Toshiba Portégé Z830-104 review

In terms of performance, the Z830 is typical for an Ultrabook. With an ultra-low voltage Intel Core i5 processor and 4GB of RAM, it’s certainly got enough power for most tasks. The dual-core i5-2557M normally runs at 1.7GHz but can Turbo Boost up to 2.7GHz when extra power is needed. An overall score of 46 in our benchmarks shows the laptop can handle everyday tasks as well as some more intensive video encoding. The ZenBook is a touch faster, by a 100MHz, but it’s not a noticeable difference day-to-day.

Battery life is equally impressive – the laptop lasted almost seven hours in our light use test – matching the ZenBook. 3D games rely on the processor’s integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics, which, as a jerky 16.4fps in our Dirt 3 benchmark shows, are only powerful enough for older titles.

Like all Ultrabooks, the Z830 relies on an SSD for storage. This not only helped it boot into Windows in a snappy 15 seconds but, thanks to an SSD’s lack of moving parts, the disk should be more resilient to small knocks than a normal hard disk.

At nearly £1,100, the Z830 is currently at the top end of Ultrabook pricing. Its full-size video and Ethernet ports are certainly useful, especially for those on the go, but Asus’s UX31e has a higher screen resolution and a slightly faster processor for £100 less. If you don’t mind carrying around a few port adaptors, Asus’s model is, just, the better buy.