Toshiba Portege R830 (Core i5 2410M Processor 2.

3GHz, 4GB RAM)

by Dan Ackerman | 12 April 2011 7:20pm SGT With three more hours of battery life over last year's model, Toshiba's new R800 series of Portege laptops are hard to beat, even in the highly competitive 13-inch laptop category. The Sports new Intel Core i5 CPU; Sharp design; Nearly all-day battery life good Integrated graphics are still not gamer-friendly; Bluetooth and mobile broadband are The bad missing from some configs Review Specs Images (8)

CNET Editors' Rating

4 star

Average User Rating

0 star Join the conversation I Own it 83 I Want it 42 Not for me 16

CNET Editors' rating

4 stars

Rating breakdown
o

Based on: Design, Features, Performance and Support: 8.0

Any laptop reviewer has a handful of go-to systems ready to recommend at a moment's notice. Recent favorites include Apple's latest MacBook Pros and HP's AMD-powered Pavilion dm1. One of our favorites from last year was Toshiba's Portege R700 series. At the time we said, "The quest for the perfect laptop is ultimately fruitless....That said, the new Toshiba Portege R700 comes about as close as anything we've seen this year, offering a great mix of price, design, features, and performance." Over time, however, the R700 lost some of its luster, as newer laptops moved to Intel's second generation of Core i-series CPUs, which promised better performance and longer battery life. Fortunately, Toshiba is ready with a new Portege series, this time called the R800. Nearly physically identical to the R700, the new models add current-gen Intel CPUs, along with USB 3.0, while keeping the same magnesium alloy chassis and thin, lightweight design. The biggest surprise is the vastly improved battery life, topping 7 hours, and beating even the 13-inch MacBook Pro. A few different configurations include or exclude Bluetooth or Intel's Wireless Display technology, or drop to a slower Core i3 processor, so check the features list carefully. Editors' note:

This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Do check directly with your local distributor for details.

Design
Much like last year's R700 series, the R830 has a subtle dark blue tint to its brushed-metal magnesium alloy chassis. The body feels sturdy despite its light weight, but this is not nearly as thin as Samsung's Series 9 or the MacBook Air--both of which are much more expensive. Sadly, this new version keeps the one visual element we disliked last time: The overly chromed screen hinges, which just look cheap. Specifications Toshiba Portege R830 Price as review S$2,199 (US$1,766.83) Processor 2.3GHz Intel Core i5 2410M Memory 4GB, 1,333MHz DDR3 Hard drive 500GB 5,400rpm Chipset Intel HM65 Graphics Intel HD 3000 (integrated) Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) Dimensions (W x D) 315 x 226mm Height 18 - 28 mm Screen size (diagonal) 13.3 inches System weight (with AC adapter) 1.45kg (1.77kg) Category Thin-and-light The keyboard, like most current consumer laptop keyboards, uses flat, widely spaced islandstyle keys, except these keys are slightly more rectangular than most, which may throw off touch typists. This does, however, leave more room for the oversized touchpad, which is close to what you'd see on a MacBook, except with a pair of large standalone left and right mouse buttons. Toshiba's keyboards typically have a vertical row of dedicated page-up, page-down, home, and end keys along the right side. This makes them easy to find, but at the same time pushes the Enter and Right Shift keys in from where you'd instinctively expect them to be. Media control buttons, volume, mute, etc., can also be hard to find, relegated to alternate F-key assignments and indicated on dark gray on black keys. Like the R700, the R830 lacks a backlit keyboard; for this price it should be a standard feature. Despite these flaws, the R830 still offers an excellent overall typing and touch pad experience.

Features

Returning for the second year is a handful of custom Toshiba software utilities. ReelTime displays recent documents and Web pages in thumbnail form along the bottom of the screen, and Bulletin Board combines photos and notes in a single workspace. Both are slick, usable programs, but they're proprietary and require a time investment in learning them, which you may not want to bother with unless you're dedicated to using only Toshiba computers.

Average for category (Thin-andlight) Video VGA plus HDMI VGA plus HDMI or DisplayPort Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone Stereo speakers, Audio jacks headphone/microphone jacks One USB 2.0, one USB 3.0, one USB Data Three USB 2.0, SD card reader 2.0/eSATA, SD card reader Expansion None None Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Networking Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi optional mobile broadband Optical DVD burner DVD burner drive Toshiba Portege R830 The 13.3-inch LED display has a native resolution of 1,366 x 768 pixels--roughly comparable with the MacBook's 1,280 x 800 pixels, but less than the 1,440 x 900-pixel 13-inch display found in the 13-inch MacBook Air. Though bright, the off-axis viewing angles on the R830 weren't great, and we've never been impressed with the onboard audio in the Portege laptops.

Performance And Battery Life

Our configuration of the R830 included a fast Intel Core i5 processor; other configurations trade down to a Core i3, but also include Bluetooth, WiMax, and Intel's Wireless Display, for beaming video signals to an external display (via a sold-separately HDMI receiver). It can be confusing to mix and match among them, so make sure the model you're looking at has the features and components you want. With a 2.3GHz Intel Core i5 2410M, 4GB of RAM,and a 640GB 5,400rpm hard drive, our Portege R830 ran slightly behind the newest Sandy Bridge Core i5 MacBook Pro, by a small amount in single-app tests, but by a larger margin in our multitasking test. Both outperformed the 13.3-inch Samsung 9 Series, which also has a new Intel CPU, but of the low-voltage variety. While the Series 9 is thinner and all-around sexier, the Portege R830 was much faster than the Samsung in all of our tests. It's also worth noting that you could almost buy two Portege R830 laptops for the cost of a single Samsung Series 9. The latest Intel integrated graphics are better than those from last year, but that still won't make this a great option as a dedicated gaming machine. In our older Unreal Tournament III test, the game ran at 63.9 frames per second at 1,366 x 768 pixels, which is respectable. But in a newer game, Street Fighter IV, we got 27 frames per second at the same resolution, just short of playable.

Multimedia multitasking test (in seconds) (Shorter bars indicate better performance) 13.3-inch Apple MacBook Pro (Core i5 Sandy Bridge 2.3GHz processor) 239 Toshiba Portege R830 599 Asus U31JG-A1 651 Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T 992 Samsung 9 Series 13.3-inch 1,094 Adobe Photoshop CS3 image-processing test (in seconds) (Shorter bars indicate better performance) 13.3-inch Apple MacBook Pro (Core i5 Sandy Bridge 2.3GHz processor) 78 Toshiba Portege R830 90 Asus U31JG-A1 103 Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T 135 Samsung 9 Series 13.3-inch 139 Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds) (Shorter bars indicate better performance) 13.3-inch Apple MacBook Pro (Core i5 Sandy Bridge 2.3GHz processor) 99 Toshiba Portege R830 120 Asus U31JG-A1 134 Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T 167 Samsung 9 Series 13.3-inch 226 Battery life is really where the Portege R830 shines. Last year's R700 model ran for 3 hours 56 minutes on our video playback battery drain test, which was decent, but not spectacular. Thanks, we suspect, to Intel's more efficient new processors, the R800 series model ran for 7 hours 1 minute, beating even the 13-inch MacBook Pro (if only by 19 minutes). Many laptops claim long battery life in this ballpark, but that's typically under a series of unrealistic power conditions designs to fudge the numbers. That makes our results even more impressive, as our battery test can be especially grueling.

Video playback battery drain test (in minutes) (Longer bars indicate better performance) Toshiba Portege R830 421 13.3-inch Apple MacBook Pro (Core i5 Sandy Bridge 2.3GHz processor) 402 Samsung 9 Series 13.3-inch 322 Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T 280 Asus U31JG-A1 232 System configurations: Toshiba Portege R830 Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.3GHz Intel Core i5 2410M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 64MB (dedicated)/1,696MB (total) Intel GMA HD; 640GB Hitachi 5,400rpm Samsung 9 Series Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 1.4GHz Intel Core i5 2537M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 64MB (dedicated) Intel GMA HD; 128GB Samsung SSD Asus U31JG-A1 Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.53GHz Intel Core i3 380M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,066MHz; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 415M + 64MB (dedicated) Intel GMA HD; 500GB Seagate 5,400rpm 13.3-inch Apple MacBook Pro (Core i5 Sandy Bridge 2.3GHz processor) OS X 10.6.6 Snow Leopard; 2.3GHz Intel Core i5; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 384MB (shared) Intel HD 3000; 320GB Hitachi 5,400rpm Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 1.46GHz Intel Core i7 680UM; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,066MHz; 128MB (dedicated) Intel GMA HD; 500GB Western Digital 5,400rpm

Service And Support

Toshiba includes an industry-standard one-year parts and labor warranty with the system. Support is accessible through a 24/7 phone line, and a customized support search page can direct you to online documents and driver downloads for this specific model.

Latest comments
I bought my Toshiba Portege R830-2073UR in July 2012 at Singapore's Funan Center, Notebook.com. I was told that the battery last for about hours. Ended up, it lasted only about 3 hours even when using the "ECO" scheme. Then in late november 2012, which is only about 4 months later, one USB driver suddenly went bonkers -

sometimes work, sometimes don't. Then a week later, my keyboard's letter "T" couldn't be used. And today, when I insert the mouse, the mouse's light is there, but the cursor doesn't move at all. TOSHIBA LAPTOP IS GIVING ME LOTS OF PROBLEMS!!! And it is expensive too! Posted by junetan7 Dec 15, 2012