The Toshiba Portege Z835 & the Asus Zenbook UX31 ultrabooks

By Rahul Ramesh
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The Toshiba Portege Z835 & the Asus Zenbook UX31 ultrabooks

Toshiba has always been extending the goalposts with super-light and seductively slim laptops. Now it has extended the innovation to ultrabooks with the Toshiba Portege Z835-P330, one of the most affordable, lightweight and light ultrabooks around. Cost-effectiveness blends with aesthetic perfection with Portege Z835-P330.

Asus Zenbook UX31-RSL8 is even sleeker, thanks to a really wafer-thin and pointy profile and all-metal design that seems to sparkle on the lid and thanks to the spun finish and circles radiating out of the Asus logo at the center. Build-wise it’s ahead too with the monoshell chassis replicating the unibody construction pioneered by Apple. It’s got entertainment on its mind with Bang & Olufsen speakers and quite many safety features.

 

Toshiba Portege Z835-P330 has many advantages beyond the aforementioned portability and affordability, such as the really long battery life, the backlit keyboard and the really extensive range of ports on offer. With more than eight hours claimed to be offered by the battery, Toshiba even excels what’s offered by such top brands such as Asus, Acer and Apple. The many ports on offer include USB 2.0, USB 3.0, Gigabit Ethernet (really rare on an ultrabook) and HDMI. In spite of packing all this Toshiba has still managed to bring the weight down to 2.47 pounds and keep the price affordable at close to around Rs. 48,000.

 

Asus Zenbook UX31 too provides many connectivity options including USB-to-Ethernet and mini VGA-to-VGA dongles, a USB 2.0 port, USB 3.0 socket with which you can quickly charge your USB devices and SD/MMC card reader. But unlike the Toshiba Portege and many other Windows-based ultrabooks, Zenbook UX31 does not have full size HDMI port.

There are a few downsides to the Toshiba Portege X835-P330 too, particularly the performance. It is equipped with an Intel Core i3-2367M 1.4GHz processor, 128GB SSD and 4GB RAM. These are reasonable specs though, when you consider the low price. By contrast Asus Zenbook UX31-RSL8 has an Intel Core i5-2557M 1.7GHz processor along with 4GB RAM and ADATA 128GB solid-state SandForce SF2281drive.

In performance tests conducted by major technical reviewers, the UX31 has proved to be much ahead of the Portege X385, as you’ve probable guesses from the specs. But then the Zenbook UX31 sells at a price range of Rs. 80,000 to Rs. 90,000 in India. Multitasking is reasonably good with Portege though, and for most of the time you won’t be bugged by slowly opening or stuck applications.

So when it comes to the ultimate face-off, Asus Zenbook UX31 scores head over heels in looks and performance. Though both are extremely slim the Zenbook is in a league of its own and you’ll fall for the gleam emanating from shiny logo and surface of the Zenbook. But Toshiba Portege caters to a different audience with its cost-effectiveness and resourcefulness.

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