Technology is forever looking to break existing limitations, but how far is too far? That's what we're left asking after crossing paths with the HTC Advantage and Toshiba Portege R500-U10.
The big Advantage
At a trouser-skewing 359g, the Advantage is huge for a smartphone. Its size (though not its weight) can be blamed on its 5-inch display, which makes video and photo viewing significantly better than rival smartphones.
While HTC has super-sized the smartphone, Toshiba has put the laptop on a hunger strike in creating the R500-U10. It weighs in at a puny 800g, which is quite remarkable given that it's a fully fledged notebook with a 12.1-inch screen.
The components inside the new Portege are frugal in both weight and power consumption, but this doesn't come at the cost of performance.
Both products have some serious downsides.
Up to scratch?
The Toshiba's wallet-sapping price of £1,879 might buy plenty of portability, but it doesn't buy a strong construction. Reviewer Alan Dexter said he scratched the living daylights out of it (and that's paraphrasing extensively) in his short time in the R500-U10's company.
And while the Advantage's screen is great for watching video on, our editor Dean Evans found the smartphone so damned big and cumbersome that he actively avoided ever using it as a phone. Which, it's fair to say, rather defeats the object of the whole exercise. The less we say about his fat fingers on the tiny keyboard, the better...
Both the Advantage and the Portege ended up with largely favourable reviews. But they also prove that while breaking new ground is a good thing in principle, you should rarely buy version 1.0 of anything.
Read the reviews: HTC Advantage ; Toshiba Portege R500-U10.
