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
Conclusion: But Who is This For?
Now here's an interesting opportunity: while Anand mostly skirted the ultrabook discussion with his review of the ASUS Zenbook UX21, I have the chance to tackle it head on. But first...does the Toshiba Portege Z835 stand on its own, irrespective of Intel's big ultrabook push? Is this a notebook that we can recommend?
As far as portability is concerned, Toshiba has mostly a homerun on their hands. If you don't take the price tag into account, the Portege Z835 is in many ways directly superior to most netbooks out there. The HD 3000 is a faster graphics core than NVIDIA's NG-ION or AMD's Radeon HD 6310, two pieces of graphics hardware that are unfortunately tied to netbook-class processors. And while the Intel Core i3-2367M's paltry 1.4GHz, turbo-free clock speed is slower than just about anything AMD is willing to sell you above Zacate, it's still substantially faster than Atom or the E-350. To top it all off, the Z835 is cool, quiet, lasts a long time on the battery, and is actually lighter than many netbooks on the market.
The problem is that we do take the price tag into account, and even at $879 for our model, the Z835 is a hard sell. The difference in processor power is great, but I don't think it's enough to open up entirely different usage models from a traditional netbook. Having an SSD standard is also a major benefit, but it's also not something another $100-$200 can't fix when buying a netbook...and that's still going to leave a healthy deficit between the netbook of your choice and the Z835. This also ignores the Z835's mediocre keyboard. Speaking candidly, if I had to choose between the Z835 at $899 and Lenovo's ThinkPad X120e at half that, I'd take the ThinkPad. The E-350 may be a lot slower, but it's still fast enough to handle the same tasks the Z835 would, and it has a more comfortable build. So what if it's a pound heavier? At least it's built to last through several years of use.
Honestly I think a lot of the problems with the Z835 can be laid squarely at Intel's feet, not Toshiba's. The ultrabook initiative invites direct comparison to the Apple MacBook Air, but it's tone deaf to what the appeal of the MacBook Air is. Intel instead came up with a list of bulletpoints and said to vendors, "have at it," but ultimately this is a market that I'm not sure really exists. The MacBook Air has Apple's cachet behind it, and it is the only ultraportable choice Apple offers. If you don't care about OS X, we've had good and even affordable ultraportables available for Windows users for some time now.
The difference between 2.5 lbs. and 3.5 lbs. is comically minor as far as moving a notebook around is concerned. Fighting to get the form factor under an inch thick is just as pointless, an exercise in style rather than practicality. I could be completely blind and out of my depth here, but I just don't see the market an ultrabook serves that a Lenovo ThinkPad X220, Dell XPS 14z, or Sony Vaio SB series couldn't have already served...and better. Windows users who just want something portable to handle word processing and media on have already had the HP dm1z around for a year.
Time could very well prove me wrong on this one. If the ultrabook as a concept appeals to you, the ASUS Zenbook UX21 is probably going to be a better buy. The $999 model may be $100 more than Toshiba's Portege Z835, but it has a much faster CPU, a slightly better screen, better build quality, and a vastly superior SSD. As we're fond of saying here, there are no bad products, only bad prices. Even though comparatively speaking the Z835's $899 price tag isn't unreasonable, in practice I honestly think it would need to go south at least $100-$200 before being worth considering instead of a thicker ultraportable or a netbook. That may not necessarily be Toshiba's fault, but unfortunately Toshiba's stuck with it. The Portege Z835 feels like the best of a bad situation.
Update: The price tag of the Z835 is just $799 at Best Buy. That does make the unit more competitive and definitely worth a second look, but my sentiments regarding ultrabooks in general still stand.
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retrospooty - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
"How about 1680x1050, laptop makers :3"Yup, my old 15 inch Lenovo T500 w/ 1680x1050 was perfect.
Sadly, the highest sellers now are these cheap 1366x768 ones, so they keep pushing it. Laptop makers wont stop unless sales drive it. Right now they are selling to the dull masses and it's not about to change.
At least the ASUS Ultrabook has a 1600x900 option. Pretty good for a 13 incher.
gorash - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
It's an ultrabook, they'd have to make it at a certain price point (under $1000).name99 - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
"Why are all ultrabook makers idiots?"The answer is simple --- but PC heads don't want to hear it.
As long as buyers AND sellers insist on selling by specs, they are in a commodity market. A market where the device sold is the one that hits the lowest price. These devices are sold by
- has USB3 --- check
- has ethernet port --- check
- can (in theory) expand to more than 4GiB of RAM --- check.
There's nowhere on that checklist for --- feel of the construction, quality of the keyboard, quality of the screen, delight of the user experience. No place for anything that is not a yes/no answer.
As long as the PC world buys devices by checkbox criteria, vendors will sell devices by checkbox criteria --- it's as simple as that. If you want out of that world, I'm sorry, but your choice, today is simple --- you buy Apple and you accept the choices Apple makes. You may find your checkbox ethos upset --- what do you mean, no USB3 and no VGA port? You may whine that the price is "too high" for all the checkbox items you are getting --- ignoring the cost and the value of the non-checkbox items you are getting.
But really, that's the breaks. You cannot expect differently from any other vendor, because that's not the way the economics works. And pretty much none of them have the credibility to insist that: "no, trust us, sure our new product costs 30% more than the competition, when compared by specs, but it really is worth the extra money". Sony certainly can't make such an argument credibly these days. The only possibility I can think of is that maybe Lenovo could.
But, look at the comments in previous Anand reviews. If Lenovo introduced a really well made ultrabook, selling at Apple prices, I guarantee you MOST of the reviews would be along the lines of: "this is bullshit --- I can get exactly the same features from Toshiba for $300 cheaper. Lenovo screws over the public once again".
Visual - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Now all I want is for someone to take this thing, give it a better quality display with adequate resolution, nice multitouch layer with active digitizer, make it convertible to tablet mode, with a few programmable buttons on the bezel, and I would be willing to pay double this price.Are all those things actually costing the manufacturer more than that? Or why else is noone doing that?
Add in a better GPU option without massively increasing weight (battery drain won't matter if it can switch back to the IGP, but the cooling should be adequate) and I'd be the happiest person in the world.
solnyshok - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Screen flex is so extreme, that me Toshiba have developed 2 cracks (one on left, one right side) in the inner plastic frame around the lcd panel. From the forums, I know that many owners have faced this problem, even those that handle device very carefully.Important consequence of this is, that despite low weight, Toshiba has almost killed portability of this device - I am afraid to just put it into my backpack or leave it in a luggage. The only way to handle it is to have a well protected bag and keep it on yourself at all times.
Lastly, did you check this Toshiba, or any other ultrabooks, if they use throttling to prevent overheating? My R630 came with i450m (2.4GHz, turbo to 2.6), but only after couple of months I learned with the help of ThrottleStop, that whole thing is throttled to 50% of performane at all times. Removed it for AC profile, thing is twice faster now and still doesn't overheat.
e-kirill - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
SSD here is crap alsoFiliprino - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
I won't buy a shitty 768p screen.solnyshok - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
and the screen is awful on R630 (guess it is the same). C'mon Toshiba, I will not be buying another one of the R series with such awful screen and flimsy shell.ibtar - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
There must be some kind of running joke between OEMs about how cheap they can go on these garbage TN panels they throw in these "ultra" books and other laptops until consumers actually start to care (they won't).Just give me an IPS panel. I don't care if it's glossy or matte, just give me something that has decent contrast and doesn't gamma shift all over the damn place. Is that so much to ask?
jackpro - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
The screen resolution needs to be higher. I am sick of scrolling web pages. Please get a clue. Thats why tablets are growing market share, web pages are easier to read duh! Are we not in the web age???