Toshiba Portege Z835-P360 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Silver)

[Impressions after 2 days of use]

I bought my Portege Z835-360 unit (Core i3, 4GB Ram, 128Gb SSD) on May 26, 2012 for $749.99 which is a very good price (2 weeks later and it's $699.99 already... oh well, technology). I decided not to go more upscale with the specs 'cause there are important compromises made by this and all other Ultrabook models as they all belong to the first round of Ultrabooks ever (Toshiba Portege, HP Folio, Asus Zenbook, Acer Aspire, Dell XPS13,etc.). So more money for better specs (Core i5, 6GB Ram) would not make up for the weaknesses of this model. As reviewers have all stated, Toshiba's is the one that offers the most for connectivity and ports. So that plus a very good experience I've had with my current (or should I say "old") Satellite A505 made my decision not-as-hard as it could have been.

Overall, it is a terrific value.

Nicely priced. I think it is the cheapest Ultrabook around (and I don't mean it the bad way).

Good Built Quality.

Insanely thin and light. I think lightest of all 13-inchers.

Good screen size. I don't perceive it as little or cramped (and I'm coming from a 16" screen)

Full array of ports (1 USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0, full-sized HDMI, Ethernet, VGA, mic and headphone jacks, SD)

Decent sound. C'mon. It's a thin & light 13". Don't expect that much.

Excellent battery life. I haven't drained it yet but it should be over 6 hrs of light use (no watching movies nor playing games).

Aspects that hamper user experience:

Keyboard. This is my biggest complaint. Shallow keys and lack of feedback. I really have to type hard (meaning effort and noise) to have a confident and fast typing. It tires me after a long e-mail. Light years behind the experience when typing in a Sony Vaio.

Fan. It kicks in without me having to do heavy tasks. It just runs every now and then, and has a high-pitch sound. Not that big deal for me, though.

Touchpad. In theory, I like the regular touchpad with the 2 click buttons (at least in other laptops). But in practice, I find the buttons very hard (I mean, very hard) to click on. To left-click, at least I can double tap, but damn it with the the right click... Now, I think a clickpad would have provided a better user experience. Nitpicking, the 2 buttons are very shiny and attract a lot of fingerprints. Plus, they don't go with the design and style. So, why??

Design. Nitpicking again. It is boring (especially compared to the A500, A660, P750 series) and it does look like an 80's laptop.

Hard Drive Size. 128 GB is just not enough. I installed MS Office, Skype and Avast Anti-virus. Only 70 GB left.

About screen. The lid is indeed very thin, flexible and flimsy. I haven't experienced any issues yet. But also, I haven't carried the laptop around or out of the house to really test it. I will soon.

I would highly recommend this Portege Z835 for anyone looking for power on-the-go. At this price point, it is the most attractive offer available.

I hope this review will become useful for anyone looking for an Ultrabook and seriously considering to buy the Portege. Should my impressions change in the following weeks and months after longer-term use, I will update!

So I have been searching for a nice mid-grade ultrabook for a while, and I happened to see this exact model at my local Fry's Electronics store (price was $899). Amazon's price was $799, and strangely Wal-Mart had it for $766, but after adding nearly 10% Arizona sales tax at Wal-Mart, it turned out that Amazon was cheapest since Amazon doesn't charge tax. Even better, all of the local stores were out of stock and I would have needed to wait several days to order a new one (or I could take the display model....yeah, right). Amazon charged me like $9 for SAME DAY delivery.

Anyway, I loved the ultra-thin look of this machine but I think it's possible the unit might be TOO thin (i.e. flimsy). I was very concerned about the other user reviews saying that the screen cracked during normal use and that Toshiba was refusing to honor their warranty. This was ALMOST enough to deter me from making the purchase...but then I did a little research that made me feel a lot better for two reasons.

First, if you're worried about breaking the screen, Amazon sells a 2-year protection package for $99 that will cover physical damage like this. Of course the screen should never break during normal use, but if you're paranoid about it then $99 seems like a small price for that extra peace of mind.

Second, I did some searching and found that you can buy a replacement screen for this laptop for MUCH less than you might think -currently around $75. As it happens my wife broke the screen on her Acer netbook a few years ago, and I was shocked to find that a new screen was only about $45 and replacing it was actually very easy...just remove a few screws and plug the new unit in. People shouldn't be intimidated by this kind of thing...it's not brain surgery!

So, armed with this information I decided that it was worth the risk to buy this ultra-thin ultrabook even though there's a chance the screen might not last that long. If it breaks, then I know I can fix it for about $75, and if it doesn't break, then that's even better.

Having said all this -if the screen cracks during normal use my first call will be to Toshiba. Because I'm an attorney, they are going to have to push back extremely hard for me to accept that the warranty doesn't apply.

Buy Toshiba Portege Z835-P360 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Silver) Now

I got this laptop because bestbuy didn't have the HP Envy 15 or Folio 13, so I was a little disappointed at first. Now...really happy. Great screen, decent keyboard and touchpad, and really thin(thinner than a pencil even when it is closed). I thought the core i3 would be slow but nothing noticeable. I love the facial recognition too(scans your face and logs you in). The three cosmetic issues I have are 1) the screen bezel is a little thick at the top(around an inch), 2) the camera is pretty large and noticeable, and 3) the mouse buttons pick up finger prints pretty bad. Really those issues are nothing when you use this thing. It boots in less than 12 secs, resumes from sleep in around 2 to 3 secs, has intel WiDi so you can wirelessly display your screen on an HDTV, and the battery life is rated at 9 hours, but I'm averaging 7 1/2 to 8 hours with moderately heavy use(still amazing).

I highly recommend this laptop.

Oh one last thing, if you don't have another computer and you don't use cloud storage for music and other media you might want an external HDD because the SSD is 128GB but only about 88GB after OS is installed and fills up fast.

Read Best Reviews of Toshiba Portege Z835-P360 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Silver) Here

I purchased this Ultrabook to replace an old Lenovo net book and have not regreted my choice. Not only is this computer fast, it is really fast. It loads in just seconds and is ready to go. I have no trouble connecting to my Wi-Fi, my Mi-Fi, or any other wireless internet service available. While the hard drive, which is solid state, is small by comparison with big note books, I have increased it just by adding a high capacity SDHC card and load my programs such as photo editing and even games on that leaving the hard drive for running the computer. While others say that the screen cracks I have had no problem with that. While I do not want to say other people are hard on their computers, any laptop that is handled rough can be damaged. I have taken this on trips with no problem. I love the battery life, the speed, and the ease of use of this computer and highly recommend it.

Want Toshiba Portege Z835-P360 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Silver) Discount?

My screen cracked after 2 days. Unfortunately Toshiba customer service says the repair is not covered under the warranty. It sits unfixed for over a month now.