Toshiba Portege Z835 review
Fast forward four years and it's entering the Ultrabook market with the Portege Z830 (that's the Z835 if you get it at Best Buy). And here comes the déjà vu: it's even lighter than the competition, at 2.47 pounds, but still houses a full suite of ports, including USB 3.0 and 2.0, HDMI and Gigabit Ethernet. It also promises more than eight hours of battery life, besting claims made by the likes of Apple, Acer and ASUS. Not to mention, with a price of $800 (Best Buy only), it undercuts competing models -- and at a time when every other Ultrabook seems to have some fatal flaw, whether it be a flaky touchpad or skimpy battery life. Clearly, there's lots of room here for something more carefully thought-out. So is Toshiba's Portege know-how just what the market needs? Let's see. For a machine that's going to sit on the shelf at the Best Buy, the Z835 looks like it would be more at home under the arm of some suited, late '80s businessman. We're not sure if it's the drab black-on-gray color scheme, the chintzy chrome accents or some combination thereof, but put together they make for a design that's at once dated and stuffy. It doesn't help that there's a lot going on here: in addition to the power button, the area above the keyboard is home to two launch keys, including ones for Intel Wireless Display and Toshiba's eco utility (more on that later). There's also a thin strip below the touch touch buttons that houses six LED lights that glow green and orange. Wedged in between the space bar and the touchpad is a button for turning off the trackpad. In a quirky touch, the fan sits on the bottom side, protruding ever-so slightly. The hinge, meanwhile, has a metal shoulder on each end that matches the reflective material used in the touch buttons.Apply Imperfect Smooth Plaster - News
Toshiba Portege Z835 review
We suspect you'll adapt, as people often do to imperfect keyboards, though we'd remiss if we didn't warn you that there's a learning curve. Still, Toshiba wisely extended the keyboard from one end of the deck to the other, wasting very little space on