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
Battery Life, Heat, and Noise
Despite the incessant griping about the pokey Intel Core i3-2367M beating at the heart of the Toshiba Portege Z830, there's one place where a low-powered processor can pay dividends: battery life. The Z830 may have a weaker processor than the competing ASUS Zenbook UX21, but it also has a bigger battery. Check out this running time.
For sheer running time, the Portege Z830 lives up to the promise of ultrabooks, being an incredibly mobile notebook that lasts for a long time off the mains. When you look at the relative battery life, things get even better, with even the Optimus-enabled ASUS Eee PC and HP's E-350-based dm1z putting in weaker showings. Intel's CULV chips have historically been big winners, and suddenly the i3-2367M doesn't look so bad anymore: it's faster in every way than Atom or Zacate, and more frugal with power to boot. That said, the Z830 also benefits from having an mSATA SSD which is also going to sip power.
All that battery life wouldn't amount to much if the Z830 was noisy or hot in the process, but surprisingly it's neither of those things. The fan has a very low whine when the system is idling that isn't particularly intrusive, and while that whine does increase in volume under load, it's still nowhere near as irritating as the fan noise is on most notebooks. Better still, despite the thin, flimsy chassis, the Z830 remains fairly cool to the touch as well. During our stress testing loop, no hot spots really surfaced: this is a very cool, very quiet notebook that's definitely fine for using as an honest to goodness laptop.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
76 Comments
View All Comments
SoundsGood - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
>> why can't more of these ultrabooks have the same screen as the mackbook air, which has a 1440 x 900 resolution?I totally agree. That would be a great option.
peterfares - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
People who say the resolution is too large don't realize that Windows has the ability to scale. Just adjust the DPI to make everything bigger. When you increase the resolution and the DPI, things remain the same physical size but are made up of more pixels making them very clear. I used Sony's 1080p 13" Vaio Z at the Microsoft store with 150% scaling, and it looked amazing!solipsism - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
"I could be completely blind and out of my depth here, but I just don't see the market an ultrabook serves"A recent report put the MBAs, only in 11" and 13" sizes, at 28% of all Mac notebook shipments. This is a category the average consumer cares about. Unfortunately for the non-Apple OEMS there customers expect a sweet spot about $300 less than the least expensive MBA. That's the problem when you spend years racing to the bottom, not one trusts when your products even if they are quality.
It was years ago that Apple had more than 90% of the $1000 and up market so these companies need to make less expensive machines or rebrand themselves to show they are a premium company. They can start by removing crap like Intel Inside, MS Windows, Dell and HP stickers off their machines.
Torrijos - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
While this review is dandy, it would be nice to run the benchmarks on the MacBook Air running Windows, to have a baseline.Also, while more ports are always cool I kind of disagree with the disinterest towards Thunderbolt technology. Living with a laptop as a main computer, connecting the multitude of cables at home to dock it to external displays and storage unit gets old pretty quickly so the vision of a single cable connecting a TB display (with keyboard and mouse on the USBs) and a fast mass storage unit chained seems like a dream (but I'll be still waiting for USB3 on the display before I make a jump).
It's a usage model that no other brand offers right now.
peterfares - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Have you heard of docks? They aren't yet available on Ultrabook models I don't believe, but they're even better than Thunderbolt. You just place your computer on the dock, you don't even have to line up and insert the thunderbolt and power cords.Jamezrp - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
4th paragraph from the bottom, end of the second sentence. Not a big deal...I laughed because it sounds like a cheesy, corny cute name to give Intel's Turbo Boost.JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Just a typo from the editor; actually, Dustin called it "turbo core" so I tried to fix it and apparently hit the wrong key for the "t". Not sure which is worse, though. :pfpink3 - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
D Sklavos says: "I don't think the keyboard is a lost cause, but it definitely needs to be revised. Layout is fine, just fix the overall size and quality. The chassis has room for both.""Just fix the ..quality"? Who is D Sklavos talking to? Let me know how the keyboard will perform if I bought the product.
Death666Angel - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Great review as always, but I was wondering if you could make comparison photos of products where size is a big feature. Stick a coke cola can or a DVD case next to it and then photograph. It would make it easier to judge the size. :-)EthanW - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
Is it just me, or does this look scarily similar to the Portege R200?As seen here:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wroyUqnJyD0/SieO92SMA6I/...
Good to see they had the sense to stick with proper trackpad buttons. :D