Toshiba Portege Z835-P330 13.3″ Laptop (Intel Core i3-2367M Processor, 4 GB RAM, 128 GB SATA Solid State Drive, Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit)

I actually purchased both the Toshiba Z830 and the Asus UX31 so I could decide for myself which one I liked the best. Both come with a 128GB solid-state hard drive and 4GB RAM. The Asus has an i5 processor while the Toshiba (which costs $100-200 less) has an i3 processor. Here’s what I liked and what I didn’t like:

Appearance
The Asus with its spiral design is gorgeous. The Toshiba is boring gun-metal gray with sharp corners.
Winner: Asus

Weight
The Asus is heavier than the Toshiba by a half-pound. As a result, the Toshiba’s display has some flex to it and will wobble if the laptop is bumped. In the end, however, I can deal with this. That half-pound is something I can really feel when I’m carrying the laptop around.
Winner: Toshiba

Speed
The i5 processor in the Asus easily beats the i3 processor in the Toshiba I purchased. Of course, you always have the option of purchasing a Toshiba online with the faster processor.
Winner: Asus

Touchpad
The Asus I purchased came with a Sentelic touchpad. The latest driver (ver. 9177) stinks and results in the mouse jumping all over the place. I finally had to uninstall it and rely on the built-in Windows 7 touchpad driver (which meant I had to give up gestures like scrolling). Newer versions of the UX31 apparently ship with a far improved Elan touchpad. The touchpad on my Toshiba is significantly smaller with shiny chrome buttons that pick up fingerprints but it’s so far superior to the Sentelic in terms of its functionality. Furthermore, there’s a button just about the Toshiba touchpad that allows you to enable or disable it.
Winner: Toshiba

Keyboard
Too many times, I found I had to hit keys on the Asus multiple times before I got them to register. Not so on the Toshiba. Furthermore, the Toshiba’s keyboard is wider which allows it to have dedicated Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys on the far right. On the Asus, I have to hold down the FN key. Finally, the Toshiba’s keyboard is backlit, a very nice touch.
Winner: Toshiba

Display
The Asus has a gorgeous 1600×900 resolution screen. The Toshiba comes with a commonplace 1366×768 display.
Winner: Asus

Ports
The Toshiba has built-in connections for Ethernet, external VGA monitor, and HDMI. The Asus ships with dongles for Ethernet and VGA but requires you to purchase a micro-HDMI adapter separately. Furthermore, the Toshiba has 1 USB3 port and 2 USB2 ports while the Asus only has 1 and 1. Obviously, the Toshiba wins hands down for its plentiful built-in ports.
Winner: Toshiba

AC Adapter
The Asus AC adapter is small and lovingly designed. The Toshiba adapter is bulky and unwieldy by comparison.
Winner: Asus

System indicator lights
The Toshiba has an entire array of useful indicator lights just below the touchpad. The Asus has a couple spread across the keyboard.
Winner: Toshiba

Accessories
The Asus ships with a padded sleeve. The Toshiba doesn’t.
Winner: Asus

Heat and Fan Noise
With an updated BIOS in each machine, heat and fan noise was not a problem for me.
Winner: Tie

Speakers
Both sets of speakers are nice and loud, but the Asus Bang & Olufsen speakers sound better.
Winner: Asus

Battery
The Toshiba edged out the Asus by about an hour or so.
Winner: Toshiba

The Toshiba Z830/Z835 is easily my laptop of choice. Granted, it’s slower than the Asus, but not noticeably considering how I plan to use it.

-Only an i3. We don’t plan on doing any heavy lifiting on this laptop, as long as it plays Netflix fine, we’ll be okay.
-Incredibly light. Almost too light for the size. But solid feeling.
-Keyboard backlight isn’t too bright or too dim. Was a big factor for me personally, I want a backlight in my keyboard.
-Keyboard is just about perfect for both of us. It’s about as wide as can be. Not too shallow.

Reviews I’ve seen have mentioned flimsy hinges (not a factor given the way we open and close by default), poor color quality (haven’t noticed anything odd, again, main use is just internet browsing/movie watching), slow SSD (as far as I’m concerned it’s better than a HDD).

The keyboard on this ultrabook is slightly recessed, you can see it in sideshots. When the lid is closed, it does flex some due to that gap. I don’t think it’s a big deal but it’s definitely something to be aware of.

At night when there’s no other noise, the low-pitched hum of the fan *really* gets to me. When I have the fan by my ear, the fan sounds normal, but when it’s on my lap, it’s just… the pitch or the volume or something is just right to where it annoys me.

To its credit, I haven’t yet felt the wristrest/keyboard area get warm.

I was very close to picking up an ASUS ultrabook that looked amazing before I decided to head over to my local electronics place and try it out for myself. After not being a fan of the ASUS keyboard and trackpad, I decided to try this ultrabook out.

Pros
–The keyboard and trackpad are great. Both components have a really nice feel to them. The backlit keyboard looks very catchy, and gives a nice level of feedback.
–Super lightweight. Very sleek look to it. I LOVE the look and feel.
–Battery life is pretty good for such a tiny system.
–Fast! Although other reviewers have mentioned they aren’t doing much heavy-lifting on this ultrabook, and neither am I. I guess if you’re crunching huge numbers of datasets, this might not be the unit for you. (To that other reviewer, what does “heavy word-processing” mean? Does that mean having 40 documents open, or typing at 500 words per minute, or what?)
–Has a USB 3.0 port, which is great because it’s something like 10x as fast as USB 2.0

Cons
–no optical drive. While software is increasingly available online, this may pose an issue to someone not prepared for this. It is compatible with most external CD/DVD drives.
–”annoying hum” is pretty accurate. The fan is constantly whirring. I usually lay on my bed while browsing, and just breathing moves the ultrabook up/down makes the whirring pitch change, which isn’t nice.
–integrated graphics card. That probably sounds neat, but that just means the graphics card is built into the motherboard… which means it’s lower-performing. Not great for gamers.
–lacks the neat features that Lenovo offers (laptop “airbag”, fingerprint reader, etc)

In general, I still think this is a 5 star item. I love the price and for such a lightweight and tiny laptop, I think Toshiba did a fantastic job. Glad I bought one (and another for my mom).

The Portege Z835 has treated me quite well as an ultrabook on the cheaper side. I bought it for my aunt and used it for a while before ultimately giving it to her (as a computer enthusiast, gamer, and programmer, I wanted to make sure it was as good as it seemed), and it definitely was a good choice.

Performance:
The computer is, as you might expect from the specs of the computer, fast. The 128GB SSD ensures that programs open almost instantly, and while the processor, the intel core i3 model, is on the lower end of Intel’s line of processors, it is still zippy and over 2 times as fast as the last generation core 2 duo processors. The combination of that with a generous 4GB of ram make this ultrabook respond very well, so long as you aren’t doing anything particularly strenuous like gaming, which this computer really isn’t designed for. If you want to watch movies, listen to music, do text editing, and the like, this laptop is pretty great. It’s also quiet in all those cases, too. I haven’t tried playing any games on it–if I get the opportunity, I’ll edit this post with that info.

Battery life is excellent. In normal use it doesn’t reach 8 hours like Toshiba claims, but more like 6 is a reasonable estimate. That’s pretty great for what is packed inside the laptop. Finally, it’s reliable. I never had it crash on me or overheat. Excellent.

Weight/build:
This thing is LIGHT. Just like many other ultrabooks you may have seen, this is among the lightest 13″ computers I’ve ever seen. I can’t wait for the day that every laptop is this light. It also feels reasonably well built. While the hinge of the laptop tends to wobble a little bit, it isn’t much of an issue and doesn’t make me feel less secure about the laptop’s structural integrity.

Peripherals:
The webcam is pretty average, but that isn’t a deal-breaker at all. the keyboard feels more or less solid, although while the keys are normal sied they are spaced out a bit too much so i wish the individual keys were a little bigger (not a big deal, but just something I noticed). The trackpad is very basic–don’t expect fancy multitouch features. That being said it works quite reliably since it doesn’t rely on weird trackpad buttons or finnicky multitouch gestures (you got us there, Apple!). Ports are fantastic for an ultrabook–lots of USB slots, HDMI to hook up monitors, a card reader. This blows away most of the competition’s port selection.

Conclusion:
While other laptops may feel more solid or look more aesthetically pleasing than this one, this ultrabook beats most of them out on price. Definitely look around for this laptop around the internet to see what’s the lowest price you can snag–if you’re in the market for an ultrabook, you can score this cheaper than the rest and have a really solid experience with it.

I bought this ultrabook today at bestbuy. Our location was closing so everything was 20% off. The product at bestbuy is usually $799.99 but I was able to get the ultrabook for $639.20 because of the 20% off store closing sale. I didn’t know what to expect because I was not planning on buying this brand or type of computer. I knew I wanted an ultrabook because I needed something small and light to carry but larger than a tablet, which would allow me to write papers and do my online class work for college. Well, I know I’ve only had this for about 7 hours, but I love it. It’s sleek, slim, and fast. It is so light and does everything I need. The only thing I miss is a CD drive, but I’m going to buy an external if I really need it at some point.

Overall it’s wonderful. I love the backlit keyboard, ease of use, and how quickly it connects to my wireless network. If you can find a sale as I did I don’t think you can find a better value. I’ll try to update this review in a couple of weeks and see how everything is going.