Toshiba Portege Z835: A New Ultrabook Appears
by Dustin Sklavos on November 16, 2011 2:50 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Intel
- Toshiba
- Sandy Bridge
- Ultrabook
Unfortunately the Display is Dire
To look at it, you wouldn't think the Toshiba Portege Z830's 13.3" display is of particularly poor quality. Even though the panel is glossy and the 1366x768 resolution remains a thorn in the side of consumers everywhere, the gloss isn't particularly obtrusive, and the resolution doesn't look too bad on a screen this size. Yet when we subject it to actual testing, things take a major turn for the worse.
The ASUS Zenbook may have a hard time with black levels, but at least the color gamut and accuracy are worlds better than the Z830. None of these notebooks we've tested are particularly big winners here, but it's stunning just how poor the Z830 turns out to be.
Thankfully viewing angles aren't completely awful. Using the Z830, I found that its panel didn't have the major "sweet spot" issues that can occur with low quality TN panels (particularly smaller ones) in notebooks, where there's just no good angle to really look at the screen without substantially washing part of the image out. It's still a pretty lousy screen, but it'll get the job done at least.
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inighthawki - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Depends on the kind of work. I do a lot of programming, and as a result, tiling two coding windows side by side in visual studio works wonderfully on a widescreen display, but not so much on a full screen display.uhuznaa - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
I would really like to see some statistics how old people are who buy such things and how their eyesight is. 1600x900 on 13.3" with no way to adjust the OS to it means that everything you want to read and click on the screen becomes that small that working with it for many hours a day becomes a strain. Yeah, you can cram more content and toolbars and icons onto the screen, but this comes with a price.I know more than enough "normal" users who think that such many pixels are even too much to be comfortable on 19" desktop displays and run them with non-native resolutions just to get comfortable UI sizes. Especially since they just have no need for 1600 horizontal pixels since they run everything full-screen anyway.
retrospooty - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
"1600x900 on 13.3" with no way to adjust the OS to it means that everything you want to read and click on the screen becomes that small"Win7 click start>control panel>display and set it from 100 to 125 or even 150% if you are really blind.
SoundsGood - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
>> Win7 click start>control panel>display and set it from 100 to 125 or even 150% if you are really blind.That's fine if you *only* use the laptop's screen. But not so great for those of us that often use an external monitor. It means always switching back and forth between 125 DPI and 100 DPI... which is NOT fun.
Filiprino - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
It's a non-issue. Sony has the Vaio Z with 1080p on it's 13 inch screen. That's a real problem.But 1600x900 on 13 inches it's not a problem. I've got a 15,6 inch laptop with full hd screen and it's really nice. Not only because you can have more things being displayed, but also for things that were traditionally huge now they aren't.
And of course, more resolution benefits productivity.
peterfares - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Sony's screen is wonderful. I used the Vaio Z with a 1080p screen at the Microsoft store. The DPI was set to 150% so everything appeared the normal size for a 13" computer, but everything was SO CLEAR. It was awesome. I really want one, but they're very expensive!MrSpadge - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
For me 1366x768 is borderline uncomfortable on 11.6". So I guess I wouldn't want more than 1400x900 at 13.3".MrS
peterfares - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
You can increase the DPI setting which makes everything bigger but sharper than a standard resolution display.peterfares - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Windows 7 has great scaling capabilities. The whole OS has higher resolution graphics for when you increase the DPI setting. Third party support is not quite there yet, but things just get blown up to make them bigger. Not that annoying when the DPI is high enough.piroroadkill - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
I'm going to go further than this: They need to offer it in 16:10, not 16:9 as you suggest is OK.How about 1680x1050, laptop makers :3
Look at the retarded huge bezel below and above the screen. This is getting out of hand. 16:9 is a terrible ratio for computing, but because the screens are getting spat out cheaply, this is what we get.