feaures: Webcam, microphone, built-in speaker.
• Up to 15 hours' battery life (depending on usage).
• Size (HxWxD): 18.5cm, 25.9cm, 2.2cm
• Weight: 1.1kg.