If nothing else, the first round of so-called "ultrabook" laptops hitting the market proves that Cupertino doesn't have a monopoly on turning out thin, powerful, and sexy-looking notebooks. Ultrabooks are a new class of notebook; their specifications are outlined by Intel and detail a qualifying machine's weight, price, processor, and features. (See the full list of ultrabook specs here.) And they do look good: While Apple's MacBook Air products are spectacular, so are the thinnest new Windows 7 laptops emerging here in late 2011.
So far, we've looked at two ultrabooks: Acer's $899.99 Aspire S3-951 and Asus' $1,199 ZenBook UX21E. Both are impressive machines with lots to offer today's modern road warrior. But this new clash of the ultra-thin, light, and powerful laptops has just begun. With each new offering, we find ourselves all the more impressed. These are indeed exciting times for the Windows notebook market.
Enter the Toshiba Portégé Z830 line of ultrabooks, which have 13.3-inch screens. They start with the $799 Z835 base model (the one we reviewed), which went for sale exclusively, as of November 13, 2011, at Best Buy. The Z835 runs Windows 7 Home Premium and sports a 1.4GHz Intel Core i3-2367M processor (one of Intel's Second-Gen, or "Sandy Bridge," chips), plus 4GB of RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD).
Toshiba wouldn't say exactly when, but down the road, several other outlets will offer the Z835 (under the Z830 name) and two other models. You'll eventually be able to buy a $1,199 configuration (which will come with an Intel Core i5-2467M CPU, 4GB of RAM, and Windows 7 Professional), as well as a $1,429 version (1.8GHz Intel Core i7-2677M CPU, 6GB of RAM, and the same Windows). In addition, on Toshiba's Web site, you will be able to configure a Portégé Z830 to order with your choice of CPUs, up to 8GB of RAM, and up to a 256GB SSD.
We do wish Toshiba would set a release date for these configurations, so you could know whether to buy this one or wait for more options, as a Core i3 CPU may seem limiting to some users. This review unit has the slowest processor among the ultrabooks we've reviewed so far, and it shows. Compared with the Asus ZenBook UX21E (an ultrabook with a 11.6-inch screen and a 1.8GHz Core i7-2667M processor), the speed difference is clear. Aside from that, however, the Portégé Z835 is an impressive machine with lots to offer in terms of ports, ease of use, and overall design and functionality.
One thing to note, though: When compared with the MacBook Air and other light laptops we've tested, the Portégé Z835's display is a little bit wanting in its ability to display colors vividly. (We saw the same thing with the Asus ZenBook.) It's not that the screen isn't vibrant—it's just not quite as colorful as it could be. In fact, if you don't make a living comparing notebooks to one another, you probably wouldn't notice.
Aside from this small shortcoming, we found the Portégé Z835 intriguingly well-designed, easy to use, and beautiful to look at—and we especially liked the $799 price for what you get. Granted, more ultrabooks are in the works, some with release dates slated in time for the 2011 holiday season. But they'll have to be very sleek and powerful to impress us as much as this one did.