Dynabook, the reincarnation of Toshiba's PC arm, just unveiled the Tecra A40, a 14-inch business laptop with a slim, durable chassis and 13 hours of expected battery life.
The Tecra A40 will start at $899 when it goes on sale in November.
We don't often say this about a laptop but arguably the best thing about the Tecra A40 is Dynabook's new warranty. Called +Care Service, the warranty is the new standard for Dynabook and gives the Tecra A40 three years of support on feature configurations and four years on build-to-order models. The standard warranty includes technical phone support, "depot repair," carry-in, on-site and even customer replaceable parts.
Of course, the best warranty is the one you'll never need to use. With military-grade durability (MIL-STD-810G certified), the Tecra A40 can withstand the rigors of everyday life or even extreme conditions when you're out in the field. And you won't have problems transporting the Tecra A40 out of the office because this relatively slim laptop (0.8 inches) weighs just 3.2 pounds.
Despite that slim chassis, the Tecra A40 has a generous selection of ports, including an HDMI port, two USB 3.0 ports, a USB Type-C connection, a microSD card slot, an RJ-45 ethernet input and a headphone/mic jack. You also get a handful of security features, including a fingerprint sensor, IR camera and smart-card reader for fast and secure login.
Inside the Tecra A40 are 8th Gen Intel Core processors and integrated UHD 620 graphics. It's a bit disappointing to see 8th Gen chips when every other manufacturer is phasing them out in favor of the new 10th Gen Ice Lake and Comet Lake CPUs.
That said, any gulf in performance between the Tecra A40 and its competitors will be forgotten if this laptop can reach the 13 hours of battery life that Dynabook promises. We'll take this claim with a grain of salt (rating like this one are hardly ever close to real-world results) for now until we can test a review unit ourselves.
The same goes for the quality of the Tecra A40's 14-inch display, which will be available in HD, Full HD (1080p, touch and non-touch) resolutions.
We'll have to get some hands-on time before we can fairly evaluate the Tecra A40. However, with a three-year warranty and military-grade durability, this sleek business laptop could give the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon a run for its money, especially if the 13 hours of battery life claim is anywhere near accurate.
If you haven't heard of Dynabook before, it's worth checking out the Portégé A30, Portégé X30 and Tecra X40, three new midrange business laptops released earlier this year. You can also read about the Tecra X50, a super-lightweight 15-inch laptop with 17 hours of rated battery life.
