It’s crunch time. I’ve been without a decent notebook for months and with CES fast approaching, I need to make a decision. I have a short-list of Ultrabooks and because there’s no-one in this room to discuss it with, I’m going to talk to myself.
Why Ultrabook?
I’ve tested three devices on the ultra-low voltage 2nd-gen Core platform so far and I really like what I see. The dynamic range of processing is just what I need; Quick Sync Video is the solution for my on-the-go video crunching and upload tasks, 1080p video playback is going to be great for home use and at around the 1KG mark, it meets my portability requirements spot-on. 5hrs is the battery life target for average use although anything more than that makes a day on the road less stressful! The Ultrabook platform delivers the perfect balance that I need right now.
This could be the information that many of you were looking for. The SSD Review has given the Toshiba Z830 Ultrabook the editors choice award and retrofitted a 6 Gbps mSATA Runcore T50 SSD to the Ultrabook resulting in huge disk speed increases.
There’s obviously a cost in terms of warranty and parts here but for those that are looking for the ultimate Ultrabook spec, the Z830 looks like the winner.
I want to publicly thank Morgan, @morganmobile who’s just packaged up an Acer S3 and shipped it off from Finland to us here in Germany. Who needs PR people when you’ve got contacts like that! He’s been busy testing a number of solutions and I plan to get his thoughts here in text soon.
We’ll be running the Samsun 900X1B live review on Saturday [details here] and finalizing a written review over the next 3 or 4 days. After that we’ll be getting it together with the Acer S3 for a week. I’ll let you all know about the live session for that.
Once the S3 is out the way we should be lined-up with the Toshiba Z830. I know a lot of you have been waiting for a review of that so my apologies about the delay. It’s expected within the next 2 weeks. As for the Lenovo U300S, I’m working on it. [Any Lenovo PR people out there?]
Along with three other models, the Core i7 variant of the Z830 has surfaced for order in the U.S, with a fingerprint reader but no 256GB SSD option yet.
Following previous announcements in Europe that appear to have held back the Core i7 version of the Toshiba Z830 [seen in testing results] from the shelves, it’s good to know it’s actually available in the U.S.with a max 6GB RAM. It’s dissapointing not to see a 256GB SSD storage option as that could have been a way round the relatively slow 128GB drive. Toshiba doesn’t, as far as we know, have a 256GB in their ‘value’ SSD range so it could have come from a faster family of SSDs. We’ll keep an eye out for that.
While I was researching for the last article, a warning about battery life figures, I came across some very useful information on the Toshiba Z830. They’ve officially submitted BAPCO MobileMark 2007 scores to BAPCO, for Core i3 and Core i7 versions of the Ultrabook, along with some other useful information.
First, lets take a look at the SSD they’re using. It’s a critical part of an Ultrabook. Toshiba have obviously dropped their own part in and it’s a TOSHIBA THNSNB128GMCJ , 128GB, SSD, SATA on the Core i7 model tested and a TOSHIBA THNSNB064GMCJ , 64GB, SSD, SATA on the Core i3 model tested.
Designing an Ultrabook isn’t easy. Tight measurements, strength and heat issues make the designers job tougher than ever but despite that Toshiba have managed to build a 13” laptop with a weight of only 1.1KG, the lightest of all the Ultrabooks.
We talked about some of the design features following a recent meeting with Toshiba but the extra information given in a review with some of the design team reveals even more and gives us the first images of the internals of the Z830. Don’t miss the memory expansion slot!
Evolving from the Dynabook SS series, the Z830 (or Dynabook R631 as it is called locally in Japan) uses a similar low-profile magnesium alloy chassis where a honeycomb structure is added for rigidity.
Toshiba UK, operating independently from West Europe, North America and other regions have had specs, pricing and availability for the Toshiba Z830 available for a few weeks now but, for good measure, (or we suspect, a bit of timely fact regurgitation from The Register) the story is doing the rounds again today.
Toshiba UK already have model names, price and details available (details here) so all you’ll need to do is to wait for the first hands-on and then you can finally make your decision between the 4 Ultrabooks and the Ultrabook alternatives.
Interestingly, one large electronics retailer in Germany is convinced that the Z830 with be available on the 7th November [Conrad]. We’re trying to confirm this and are also looking forward to the Z830 as the first review device here on Ultrabooknews. More details on that in due course.
