Though there have been an interest among customers regarding the Ultrabook, the demand for these machines is yet to pick up pace. Since Apple came out with its own MacBook Air, a buzz has been going round regarding ultrabooks. Toshiba’s Portege Z835 is the one of the lightest 13 inch notebook available in the market equipped with a great touchpad, long battery life and other great features. The machine costs less than the MacBook Air and provides a good value for money. Check out our exclusive Toshiba Portege Z835 review, to know more about the machine.

Toshiba Portege Z835 Looks And Design

Portege Z835 is one of the sleekest machines you will get and it looks quite elegant. The lid boasts of gunmetal gray brushed metal lid and a smooth gray bottom provides the machine a chic look. Z835 looks very simple yet elegant. You get two silver touchpad buttons, Toshiba logo along with lights below the touchpad.

We were impressed by the hinge design of the machine. The machine is quite light weighing 2.4 pounds. This makes the machine lighter than competitors such as MacBook Air, Lenovo IdeaPad U300s etc. The entire chassis of the machine is carved out of magnesium alloy which lends the machine durability. The lid does not allow the machine to flex under pressure. The lid opened pretty smoothly. With Z835 measuring 12.4×8.9×0.3-0.6 inches, the machine is quite thin as compared to MacBook Air.

Toshiba Portege Z835 Keyboard

The island style keyboard of Toshiba Portege Z835 impressed us quite a lot. The keyboard has island-style keys which are very well placed for most of the parts except for the small Esc key. The keyboard is both backlit and spill resistant. The palm rest of the machine is quite deep and one can easily keep their wrists on it. However, we felt that the keys are a bit shallow and somewhat stiff. But it gave us a decent typing experience.

Toshiba Portege Z835 Touchpad

The touchpad is quite good and accurate. The touchpad is small and has a couple of discrete buttons below it. We were able to move our pointer with great accuracy and multi-touch gestures were also very good. The mouse buttons are very nice to click and they did not produce much sound while clicked.

Toshiba Portege Z835 Display

The machine sports a 13.3 inches glossy display which is capable of displaying pictures of resolution measuring 1366×768 pixels. The images produced were sharp and bright. Videos played were also crisp and smooth, but when put side by side with MacBook Air, the screen looked very much colorless. Viewing angles were also great and till 60 degrees, the colors rendered were sharp and crisp.

Toshiba Portege Z835 Audio

The speakers of Portege Z835 produce loud and accurate audio. While hearing songs, we got the music quite clear and the Wavemaxx audio software helps to improve the quality of sound. The music is loud enough to fill a small room and we were impressed by the audio quality of the machine.

Toshiba Portege Z835 Specs

Let us look at some of the specifications of Toshiba Portege Z835

• Processor: 1.4 GHz  Intel Core i3-2367M
• OS: MS Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
• RAM: 4GB, can be upgraded to 8GB
• HDD: 128GB
• Display Size: 13.3 inches
• Display Resolution: 1366×768 pixels
• Video Memory: 64MB
• Touchpad Size: 3.3×2 inches
• Size:  12.4 x 8.9 x 0.3 – 0.6 inches
• Weight: 2.4 pounds

Toshiba Portege Z835 Features

The laptop features a complete set of connections which means that you do not require adapters of cables. On the right side of the machine you a get a USB 3.0 port and a Kensington lock slot. On the back you get a standard Ethernet port and a couple of USB 2.0 ports, a HDMI output and a full sized VGA port. On the left side you get an audio in/out jacks and an SD card reader.

The machine also features an 1.3MP camera which produces a decent image quality under good lighting conditions. However in low light, the images are weak and we found the images on our face blocky and shadowed. In direct sunlight, the details were quite sharp and crisp. With 128 GB of SSD, the machine boots Windows 7 Home Premium in just 26 seconds.

Toshiba Portege Z835 Heat

The machine remained fairly cool in our test. Even after streaming a full screen video for 20 minutes, we found the touchpad to remain cool. The ultrabook remains quite cool when kept on lap.

Toshiba Portege Z835 Performance

With 1.4GHz Intel Core i3-2367M processor and Intel HD graphics, Portege Z835 performs quite well. It is good enough for watching HD movies. The drive however, suffers from poor writing speeds and we felt that the drive speed could have been better. The machine however did well while crunching videos.

Toshiba Portege Z835 Graphics

The notebook is equipped with integrated Intel HD graphics chip which is great for playing 1080p movies on screen. But when it comes to handling of more graphics intensive apps, then the notebook disappoints. The machine is good while playing ordinary games but by no means it is a gaming laptop.

Toshiba Portege Z835 Battery Life

In our laptop battery test, the battery of Portege Z835 lasted for over 6 hours in which we continuously surfed over Wi-Fi. The battery of the machine is sealed one, so you do not need to worry about carrying spare battery.

Toshiba Portege Z835 Software

The machine is equipped with several software. Some of the inbuilt software are as follows

• Toshiba ReelTime
• Bulletin Board
• Toshiba Webcam
• Toshiba Media Controller
• Toshiba Face Recognition
• Intel Wireless Display Software

Toshiba Portege Z835 Price

Toshiba Portege Z835 price in the USA is approximately $ 900. Portege Z835 is one of the best ultrabook and a great under $ 1000 option. The robust battery life, full sized ports are some of the great features of the machine. If you are looking for a lightweight machine which boasts of great portability, then Portege Z835 can very well be the machine for you.