Toshiba's Kirabook line has been gunning to be one of the top contenders this year for ultrabooks. With excellent resolution and features plus the promise of a possible 22-hour battery life in the next upgrade, is Toshiba another company to watch out for?

Toshiba Kirabook i7

The Kiranook is Toshiba's luxurious line of laptops. It is the first Windows product line to feature a display that can compete with Apple's Retina technology, according to a PC World review of the device. The Kirabook also rivals Apple's design in thinness and weight. The more interesting feature is the touch screen. Not many manufacturers release a full laptop with touch screen features.

The 13.3-inch display of the Kirabook offers a native resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels. Its pixel density is at 221 ppi. This is just a couple of measures less than Apple's 13-inch MacBook Pro's 2,560-by-1,600-pixel display with 227 ppi.

Whereas Apple runs on 3.0 GHz Intel Core i7-3540M processor and is $100 cheaper, Kirabook runs with 2.0 GHz Intel Core i7-3537U CPU. A primary advantage the Toshiba has over Apple's MacBook Pro is that it has a touch-enabled screen. (The iPad cannot be considered a full blown laptop with touch screen.)

Other key features include 8 GB of DDR3-1600 memory plus 256 GB solid-state drive.

According to recent reports, Toshiba just unleashed a Dynabook, another Kirabook version, offering 22 hours of battery life. As of now, the device is available only in Japan. Nonetheless, the market's interest over a 22-hour laptop should be enough to prompt Toshiba to release the version in other countries.

The market will have to wait for that. If this happens, Apple will need to double its MacBook battery life to compete.

2013 MacBook Pro Retina

The 13-inch Retina display offers LED-backlit display with IPS technology; 2,560 x 1,600 resolution at 227 ppi with support for millions of colors. It supports a native resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 pixels (Retina); scaled resolutions: 1,680 x 1,050, 1,440 x 900 and 1,024 x 640 pixels.

The 15-inch Retina display offers LED-backlit display with IPS technology; 2,880 x 1,800 resolution at 220 ppi with support for millions of colors. It supports a native resolution of 2,880 x 1,800 pixels (Retina); scaled resolutions: 1,920 x 1,200, 1,680 by 1,050, 1,280 x 800 and 1,024 by 640 pixels.

Apple's MacBook Retina is flexible in terms of configurations. The 13-inch model has the following configurations:

  • 2.4 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 2.9 GHz) with 3 MB shared L3 cache
  • 2.6 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.1 GHz) with 3 MB shared L3 cache

Meanwhile, the 15-inch model has the following configurations:

  • 2.0 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.2 GHz) with 6 MB shared L3 cache
  • 2.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.5 GHz) with 6 MB shared L3 cache

The 13-inch comes with Intel Iris Graphics, while the 15-inch comes with Intel Iris Pro Graphics and NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2 GB of GDDR5 memory and automatic graphics switching. The 13-inch lasts up to 9 hours, while the 15-inch offers up to 8 hours of battery life. Although the MacBook Pro Retina is a good deal in terms of resolution and processor combinations, Apple may have to step up once Toshiba adopts the 22-hour battery life on all its Kirabook offerings.