Toshiba U840 Ultrabook Review

Not a huge performance jump over Sandy Bridge

The U840 is very comfortable to use on your lap even for long hours of usage. It doesn't get terribly hot, just warm near the vents area. The speakers are surprisingly loud as well. The sound is not very full or warm but it can easily fill up a small room. The keyboard remains a bit of a concern. While the backlighting works fine, the keys themselves don’t have very good feedback. The trackpad is also not the best we’ve seen as the mouse buttons are terribly uncomfortable. And then there’s the issue where you can’t use the trackpad while charging.

Even backlighting throughout the keys

Battery Life
In Battery Eater Pro, we managed to get a really good battery life of 2 hours and 40 minutes, which easily translates to a good six to seven hours of real world usage. The smaller 22 nm fabrication really helps in this case.

Verdict and Price in India
The Toshiba U840 is priced Rs. 53,500, which makes it quite an expensive purchase. If it were somewhere close to 40K, then I could have recommended it, but we have the issue with the keyboard and trackpad which is a big let down. The U840 had the potential to be a very good candidate for an Ultrabook but the high price and a few issues in critical areas together prove to be a damper. I’d say, give this one a miss.