The first generation of Toshiba's Kirabook was an ambitious shot at creating a high-end product with MacBook-like buzz. That slim 13-inch magnesium-alloy laptop was even the first post-Retina PC we'd seen with a better-than-HD screen resolution -- a feature now becoming increasingly common in the upper reaches of the laptop market.
Toshiba Kirabook (2014)
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Despite many excellent high-end features, the original Kirabook fell short because its design didn't move the needle much, battery life was underwhelming, and the least-expensive model skipped the touch screen, despite a $1,600 price.
Roughly 10 months later, the second-gen Kirabook aims to correct at least a few of these missteps, and thanks to a new processor and some adjustments to features and prices, it feels like a much better machine, despite offering no overhaul of the physical design.
The second-gen Kirabook has two fixed-configuration models, both of which include the eye-popping 2,560x1,440 touch screen display. A $1,499 version has a current-gen Intel Core i5, while our $1,699 review unit has an Intel Core i7 CPU -- both have 8GB of RAM and a big 256GB SSD.
Perhaps because the past year has seen a steady stream of somewhat clunky hybrids and so-so fauxtrabooks, and nothing new or exciting from Apple in terms of laptop design, I find myself appreciating the Kirabook more the second time around. It helps, of course, that the battery life is now more in line with what one would expect from a laptop in this price range, and that there's no misguided non-touch version to confuse shoppers.