The Toshiba Tecra A9-S9013 is one of those business laptops that you can easily walk past without a glance. The dark-gray exterior blends right in with the stainless-steel appliances at your local Best Buy. Style is usually not a particular concern in a business setting, and luckily, the A9-S9013 brings some substance with it. At $1,200 (street), the 2.0-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 can handle the computing tasks of a small business, if you're willing to upgrade the system memory to 2GB from the stingy 1GB that comes standard with it. And if your business cares about cutting down on power consumption and being kind to Mother Earth, the A9-S9013 is one of the few Toshiba laptops that are rated Energy Star 4.0, RoHS, and EPEAT Gold compliant.

Although the appearance of the A9-S9013 doesn't exactly exude elegance, the graphite-toned exterior is neutral enough for clients to take you seriously. In fact, the colors on its competition—the HP Compaq 6910p, the Dell Vostro 1500, and the Acer TravelMate 4720-6727—are equally black. If I had to pick a business system that would reduce yawning, I'd settle for classic black, as in the Lenovo ThinkPad T61 Widescreen. Some weight trimming on the A9-S9013 wouldn't hurt, either. Its 6.2-pound frame is best suited to permanent desktop duty, but if you plan to carry it on the road, make sure you find a backpack that fits its dimensions (1.4 by 14.3 by 10.5 inches HWD).

The inner layout bears some resemblance to that of the Lenovo T61 Widescreen. The unit has a full-size keyboard and dual pointing devices (pointing stick and touchpad)—even a fingerprint reader off to the side of the right palm rest. The user experience, however, is where things begin to diverge. For one, the keys aren't as tactile as the ones on a ThinkPad, though few laptops can emulate the Lenovo typing experience. You can feel a slight bend toward the center of the keyboard. Using the pointing stick is like rubbing my fingers against sandpaper, although I did find the touchpad quite pleasant to use. The 15.4-inch widescreen—not the glossy type that favors multimedia use—is tailored to office productivity suites.

If this were a sub-$1,000 laptop, I'd be content with the features. For $1,200, however, I would like to see an integrated webcam, even if you don't plan to use it for videoconferencing. The same applies to the missing FireWire port. Tecra customers might not require it, but in the event you need to off-load a video project from a camcorder, FireWire would be a nice thing to have. A 120GB hard drive is standard these days, and so are the three USB ports, VGA-out, and a 4-in-1 card reader (MS, MS Pro, SD, xD). The only feature that might raise an eyebrow is the serial port, a relic for old-school IT folks who might still want to connect legacy printers, switches, firewalls, and other devices that use this interface.

Businesses are always looking for ways to cut costs. The Toshiba A9-S9013 has the energy conservation diplomas to put your business on the "green" path. Many business laptops are already on this path—including a long list of Acer TravelMates, Dell Latitudes, HP Compaqs, and Lenovo ThinkPads—but it's nice to know that Toshiba is doing its part in adhering to these guidelines. According to company, the A9-S9013 complies with the Energy Star 4.0 specification, but the results coming off my Kill A Watt meter (an energy-measuring tool) said otherwise. In idle state, the 20 watts consumed is over Energy Star's 14W-or-less criteria. The discrepancy has to do with different testing methodologies. I tested the laptop right out of the box, leaving all the resident programs like antivirus suites, drivers, and updates intact, whereas machines submitted to Energy Star were probably stripped down. I didn't remove the battery, nor did I crank down the screen brightness or set the power scheme. Still, 20W is a very impressive mark coming right out of the box. Sleep and off modes brought the wattage down to 1W and 0W, respectively. By comparison, the HP Compaq 2710p produced only 12W in idle state.

In August 2007, the Tecra A9 series' EPEAT status was raised from Silver to Gold. It meets all 23 mandatory criteria, along with 75 percent of the optional criteria for Gold (Silver requires 50 percent) designated by the Green Electronic Council. This means that Toshiba meets the requirements for waste reduction, material selection, energy conservation, end-of-life management, and a list of other standards that the company can now include in its green marketing spiel. The Tecra A9 also qualifies for other environmental initiatives such as RoHS (European Union's restriction of hazardous substances), which states that the company is not using lead, mercury, and other hazardous materials in the manufacturing process. In addition, all Toshiba laptops, not just the Tecra line, qualify for free recycling.

Ultraportables will have the easiest time meeting Energy Star standards because tiny systems tend to use low-voltage parts. The A9-S9013 actually uses a standard-voltage 2.0-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 processor, and it still meets Energy Star requirements. Its SYSmark 2007 Preview Overall scores, however, were average at best. The 1GB of RAM is paltry for a Windows Vista Business operating system. A big reason why systems like the ThinkPad T61 Widescreen and the Dell Latitude D630 were able to impress us on Adobe Photoshop CS2 and SYSmark tests is their 2GB of RAM. For a smoother experience, upgrading the Tecra to 2GB is a surefire bet. Battery life, too, left me wanting more: At 2 hours 45 minutes, MobileMark 2007 test scores could have been a lot better for a business system.

Like performance, the user experience with the Toshiba Tecra A9-S9013 wasn't as memorable as that of some of its Dell, HP, and Lenovo counterparts. If the system were priced under $1,000, I would argue for its bargain aspect. What I can say in its favor is that this machine follows "green" computing principles and is socially responsible when it comes to our Earth. Aside from that, this laptop could use some aesthetic fine-tuning and a more aggressive pricing model.