Toshiba Satellite U920t Premier Series Convertible Ultrabook Review (Updated!)

*Updated as of 13th December 2012 - Originally published as a hands-on article on 22nd October, we've spent much time with this convertible Ultrabook to upgrade the article to a full review with a rating. For those who've read our article previously, you can jump direct to our Performance page.

Toshiba's Premium Convertible Ultrabook

"Touch", is the name of the game these days, thanks to the extremely touch-friendly Windows 8 operating system. We’ve seen existing Ultrabooks updated with touch panels, but there are also some Ultrabooks with peculiar form factors, such as the Dell XPS 12, Sony Vaio Duo 11 and Lenovo Ideapad Yoga. Of the few convertible Ultrabooks we’ve seen so far, the 12.5-inch Toshiba Satellite U920t’s form factor is the closest to that of the Sony Duo 11. They both sport the sliding form factor first seen on the ASUS Slider, with the basic premise being the same.

The keyboard and touchscreen, are held together with a sliding mechanism which lets you slide the screen out to reveal the keyboard when you need to do some serious typing. However, the method in which the screen slides out is different. The Sony Vaio Duo 11’s "Surf Slider" mechanism opens up in one smooth motion, allowing the screen to be propped up in one angle. And because of the way the sliding mechanism is built, there isn’t enough space for a trackpad.

Toshiba's Sliding Mechanism

The Toshiba U920t on the other hand, uses a completely different method of sliding the screen out. There seems to be quite a bit of space dedicated to the sliding mechanism, and it is probably responsible for its 19.9mm thickness and 1.45kg weight. From it’s tablet form, you’ve got to push the screen out fully, before tilting the screen up. It requires two actions to set up, but it also has its advantages. Unlike the Vaio Duo 11, the U920t is able to have its screen up at almost any angle. You can have the screen flat down, fully tilted at almost 90 degrees or any other angle in between them. This is thanks to the rail mechanism that Toshiba has implemented on the U920t.

There are a total of three rails on the screen itself. The two with teeth on the left and right of the screen hold a metal bar, connected to the stabilizer rail in the middle of the screen. We haven’t seen this implementation anywhere else as yet, but this method seems to be quite stiff. That means whichever angle the screen is up at, it won’t be wobbly. However the unit we have for review is fairly new. So whether or not this method of sliding the screen will hold up when used repeatedly is still too early to tell.

One problem we noticed is that because the middle stabilizer rail is quite tight (so that the screen won’t flex and wobble much when sliding), it has very close contact with the display. It presses against the display during the sliding motion, and causes a slight but visible distortion on the area in which it is pressing against. Again, while it didn’t cause any problems during our time with the review unit, we can’t say for certain if it will have any long term effects on the unit's display. Also take note that while the screen is in transition to laptop mode, the trackpad and keyboard can’t be used, even if they are exposed. It’s only when the screen is locked into place can you start using the keyboard and trackpad.

Build Quality

The Toshiba Satellite U920t might be a new design from Toshiba, but the build quality of the convertible tablet is very similar to that of Toshiba’s other Ultrabooks. It is made of the same materials (mostly plastic), which are even of the same brown and grey color schemes we've seen in recent times. Even though its mostly plastic, it doesn’t feel cheap, because the plastic used is quite rigid. And when the keyboard is tucked underneath the screen to provide a tablet form, the sliding mechanism holds the screen tightly down to the keyboard. This allows you to hold the U920t however you please, without any parts flexing or feeling loose. When the unit is fully open to reveal a notebook form, the entire unit holds together pretty well too. We tried shaking it, but the solid hinges and teethed rails hold everything together.

 

Screen

As you’d expect from most tablets these days, the glass protecting the display, is Gorilla Glass. This means it’s tough and scratch resistant, but it also means that the 12.5-inch glossy screen will pick up fingerprints very easily, especially since it’s meant to be touched constantly. We’re also quite disappointed that Toshiba opted to put a 1366 x 768 pixels resolution display on the U920t. This decision was probably made to keep the cost (thus price) of the unit to a reasonable figure. But again, Toshiba isn’t exactly known to make cheap notebooks, so a higher resolution display here would have given consumers much better value. The saving grace is that its an IPS panel with 300 nits brightness and since the screen is on the smaller side, its given resolution may just suffice.

 

Keyboard

The only other part of the machine that gives away its price range, is its keyboard. Like other Toshiba Ultrabooks, the plastic keyboard well has some flex on it. Thankfully, it doesn’t affect typing very much. The keys, while bouncy, are also very shallow, likely to keep the unit as thin as possible. And of course, it isn’t the greatest keyboard we’ve encountered on a notebook, but we’re quite pleased to see that it’s backlit - a premium feature often overlooked by some notebook manufacturers.

Trackpad

With its “rail” sliding mechanism, Toshiba is also able to fit in a trackpad at its usual place below the keyboard. However the sliding mechanism does take up quite a bit of space at the rear, which explains why the trackpad on the U920t is so tiny. But of course, having a trackpad is better than no trackpad. Here, the trackpad quality is exactly the same as the Satellite series of Ultrabooks. It’s sensitive, and has a satisfying click to give you some tactile feedback while using it.

Ports, Switches and Speakers

In terms of connectivity, the Satellite U920t isn’t going to blow anyone away. It’s got the usual twin USB 3.0 ports, and a HDMI port, but that’s all you’re going to get. This is unlike the Sony Duo 11, which even has a RJ45 and a VGA port despite its size. And lastly, for folks wondering if the speakers are any good, the speakers on the U920t are fairly adequate, like any other premium Ultrabook. You definitely can’t expect any quality audio or even satisfying bass, but the speakers are loud enough so you don’t have to strain your ears, even in a big room.

Performance Benchmarking

When the Satellite U920t isn't working part-time as a tablet, it also doubles up as an Ultrabook PC. And as such, it has all of the components that you'd associate with an Ultrabook, like its consumer-ultra-low-voltage processor to its 128GB SSD. We've picked a few similarly decked out Windows 8 touchscreen Ultrabooks, as well as the Intel reference Ultrabook (running Windows 7) to give you a gauge on its performance. In this line-up, the machines have identical processors, save for the Intel Ivy Bridge reference notebook, which is clocked slightly higher. Most of them also sport solid-state-drives (SSD), while the less premium Samsung Series 5 Ultra Touch, and HP Envy 4 Touchsmart Ultra have mechanical drives supported by a small solid state cache. 

PCMark 7

Previous PCMark 7 charts have consistently shown that notebooks with SSDs tend to fare better, no doubt thanks to their excellent read/write performance over mechanical disk drives. That pretty much explains the Satellite U920t's advantage over the non-SSD machines. However, the non-SSD machines in this comparison are also equipped with solid state caches, which reduces the performance gap. They aren't as fast as notebooks with SSDs like the Satellite U920t, but are fast enough for daily usage. The only times you will feel a tangible difference is when the operating system is busy loading files (be it the OS or heavy-weight programs starting up) and during files transfers.

3D Mark 11

In our 3D Mark 11 benchmark, you can see that what ever advantages the Satellite U920t has over the non-SSD notebooks do not apply. All of the notebooks here utilize the onboard Intel HD 4000 graphics engine, which explains the very similar scores. The only difference is the slightly higher clock speed on the Intel reference Ultrabook, but that didn't give it much of an edge.

Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2 is currently our go-to game for checking out the gaming capabilities of the notebooks we benchmark. This should give readers a better gauge on how a notebook performs in a real-life scenario. Here, the Toshiba notebook managed to keep up with the other Ultrabooks in gaming performance. Only the Intel reference Ultrabook and Samsung Series 5 Ultra touch managed to fare better, but not by an amount that would make much of a difference. That's because all of the notebooks rely on the onboard Intel HD 4000 graphics. Since the Satellite U920t isn't exactly built to be a gaming machine, the Intel HD 4000 graphics unit would be more than capable to get you past casual Windows 8 Store games (assuming you are willing to fork out the $5 for Angry Birds Star Wars or other such games) without any problems at all.

Batter Life and Portability Index

The very premise of an Ultrabook revolves around how portable they are. One crucial aspect about portability it battery life and it plays a big part in determining an Ultrabook's worth. Each of the notebooks compared here have the same processor (with onboard graphics), but other components vary from model to model. There is no right or wrong configuration, because each one caters to different usage patterns. For example, increased battery capacity can give you a better battery life (if all other aspects remain constant), but normally, this is accompanied by a proportional gain in weight. As such, one would have to choose their priorities appropriately to get the best out of their intended notebook. In the case of the Toshiba Satellite U920t, because of the added weight of the touchscreen and its sliding mechanism brings, Toshiba opted to equip the notebook with a much smaller battery pack to keep the overall weight of the machine in check. It is however not lighter than the smaller convertible Ultrabook from Sony, the Vaio Duo 11 which tips the scale at just 1.3kg.

In our Powermark benchmark (ran with audio and brightness set to 50%, and all wireless communications turned off), the Satellite U920t managed to get a battery up-time of 181 minutes, which is pretty impressive for its smaller than usual battery capacity. This is most likely due to the lower power consumption of the machine, which is close to the ideal power consumption achieved by the Intel reference Ultrabook.

Portability Index

The Toshiba Satellite U920t is the lightest machine out of the machines we're pitting against. However as we established earlier, it has a smaller battery capacity, which directly impacts its battery life. In our portability index, the battery life, weight and dimensions of the mobile device come together to determine if it's worth your effort to lug the machine around.

Stacking the Toshiba convertible Ultrabook against the competition we've lined up, its portability index is on par with the Samsung Series 5 Ultra Touch notebook, but pales in comparison to Lenovo's Ideapad Yoga, as well as the Intel reference Ultrabook. In the end, its mobility is just about average.

The more compact Sony Vaio Duo 11 naturally fared a lot better with a ratio greater than 3.1 because of its light weight and compact dimensions. Normally, we wouldn't be comparing two devices of a different size, but given that they are targeted the same consumer group with not much physical difference in size, comparisons are inevitable and the question then arises if the larger sceen size of the U920t is of any use. Unfortunately for Toshiba, its non full HD screen is a setback.

Is the Slider Worth It?

The 1.45kg, 19.9mm thick 12.5-inch Toshiba Satellite U920t is a pretty decent convertible Ultrabook. It is based off a standard compute platform that you've come to expect from purebred Ultrabooks (Intel Core i5-3317U processor, 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD). When compared against other premium Ultrabooks, the Satellite U920t's performance didn't stand out, but it didn't exactly disappoint either.

One area which we found that the U920t could do better is battery life. To keep the weight of the machine manageable for these new class of convertible notebooks, Toshiba equipped the U920t with a rather small battery capacity. Thanks to its lean power consumption, it managed a decent battery up-time. However, compared to true Ultrabook machines which are equipped with larger battery packs, the Satellite u920t is some ways behind. It's not alone as the Sony Vaio Duo 11 is also in the same boat. Clearly, these machines are designed with a different usage pattern in mind, so you would have to be bear this in mind when forking out the dough for these convertible Ultrabooks.

But of course, the biggest selling point of a convertible Ultrabook isn't its performance (since the processing prowess is more or less the same), but it's the fact that you can also use it as a tablet. And like typical tablets out in the market right now, it comes equipped with sensors like an Ambient Light Sensor (ALS), Accelerometer, Magnetometer and Gyroscope. While it’s not slimmest tablet you can find in the market, it does its primary job very well, which is to allow you to fully experience Windows 8 with all input options (keyboard, trackpad and touchscreen).

Due to the convertible notebook design where its screen is permanently attached to its keyboard (and that it's larger than the usual 10-inch tablet), the overall weight of the machine will wear you down when you’re using it as a tablet. As such, you can forget about using the tablet one-handed. In fact, when when we tried using the U920t that way, we could only do so very briefly (less than a minute), before cradling it in both hands. The way we see it, the only comfortable way you could use the Toshiba U920t in tablet mode is when it’s resting on the table, or on your lap.

Using it as a notebook though, was a surprisingly good experience. Even though its trackpad is quite small, the fact that you can poke and slide your finger around on the screen more than makes up for it. Rather than sliding the trackpad around, all you have to do is interact with the screen, which is just a few more centimeters away. Given how the screen rests pretty much next to where the keyboard begins, reaching out to the screen is much closer and easier than a standard notebook with a touch-enabled screen (like the Samsung Series 5 Ultra Touch). You might think we're quite lazy, but it's all these small details that make or break touch UI usability.

Apart from usability matters, the overall build of the notebook has pros and cons. As a whole, it has a pretty good construction (albeit mostly plastic), save for its keyboard that exhibited quite a bit of flex. The ability to prop the screen to a preferred angle is a plus point for flexibility, but it comes at a price where the overall sliding motion to convert from one state to another is nowhere as smooth as the Sony Vaio Duo 11. Further to that, the screen does exhibit stress when the stabilizer behind it comes in contact with the rear of the display, thus causing distortion momentarily. At this point of time, we cannot tell if this will lead to any undesirable long term effects as only time will tell.

With an asking price of S$2099 for the Toshiba Satellite U920t, it's quite a steep price point and you don't even get a full HD screen, nor do you get a premium feel of the product. For the most part, you're indeed paying a quantum sum to be an early adopter to enjoy a convergence device like the U920t and the extra engineering that goes behind the scenes over a  regular touch-based Ultrabook. The other biting point is that it goes up against strong competitors which offer better features or build for a similar price points (depending on what you focus upon).

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