Toshiba refreshes Portégé Ultrabook line-up - hands on

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Toshiba has announced a brand new range of business Ultrabooks to expand its Portégé and Tecra families.

Styled after its flagship Z930 laptop, the range will cover 13in, 14in, and 15in models called the Portégé Z30, Tecra Z40 and Tecra Z50 respectively. The 13in Z30 will also be available with a touchscreen (the Z30t).

We were lucky enough to get an early look at these devices to bring you our hands-on impressions.

All of them look remarkably similar thanks to their gunmetal grey magnesium alloy chassis, but none of them are anywhere near as thin as the ultra slim Z930. This is partly due to their wider range of connectivity features, including docking ports on the rear of the chassis and Smart Card slots along the side, but even the 15in Z50 model is surprisingly light to hold. We were told it weighs just 1.79kg, which is considerably lighter than other 15in Ultrabooks we've seen like the Dell Inspiron 15z.

Elsewhere, you'll find three USB3 ports, VGA and HDMI outputs, an SD card slot, a Gigabit Ethernet port and optional 4G mobile broadband across all models, ensuring there's plenty of connectivity options while you're on the move. There will also be the option to have Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 Pro pre-installed.

The Z series will also have the latest Intel Haswell processors, ranging from Core i3 to Core i7 specifications, and up to 16GB of RAM for a huge boost in speed and performance power. This should also dramatically increase the battery life of each laptop thanks to Haswell's aggressive low voltage consumption, and we were also told to expect battery lives of up to 12 hours on the Z40.

Each display will have a matt finish, including the touch-enabled Z30t, which will have a matt film placed over the glossy touchscreen to help combat reflections. This is quite unusual for a touchscreen laptop, but unfortunately we weren't able to see how this film might affect the screen's overall image quality.

The Z30t and Z50 will also be available with 1,920x1,080 resolutions, while the Z40's display will reach up to 1,600x900. Our only major concern was how limited the viewing angles were, as contrast levels shifted quite dramatically when we changed the angle of each screen. This shouldn't be too much of an issue when you're working on it in the office, but it may prove problematic if you only have limited space on a crowded train or long flight.

Toshiba's new Z series of Portégé Ultrabooks is certainly an impressive range of business laptops, but their respective prices will be key to ensuring their success. Pricing hasn't yet been finalised, but we were told to expect something in the region of the Z930, which currently retails from £850 right up to £1800 depending on its specification. Toshiba expect to launch its new Ultrabooks before the end of the year, so we'll be sure to bring you our final verdict as soon as possible.

Andoid Games