Ultraportable Winner

Update: Since we initially posted these results, we retested the MacBook Air in its native OS X operating system (rather than in Vista using Boot Camp), and found its performance to be much better, just edging out the Toshiba Portege R600 in the ultraportable category with a new combined score of 80.5 to the Toshiba’s 79.1.

Apple MacBook Air (80.5)

Runners-Up 
Second Place: Toshiba R600 (79.1)
Third Place: MSI X340 (73.6)
Fourth Place: Samsung X360 (67.6)

While the Toshiba Portege R600 notebook didn't do the best when it came to recharging, its performance in every other category was at or near the top, and it was one of only two systems in this roundup to receive an EPEAT rating of 22. Still, the MSI X340, which used the least amount of power when recharging, and very little power in other tests, came close to beating the R600.

Update: When recharging in OS X, the MacBook Air only used an average of 17.2 Watts, and took just 3 hours and 13 minutes to fully recharge—far better than the 22.3 Watts and 5 hours and 6 minutes it took when running in Boot Camp mode.

The power savings didn’t end there: the MacBook Air consumed less power during our Web surf test (11.4 watts vs. 15.7 watts), and when idle (11.3 watts vs. 14.4 watts). However, power use remained the same while playing a movie (20.4 watts vs. 20.3 watts), and since PCMark Vantage only runs in a Windows environment, that score remained the same.

Battery and Charging Results

The R600's battery life of 6 hours and 24 minutes was far and away the best; the Samsung X360, the second-closest, fell short by 1:15, and the MSI X340's endurance was almost 3 hours less. When it came time to recharge the battery, the R600 wasn't the greatest performer: it took the third-longest to recharge (253 minutes), and its power consumption (6552.7 watts) placed it second in the category behind the MSI X340 (3750 watts).

Power Consumption During Use

In addition to delivering decent performance, the R600's 1.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 processor was the most efficient, drawing the least amount of power during our Web surfing test (15.2 watts), playing a movie (17.8 watts), and when idle (13.2 watts). Moreover, it came in second during our PCMark Vantage Test, at 19.4 watts to the MSI X340's 18.2 watts.

Third-Party Ratings

Finally the R600's EPEAT rating of 22 was the highest in its category, and Toshiba's Greenpeace rating of 5.3, while not stellar, is second only to Samsung (6.9). If $2,149 is a bit too much for you to spend in the name of environmentalism--after all, green shouldn't cost that much green--the MSI X340, which costs less than half the R600, came in second within 0.8 points of tying the R600.