New Portege Z830

The new Portege Z830 looks spot on for the new rage of 'ultrabooks' coming out soon.

It has a comprehensive list of ports (Ethernet, HDMI, USB 3.0, VGA) non glossy screen, 1.1kg. As long as its not to noisy/runs hot it looks really good for a sub $1k laptop (and hopefully sub £800 over here). It also has a backlit keyboard which is always a bonus!
And it seems it comes with a SSD as standard!

It actually manages to look like a toshiba rather than the apple inspired other ultrabook designs.







Toshiba Portege Z830 Laptop first look - Trusted Reviews
Toshiba Portege Z830 ultrabook | Reviews | CNET UK

More images here-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/toshiba_laptops/sets/72157627401870897/with/6084204690/

 

Some more hands on shots-

MacBook Air vs. Aspire S3, IdeaPad U300s, Portege Z830, and UX21 ultrabooks – hands-on pictures (updated) | This is my next...

Toshiba’s Portege Z830 Series: the lightest ultrabook starts at under $1,000 (hands-on) | This is my next...

Aspire S3, IdeaPad U300s, Portege Z830, and UX21 ultrabooks: a family portrait (video!) | This is my next...

 

Another video here-
Toshiba announces Portege Z830 ultrabook | Crave - CNET

 

Good info hoop +rep

 

Pity the mouse and keyboard look like the same fingerprint-magnets found on the Portege line They quickly turn into a greasy mess unless you're constantly polishing them.

 

Wish Toshiba would follow the 13" Asus UX31's lead and put a 900P LCD on this. A Thunderbolt or expresscard slot would help too with external device connectivity.

 

I really like this one. I came very close to buying a Macbook Air, but...

 

New NotebookReview er review....

IDF2011: Toshiba Z830 Ultrabook Hands On Preview

and mentioned on the other thread, but why do people not mention Toshiba's Portege 2000/R100 when talking about this? Its as if the Macbook Air invented thin and light, Toshiba was doing this almost 10 years ago!

 

The only thing i am wondering is if the Ram and SSD are soldered/fixed to the motherboard like the Airs?
I think this will come with a 128gb SSD as standard, which is fine, but Ram and new hard drive/ssd might want to be added in the future, For me anyway.

 

because as was answered in another thread, sony did the same thing with the x505, and lenovo with the x300, however only apple continued to sell something in that form factor, and it thrived so much that intel decided to create the ultrabook denomination and to ditch U$ 300 mi to the OEMs so that they can come up with some designs.

Lets hope it wont be, but Im no putting my money in it. Connector takes space which is at premium on such products. And for them its cheaper that way.

 

Cheers Mr MM

 

i want the keyboard for my R700, only thing i'm missing is sexy backlit keys

 

That bezel is disgusting.

16:9 screens should be illegal.

 

I gotta agree. But other than that, this Toshiba is lookin' very nice indeed.

 

I like a lot becaus it offers the best package. beside the screen. somewhere I've read there will be an 900p option. If so, I am sold...

 

Awfully quiet here. Any new news on this as the Asus and Samsung ultrabooks had updates over the past 2 weeks?

 

Should pick up as we get closer to release date.

 

I prefer the keyboard and abundance of ports on the Tosh... if only they did higher rez than 1366x768.

 

Sorry, posted in wrong thread.

 

If it had a matte screen option, I would have definitely gone with the UX31. So, now I am waiting to see how the Z830 user reviews turn out.

 

I'm hoping Toshiba adds a 1600x900 screen upgrade.

Toshiba has been getting this point and implementing better screen resolutions for the Tecra (900p option) and larger Satellites (900p standard).

Lets hope

 

I'd love to see a 1440x900 16:10 like in the MBA.

 

exactly!!, 1440x900 for me this is the perfect resolution for a 13'' laptop I don't know why there aren't any models with this resolution, only the MBA

 

Does anyone know the physical dimensions of the Z830?

Also, does anyone have any information about the ram? Can it be upgraded or is it soldered on to the motherboard?

 

Toshiba Z830 Ultrabook Hands-On Overview - YouTube

no good news about the screen resolution...

 

The screen wobbles worry me.

 

Doesn't look bad at all.

 

Out of all the ultrabooks, I'm looking at Toshiba's line-up more intently. It has far more ports than the competition, and I need the VGA and HDMI ports as I'd mainly use it for presentations.

If Toshiba's the only one offering such varied ports until the 2nd~3rd gen ultrabooks, I'd grab one to compliment the NP8150.. Or just give me mum a nice upgrade from her cruddy old Compaq (NOT HP-Compaq!)

 

I bought the asus ux31...but I think I'm going to have to return it- there were just a few too many things that didn't work as expected.

Now I'm looking at this Toshiba. The outer shell is certainly not as sexy as the Asus Ultrabook, but it manages to be lighter, with better port options. I like the fact its a matte screen. Normally, i'd say higher resolution is better, but frankly I think 1600x900 on 13" may be just a bit too small for me.

I wonder- do all Toshiba Laptops with hdmi inside also come with HDMI-CEC? I just went to the toshiba regza-link page, and when I clicked "show me regza-link laptops", it just showed me a list of all their laptops with hdmi...

 

I don't know what regza-link is, but I just looked it up and it's looks like Toshiba's marketing for saying it has HDMI-CEC.

From Wikipedia [I know not the most reliable source].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

I'm guessing any newer laptop with "HDMI" has CEC.


As for the ASUS, can you elaborate on what the shortcomings of the ASUS UX31 were? I'm sure other readers are very anxious to also hear them.


Good luck and keep us informed with any updates.

 

Believe it or not, HDMI-CEC in computers is surprisingly uncommon. Neither NVidia nor ATI have actually used that pinout on their digital signals. Which is kind of amazing, given that the standard has been set in stone for years now, considering that is their main product. Intel is just starting too. Every once in a while a computer manufacturer that also makes TVs includes it- like Toshiba, a few Sonys... not samsung. They all have their own brand names for HDMI-CEC... but for the most part, the messages are the same.

There were some things that were bothersome about the UX31... the touchpad was a bit jerky at first, and I was overshooting a lot. But a driver and bios update has made it a bit better. Not perfect. I initially thought there was no home/end keys... but I realized that they were in the bottom right corner as part of the arrow keys. The wifi does not support 5GHz, and initially was randomly disconnecting, although that has been fixed with a power setting change. The power connector is kind of wobbly. The audio, when loud is a bit static-y.

What seems to be more desirable about the Toshiba? The extra USB port would be awesome, as I have a logitech dongle for a wireless keyboard and mouse. I think its very honorable that Asus is giving people VGA and Ethernet dongles, but Toshiba has designed their system in a way where dongles are not necessary. (Which has the added benefit of full gigabit ethernet if necessary). I like the fact it has a matte screen. I like the separate mouse keys, separate home/end keys. I like that its more than 10% lighter than the asus.

Too many variables! Must decide! Arg!

 

Those are the same things why I prefer the Tosh.

You also forgot to mention the backlit keyboard AND a microphone input (although many people don't use that).

One thing I would like to see is how the battery life holds up. The Portege's seem to have decent life even though they were lighter than similarly sized notebooks... hopefully that's the same with these Z8xx models.

On that one video, the reviewer mentioned both Portege and Satellite versions of the Z8xx... does anyone know if there will be and differences any what they are?

 

Toshiba haven't released full specs yet but the Z830 is a business-oriented Portege model and the Z835 is the consumer-oriented Satellite model. The only difference that I've seen is that the former will have a matte screen and the latter a glossy one.

 

In the past, Toshiba offered an upgraded and bulkier 9-cell battery for the porteges [as compared to the standard 6-cell]. I'm hoping/assuming this will also be available as an upgrade; not standard [usually have to buy battery directly from Toshiba].

9-cell for r830
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/adet.to?poid=503433

6-cell for r830
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/adet.to?poid=503432

 

I leaning toward the Toshiba for the reasons listed above, seems like it was designed with function in mind, while the Toshiba is not ugly, the Asus is a very attractive machine.

How much of a difference do y'all think 6gb vs 4gb of RAM makes on a machine like this and the Asus UX31? I generally will be surfing the web, downloading music (torrent program), nothing heavy duty. But I think I've made up my mind on the Toshiba, all the USB ports will be nice.

 

One other thing, I don't know much about Toshiba. How is their service/warranty work? Are they fairly well built machines?

 

I'm not sure they can do this for the Ultrabooks... most are sealed systems like the MBA.

 

The youtube vid showed it being sealed, the battery won't be user upgradeable anyway, maybe from the factory, but I doubt it. I'm sure it would drive costs up if they had two different batteries for this type of product.

 

Quality/Reliability is pretty good in my opinion. They are a few surveys/studies out there that show Toshiba is near the top for reliability.

However, when a problem does arise, they do use outsourced phone banks to handle their Customer Support [something I'm not fond of]. Also, people have complained the turn around time for depot repairs [sending laptops to Toshiba] can be very long; even as long as a month [something that affects all manufacturers to an extent].

A good compromise I've made is to invest in an "On-Site" warranty, which means the repairer comes to your house instead of you sending your laptop to Toshiba and waiting between 1-4 weeks. On-Site means you can have your laptop serviced in a matter of days. There are also other warranties you can buy: Express Depot, Accidental coverage, etc... [must be purchased within 30 days of laptop purchase]

You have to buy this On-Site warranty upgrade directly from Toshiba, but if you call Toshiba [instead of buying online], they have given people discounts [including myself]. I was able to buy a 2 year On-Site warranty for $100 [original was $150], just by calling.
Extended Service Plans


I understand this above upgrades are not always an option for some. Thus, the standard 1 year warranty should suffice for most people.


Good luck and keep us updated with any news.

Aww, that sucks.

 

Well, I'm thinking I may be carrying this thing around a lot, so I was thinking I'd buy accidental coverage in case I drop it or something, they have a combo of that and at home repair, I may step up and do that. Nice to know they have good reliability, of course they are machines, none are above breaking.

 

I guess it is too early to ask this but does any of you know whether the RAM can be upgraded.

I read the specs and they said that up to 6GB. Hmmm, this makes me think that they would have 4GB soldered on the board and one slot under the hood. (?)

If they would include 2 slots I would buy this at the moment it comes out because the rest of the specs look really promising.

 

go to 1:40, you right, there is only one slot
Toshiba Portégé Z830 Ultrabook, la video review - YouTube

 

Can't watch the vid right now... but is that 1 slot as in 1 slot that an end-user can change out?

So 4GB on the board and X in the slot?

 

the computer has one soldered memory and one slot to replace/install additional memory
if i am not wrong, the computer from the video has 2gb ram soldered and 2gb ram card memory

 

Ahh... so max is 6gb.

Would have been better if it was 4gb on the board... but at least you can expand it (reports are you can't for the ASUS Zenbooks).

 

you cant upgrade, since the ram is already soldered to the board in the UX series. However the maximum in this laptop should be 10gb, since it has 2gb already and there are 8gb sodimm memory

 

Hi guys,
It looks like Toshiba UK has opened spec info and pricing of Z830.
Check the link below.

Portégé Z830 Series - Toshiba

 

Awesome find. None of them have 6gb ram listed, they all have 4, but under specs they say expandeable to 6gb. In US dollars, the i5 will run about $1500.

 

$1500 if converted from Euro but I think it'll still be around $900-$1100 for the i3's and i5.

 

I agree. US models are always cheaper, and Toshiba has stated the lowest z830 model will be under $1000.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/239449/toshiba_portege_z830_ultrabook_billed_as_worlds_lightest_13inch_laptop.html