Endurance over performance
The Z830 is not a top performer in benchmarks with one exception: its battery life is exceptional, achieving five and a half hours of non-stop use between recharges. Indeed, tests with Futuremark's PowerMark battery test benchmark concurred with this, clocking up 334mins. Knowing that the computer is not likely to blank out any time soon is a liberating experience. I felt calm and confident while playing with this Ultrabook on battery power, rather than rushed and panicky.
It might look boring but there's a lot of notebook gone into this Ultrabook
Toshiba has installed a number of custom software utilities to keep you up to date, notably App Place, Music Place and Video Place. These are effectively themed software stores. Personally, I am not happy about my computer thinking it’s a shop and trying to sell me stuff.
Even this is less annoying than the constant bullying reminders from McAfee popping up at every opportunity. I don’t know whether to report McAfee to the headmaster or get some mates together to kick the shit out of it. One way or another, this McAfee kid’s up for a serious dabbing at morning break.
And for those who are interested in such things, ‘Portégé’ doesn’t mean anything in French.
Verdict
Despite some annoyances, I really enjoyed my time testing the Toshiba Portégé Z830. It is a good all-rounder, but so very slim and light, and it runs on batteries for the best part of a day. Surely these three features alone deserve to make it a great success. It’s not a style icon by any stretch of the imagination, but this Ultrabook looks businesslike in an understated way and genuinely feels like a quality piece of kit. It is jolly expensive, though. ®
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Toshiba Portégé Z830-10N
COMMENTS
Wow..
£1080, and you get a lovely glossy 1366x768 screen powered by wonderful integrated intel graphics...
Err, no thanks.. You're paying about £700 for the form factor of this machine..
Re: "Seriously, who the hell would buy this laptop?"
Someone that needs a laptop for actual work, and not just for posing / dicking around?
You thought right.
Add approx £200 to equip the Air with the same ports the reviewer bigs up. Plus no USB 3 on the mac. Thats already the price of another shiny gadget to bring it up to spec.
Apple might have the better software, but who cares when this whole market is aimed at fashion victims and show offs. Home computing never used to be like this. I'll stick to hackingtoshing a £400 old school laptop and put up with this flexing of cases mystery that seems to have everybody concerned all of a sudden.
I thought Apple was supposed to be the company selling "overpriced" kit?
Seriously, who the hell would buy this laptop?
Apple's cheapest 13" MacBook Air comes with a much better display, with a higher 1440 x 900 resolution, a proper unibody case that doesn't flex, a lid you can open easily with your fingers without the need for additional tools, longer battery life, a Thunderbolt connector that lets you connect to both an external display and a number of data connectors with just one cable (Apple's 27" display also includes a bunch of other ports, acting like a docking station), and Apple bundles software people might actually want to use, and which has a refreshing lack of endless, annoying, pop-ups.
Oh yes: you also get a 1.7GHz mobile Core i5, instead of the i3 in this pile of Tosh.
All for a whopping... £19 more.
Why LEDs on the front edge?
"Why not put the LED status icons there [above the keyboard] instead?"
Because it's nice not to have to open my laptop in order to see whether it's awake or if I need to see why the disk is going nuts. Opening the lid is a bit tricky, fair enough -- on the other hand, given how light these things are, if it were easy to open you'd be complaining about the loose hinges.
