Back to school: HP adds USB Type-C, Toshiba goes for a Cortana button

With Windows 10 arriving during the “back to school” buying season, hardware OEMs are starting to show off their new Windows 10 systems.

Toshiba’s embrace of Windows 10 comes in two parts: a Cortana button on the keyboard and dual array microphones. The Cortana button is the F1 key; pressing it brings up a small Cortana window, and you can speak or type to Microsoft’s virtual agent to get things done. Windows 10 has an equivalent shortcut built in—Win-C—so it seems a little superfluous, but the one-button solution may feel a little more comfortable to the many computer users who don’t routinely use multi-key shortcuts.

The Toshiba Satellite C shows off the Cortana button. It’s the magnifying glass on the F1 key.

Toshiba

Dual microphones aren’t new, and Toshiba has used them in the past. The company’s new lineup uses them across the board, from the Satellite C series starting at $ 394.99 through the Satellite L series starting at $ 529.99, up to the Satellite S series starting at $ 719.99, to provide better performance for Cortana’s voice recognition and in Skype and similar applications.