Toshiba Portégé R930 review

Toshiba's Portégé R930 is the latest ultraportable model from the venerable laptop vendor, offering mobile professionals a relatively compact system with more capabilities and greater battery life than comparably-sized but super-thin ultrabooks.

The Portégé R930 is the ultraportable member of Toshiba's "R9" family, which includes the Tecra R950 reviewed earlier this month.

These business-focused models are designed to have all the features you would need from a corporate laptop. The Portégé R930 includes Intel's vPro technologies as well as a built-in DVD Super Multi drive for those who need one. And all this, despite having a relatively low weight of 1.5kg and a similar form factor to the much-vaunted ultrabook systems.

While this Portégé cannot match the new ultrabook style of system such as Toshiba's own Portégé Z830 for slim lines and 1.12kg weight, it could prove more attractive for those users needing a wider array of ports and capabilities such as a DVD drive.

It also features a removable battery pack, enabling users to carry a fully-charged spare on long business trips, while most ultrabooks are sealed units.

However, the Portégé R930 line-up appears a little on the pricey side, with configurations starting at £969 rising to £1,599 depending on the processor, memory and storage options.

Our review unit was the top-end configuration, shipping with a 2.9GHz Intel Core i7-3520M processor, 8GB of memory and a 128GB solid state disk (SSD).

The Portégé R930 is similar in styling to the Tecra R950, looking very minimalist from the outside with a stylish black colour scheme picked out with chrome here and there, such as the Toshiba logo. It also has the sturdy feel of the larger Toshiba model, thanks to its magnesium alloy chassis.

Opened up, the R930 has a typical laptop configuration, with its 13.3in widescreen display displaying a resolution of 1,366 x 768 pixels, while a touchpad controller fills the space between the keyboard and the front of the case.