Thin, light, and filled with awesome: Toshiba’s Satellite Z830 Ultrabook reviewed

As for battery performance, we managed around five hours of life from the Z830, which is pretty much par for the course when it come to Ultrabooks. You might be able to squeeze an extra hour out if you switch WiFi off and turn the screen down on settings, but that’s roughly all you’re going to get in this model.

The power pack follows a pretty standard design too, with the typical two part design: a long rectangular power brick with a cable. It’s not the simple carry-on design that Apple’s MacBook Air features, something that Asus seems to have picked up on in its Ultrabook design.

Toshiba has managed to nail much of what we look for in a laptop, coming through in most aspects. But somewhere around the screen, the company appears to have dropped the ball a little.

We were a little disappointed with the resolution Toshiba chose here. While Asus managed a 1600×900 resolution in its 13 inch UX31 Ultrabook, Toshiba has gone with a fairly standard 1366×768 panel. This may not be a low resolution screen, but it’s just so ordinary that we’re surprised Toshiba didn’t offer something a little higher quality, especially since the direct competition – Apple’s 13 inch MacBook Air – offers 1440×900.

If the resolution doesn’t annoy you, the viewing angles and glossiness of the screen might. Like some of the cheaper panels we’ve seen in laptops throughout the years, you pretty much need to be looking at this screen dead on for the colours to be decent, otherwise you’ll see washed out imagery. The reflectivity of the panel is very noticeable too, and is a perfect example of where a matt screen would have made all the difference.

Conclusion

While the screen isn’t the level of quality we expect in Toshiba’s premium products, the Satellite Z830 is one of the best Ultrabooks we’ve seen to date, marrying an exceptional design, solid build, and excellent price point.

 

Overall
Features
Value for money
Performance
Design
Reader Rating0 Votes
Well designed; Backlit keys; USB 3.0; Lots of connection options;
Mouse gestures aren't fully supported; Screen could be better;
4.4