Dynabook Tecra X50-F review: Capable business laptop held back by a few flaws

Source: Rich Edmonds / Windows Central

Toshiba rebranded to Dynabook in the U.S. earlier in 2022, and the Tecra X50 is the visitor'southward offering, promising a premium blueprint and build with long-term productivity thanks to capable hardware. While the visitor has provided much to the earth of laptops, the Tecra X50-F is a great foundation, let downwardly past a few questionable quirks and lack of polish.

Lightweight Workhorse

Dynabook Tecra X50-F

From $1,684

Bottom line: Dynabook did a fine job with the Tecra X50-F, but it failed to bring to the competition a business organisation auto to topple the giants.

Pros

• Lightweight
• Webcam shutter
• Comfy backlit keyboard
• Thin chassis
• Solid operation

Cons

• Rather dim display
• Battery life
• Noisy cooling
• Pricey

Dynabook Tecra X50-F tech specs

Source: Rich Edmonds / Windows Central

The Dynabook Tecra X50-F can be configured with a small option of 8th Gen Intel processors with the Intel Core i7-8665U vPro being peak canis familiaris. It's likewise possible to install upwardly to 32GB of DDR4 RAM and a 1TB SSD, which doesn't audio too bad for a notebook of this size, but the starting cost for this model (with merely 4GB of RAM) is $1,684.

Dynabook supplied Windows Key with a review unit of the Tecra X50-F. The model I received was kitted out with an Intel Core i7-8665U processor, 16GB of 2400MHz RAM, 512TB PCIe NVMe SSD, and a Full HD display. Configuring a similar X50-F on Dynabook's website resulted in a laptop costing $2,379.

Here's a detailed breakdown of the exact specifications sported by the review unit I've played with for approximately a week.

Category	Spec
Processor	8th Gen Intel Core i7-8665U Up to 4.8GHz Iv cores/eight threads
RAM	16GB DDR4-2400MHz
Graphics	Intel UHD 620
Storage	512GB M.2 PCIe SSD
Display	fifteen.6 inches 1920x1080 (FHD) IGZO LCD, touch, glossy
Ports	2x Thunderbolt 3 1x USB-A 3.0 HDMI one.4 3.5mm audio microSD card reader
Audio	Harman Kardon speakers
Wireless	Intel Wireless-AX200 802.11ax Bluetooth 5.0
Camera	Front-facing 720p Webcam shutter
Biometrics	Fingerprint reader (optional)
Keyboard	Backlit
Touchpad	Synaptics SecurePad
Battery	48Wh
Dimensions	fourteen.one inches ten 9.08 inches ten 0.69 inches (359 x 250mm x 17.5mm)
Weight	3.13 pounds (1.42kg)

Dynabook Tecra X50-F design and features

The Tecra X50 isn't a fancy ii-in-1, but instead is a traditional clamshell laptop. Yous've got a dual silver hinge blueprint with a Full HD IGZO LCD display (touch is optional) with a magnesium alloy chassis. This does permit for the notebook to be considerably lighter than competitor products with similar specifications, measuring in at just 3.13 pounds (1.42kg).

The chassis is sturdy, and you lot have to put in some caste of strength to go it to flex. Four rubber feet go along the laptop raised off the basis to assist in cooling and projection of sound emanating from the two down-firing speakers. On the sides of the Tecra X50-F, y'all have two Thunderbolt 3 ports that are used for data and charging, a single USB 3.0 Type-A, HDMI 1.4, iii.5mm sound jack, and a microSD reader.

The Tecra X50-F sounds skilful on paper, merely even a fully kitted out model can't hide some flaws.

This port choice is rather generous, and because Dynabook utilizes the USB Blazon-C port for charging, you lot can employ your ain phone charger to tiptop-upwards the battery if you'd rather not use the external brick provided with the laptop. Once you've supplied enough power to the laptop, similar most electronics, it can be turned on, which left me flabbergasted when the power push keycap came off. I'm certain this is a unique consequence to this particular review unit, but it wasn't a expert start.

Considering this is a notebook built for business, Dynabook offers hardware security enhancements similar Trusted Platform Module 2.0 (TPM), its own proprietary BIOS, and optional smart card reader. There are besides two optional biometric security features in the form of an integrated IR camera and a fingerprint reader for Windows Hello, the latter existence a swipe reader part of Synaptics touchpad — more than on that subsequently.

Dynabook Tecra X50-F display

Source: Rich Edmonds / Windows Fundamental

To Dynabook's credit, the Tecra X50-F comes with a power-efficient IGZO to go as much out of the battery as possible, which sounds similar a cracking design pick, but this falls short in do as I'll become over in functioning and battery tests. Worse withal, the panel barely produces any light, and the 1080p resolution looks dated on a 15.6-inch chassis. It's not awful, just non groovy at this price point.

The brightness result comes in at 250 nits, which is way blare what competitor notebooks can reach. Color reproduction isn't too bad, coming in at 100% AdobeSRGB. This doesn't mean much in the business world, just word processing and other piece of work-related tasks can be completed comfortably on the Tecra X50-F, merely don't become expecting glorious media consumption unless you utilize an external display.

Dynabook Tecra X50-F performance and battery

Source: Rich Edmonds / Windows Central

There's no 10th Gen Intel processor within the Tecra X50-F nosotros received, and Dynabook doesn't appear to offer the latest processors from Intel only yet. Even so, the 8th Gen "Whiskey Lake" Cadre i7-8665U is no slouch. Paired up with 16GB of DDR4 RAM and a 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD, you can expect to see respectable performance, allowing y'all to get on with daily tasks in the role.

The base of operations model of the Tecra X50-F does not share this luxury. If you option the base of operations model, you'll receive an Intel Cadre i5-viii and just 4GB of RAM. 4GB of RAM is shocking and would not permit you lot to run multiple apps comfortably, nor would you exist able to run intensive software that require considerable amounts of arrangement memory. If you need a machine to cheque emails, you're better off spending (less) money elsewhere, which makes this a foreign decision to offer 4GB.

I ran some synthetic benchmarks to come across how well the Tecra X50-F holds up against other laptops nosotros've previously reviewed.

CPU GPU PCMark SSD

CPU

Geekbench five.0 Benchmarks (Higher is amend)

Device	CPU	Unmarried core	Multi core
Dynabook Tecra X50-F	i7-8665U	1,241	3,043
Dell Latitude 13 7300	i7-8665U	1,182	iii,525
Dell XPS fifteen 7590	i9-9980HK	1,176	7,624
Dell Inspiron 13 7390 two-in-one	i7-8565U	1,111	2,965
Dell Precision 3541	i7-9750H	ane,117	iv,720

There'southward first-class performance from the quad-core Whiskey Lake CPU here. You lot could opt for the Core i5 instead and still have the power to get through productivity work.

GPU

Geekbench 5.0 OpenCL (college is improve)

Device	GPU	Compute score
Dynabook Tecra X50-F	Intel UHD 620	5,250
Dell Latitude thirteen 7300	Intel UHD 620	5,409
Dell Inspiron 13 7390 2-in-i	Intel UHD 620	5,632
Dell Precision 3541	NVIDIA Quadro P620	12,469

PCMark

PCMark 10

Device	Score
Dynabook Tecra X50-F	4,128
Dell Latitude thirteen 7300	four,139
XPS fifteen 7590	5,521
Dell Inspiron 13 7390 2-in-1	3,764
Dell Precision 3541	three,906
HP Pavilion x360 14	3,558
Lenovo ThinkBook 13s	3,468
Chuwi AeroBook	2,140
Chuwi LapBook Plus	961

PCMark results confirm my findings through general use that the Tecra X50-F can be used as a daily driver without issue.

SSD

CrystalDiskMark (College is better)

Device	Read	Write
Dynabook Tecra X50-F	3,400 MB/s	1,952 MB/south
Dell Latitude thirteen 7300	three,530.viii MB/s	one,925.ix MB/south
Dell XPS fifteen 7590	3,000 MB/southward	ii,796 MB/southward
HP Pavilion x360 fourteen	537.viii MB/due south	195.4 MB/s
Lenovo ThinkBook 13s	1,604.1 MB/south	851.four MB/s
Chuwi AeroBook	530.1 MB/s	476.2 MB/s
Lenovo ThinkPad T490s	3,060.vii MB/s	1,542.iii MB/south
Lenovo ThinkPad T490	3,254.eight MB/s	two,954.9 MB/southward
Dell Latitude 7400 two-in-ane	3,110 MB/s	2,825 MB/due south
Lenovo ThinkPad X390	3,024 MB/s	one,563.2 MB/s
Huawei MateBook X Pro	3,0416 MB/southward	2,779 MB/southward

Dynabook installed a 512GB Samsung PM981 NVMe SSD, and you can encounter by the results in a higher place it can easily continue up with most competing notebooks.

While powerful, the Tecra X50-F suffers from a mediocre battery life.

While functioning is pretty good, using some great hardware, particularly in the model I received for review, bombardment life isn't ground-breaking. On a balanced plan with screen brightness set to around 75 pct, I managed to get around seven hours. That besides isn't the worst score on the market, but when notebooks (even smaller 13-inch models) are capable of 10 hours or more, this bombardment life is questionable — only be certain to have an AC charger close past.

You'll also notice some degree of fan dissonance every bit the cooling solution attempts to proceed the Intel Core i7 cool. I'1000 not certain but how loud the fan volition be with a Core i5, but I'd imagine you'd be able to register like decibel readings. If you plan on pushing this laptop relatively hard, be prepared with your favorite headphones — as a side note, again not sure if this is strictly restricted to this unit, but I noticed some curl whine emanating through the keyboard even when idle.

Source: Rich Edmonds / Windows Key

The keyboard tore me apart. I enjoyed typing away thousands of words for this review, merely it surprised me at start past how compact information technology is. There's plenty of space available, but Dynabook chose to pattern a rather modest keyboard. I'd say it's a little too small. The worst part is you don't even get a full numberpad, which would have made information technology an easier pill to consume.

If you're a fan of smaller keyboards, you'll feel right at dwelling here, but overall I'd like to see information technology improved with better lighting, keycap lettering (secondary functions are a niggling as well faint to read), with a larger footprint. Every bit for the touchpad, it'southward non Precision driver-backed and instead makes apply of Synaptics' ain software. Information technology's actually pretty good but showcases merely how oily your fingers become through the day. I'm not a fan of the fingerprint reader since information technology's a swipe and thus a little less accurate.

The IR camera worked flawlessly, however, and the shutter is a overnice bear on.

Should you buy Dynabook Tecra X50-F?

Source: Rich Edmonds / Windows Central

Whether y'all should purchase the Dynabook Tecra X50-F is a tough call to make. Dynabook is up against some considerable competition in this segment, including the excellent Dell XPS 15, not to mention other laptops that can be used in the office. Information technology's an bonny prospect for professionals given the security features and custom BIOS, simply the noisy fan and sub-par battery life makes for a difficult recommendation.

If you're simply interested in sheer performance and a secured environment, the Dynabook Tecra X50-F is a good offering. Information technology'south simply a shame since Dynabook (Abrupt and Toshiba) could take knocked this out the park with an all-rounded professional notebook. I'd potentially hold out for a refresh, which would hopefully accost these shortcomings.

Lightweight Workhorse

Dynabook Tecra X50-F

A expert concern laptop with a few flaws

The Dynabook Tecra X50-F is a business organisation-orientated notebook that could have been so much more with an improved battery life, quieter cooling solution, and more attractive feature set for the toll.

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UH OH

An internet connexion will soon be required when setting up Windows 11 Pro

Microsoft has announced that afterwards this year, users will be required to connect to the internet and sign-in with a Microsoft Account during the out of box setup experience on Windows xi Pro. Microsoft has already been enforcing this requirement on Windows 11 Home since launch last October, and Windows xi Pro is now expected to follow conform shortly.

Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/dynabook-tecra-x50-f-review

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