Toshiba Tecra 8000

The second most expensive model in this review, the Toshiba Tecra 8000 is priced at $8,400, but it packs a decent punch. It did well in both the Ziff-Davis CPUmark 99 and FPU WinMark. Of the four notebooks with a 500MHz processor it placed third in the former test and last in the latter; however, it should be kept in mind that it was a small field and its results were good.
The Tecra’s hard drive excelled. Its drive is 2G larger than the 10G drives of three of the units, and faster by far in the High-End Disk WinMark 99. Although its performance was not as strong as the Compaq’s drive in the Business Disk WinMark, it still had an impressive lead over the next notebook.
There is a downside to all this grunt; in the Battery Mark 99 test it only lasted two-and-a-half hours. This would be inadequate for the road warrior, but the Tecra would make a good desktop replacement with portability thrown in. It is one of the lighter note books reviewed, with a travel weight of just 3.3kg (a kilogram lighter than the NEC Versa LXi).
The Tecra 8000 was the second notebook unable to run 3D Mark Max 99, and it was one of the slowest in the Business and High-End Graphic WinMark 99 tests. Considering it has less than a third of the video RAM of any other unit, the scores aren’t too bad. The S-Video connection on the back allows you to use a TV instead of the monitor, and is a handy inclusion. If it came equipped with a DVD-ROM drive (which is optional) rather than a CD-ROM drive, it would be a winner.