Toshiba Portege Z830 Ultrabook Review

Ultrabooks are a fun little accessory if you’re rich and have money to throw around. In fact they are more than just something you flaunt around, but sadly, not everyone can afford it right now as they still have a long way to go before they can reach the masses. In the meantime, every notebook manufacturer worth their salt have released their own version of it. So far, we’ve seen some from the likes of Lenovo, Asus and Dell and although they were all good in their own right, they all had some feature or the other that was missing which prevented them from being the complete package. Toshiba on the other hand is here to show them how it’s done. Apart from being one of the world’s lightest Ultrabooks, this model also packs in every connectivity option one would typically find in a notebook, sans the optical drive. Could this be the ultimate Ultrabook we’ve been waiting for? Let’s find out.

Design and Build
The Portege Z830 is nothing short of amazing that’s noticeable as soon you lift it up. It’s incredibly light weight and definitely one of the lightest Ultrabooks we’ve encountered. Besides that, it’s incredibly slim as well when you consider it has all the typical ports one would expect from a notebook. Toshiba is using a magnesium alloy for the chassis which is why it weighs just 1.12kg. While the main body is sturdy, the screen does exhibit some flex but since it’s not plastic, we don’t think you should worry too much about it since even applying pressure from the back of the lid causes no visual distortion to the pixels on the screen. The lid flips back to about 160 degrees thereby giving you ample room to adjust the angle no matter what your seating position.  

A handsome looking notebook

Like we mentioned before, the Z830 features all the connectivity options one would typically expect in a notebook. We have three USB ports, out of which, one is USB 3.0, There’s a microphone and headphone jack, SD card reader, HDMI, VGA, Gigabit LAN and finally, the charging port. There’s a single intake fan at the bottom while the exhaust vents sit at the back and under the hinge. There is no easy-remove flap underneath to swap out the RAM as you you’ll have to remove the entire bottom portion.

Poor key feedback is this notebooks biggest flaw

Toshiba have gone with a spill-resistant chiclet keyboard that’s also backlit. While the keys are well spaced out, the feedback of the keys are quite terrible. It’s like typing on a lumpy mattress. You don’t have the confidence whether you’ve actually pressed a key or not since there’s barely any tactile feedback from the keys. Aside from the power button, there are two shortcut buttons for ‘Eco mode’ and the other to switch screens. There are plenty of shortcut ‘Fn’ keys mapped and pressing the function button brings up a nice overlay on the screen, telling you what shortcuts you can use. There's even a physical button to disable the trackpad. Speaking of which, Toshiba have placed it correctly and it doesn’t get in the way while typing.

LAN and HDMI are included as well

The trackpad is very comfortable to use, however the same cannot be said about the mouse buttons which again, are quite stiff. We even have a fingerprint scanner here along with status LEDs. Overall, the Portege Z830 is by far the most complete Ultrabook we’ve come across and it just so happens to be one of the slimmest and lightest as well.