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Toshiba Portege R830 (Core i7-2620M 2.7GHz) - It Just Keeps On Going

By Leo Boon Yeow - 27 Sep 2011
Launch SRP: S$2599

Battery Life and Portability Index

Battery Life and Portability Index

Toshiba business machines have recently gotten themselves quite a reputation in terms of battery life. In terms of portability, 2008’s Portege R600 remains our top performer till this day, and so far none of the manufacturers, Toshiba included, have been able to bring it down from its mantle. However, the R830 has an even longer battery life, though it's also about 400 grams heavier than its predecessor. For comparison, we have chosen the MacBook Air - a thin and light notebook with extraordinary battery life (it even beats the R600 when running on OS X), and the Sony Vaio Z, the thinnest and lightest notebook we’ve had in our labs this year.

Battery Life

Our battery life tests consists of playing a DVD loop, with the screen and volume turned down to 50%. We’ve taken scores from the MacBook Air, running on both Windows and OS X Lion, to showcase just how great the Toshiba Portege R830’s battery life is. The Sony Vaio Z is there to show you that even though it is extremely thin, light, and portable, it might not necessarily translate into better battery life. The Portege R830 stayed alive for as long as 281 minutes, that’s just 19 minutes shy of 5 hours (4 hours and 41 minutes, to be exact). Now that is a long time, in the world of Windows notebooks. Even the super portable MacBook Air running on Windows 7 only managed 240 minutes. With that kind of battery life, we imagine that’s plenty of work you can finish unplugged, and out of the office.

Power Consumption

The crux of the Portege’s longevity is the mixture of potent batteries and very low power consumption. At 14.09 watts, it’s not the lowest, but it’s definitely one of the lowest scores we’ve seen. And if you cater for the fact that the Portege R830 runs a 35W Core i7 processor, and the fact that it has to power a DVD player, then we’d have to say that 14.09 watts of power consumption is pretty impressive. Other factors which contribute to the low power consumption are the screen and speakers; they aren't as bright and powerful as we’d like them to be.

We don’t really mind much about the relatively weak display and sound performances, because they don’t matter much for business machines. It’s also not using the trans-reflective type of LCD screen that the R600 had, which can even be used with the LCD backlight turned off.

Portability Index

Like we mentioned before, the reigning champion of the portability index is the Toshiba Portege R600. This is in late 2008, and early 2009, and up till now, its scores haven’t been encroached upon, even by the nasty little beasts we call netbooks. or by the latest Porteges. However, the R830 manages to come pretty close, and we imagine that in a couple of years, when Ultrabooks come to rule the industry, the throne on which the R600 sits on will finally be taken away from it.

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8.5
  • Design 8.5
  • Features 8.5
  • Performance 8
  • Value 8
  • Mobility 9.5
The Good
Slim, lightweight and sturdily built
Built-in optical drive
All-rounded performance
The Bad
Pricey
Average screen quality
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