In one line…
A well-specced, portable business laptop but it’s not an Ultrabook
In an example of an awkwardly timed release of a product, similar to the GM EV1 electric car in the 1990s (which they later pulled off the market, pissing off everyone who owned one), laptops like the Portege R830 are available for purchase at a time when the Ultrabook phenomenon has just been unleashed on our culture. The problem: these laptops don’t have the specs to be an Ultrabook.
An Ultrabook by definition needs to be less than 21mm thick and less than 1.4kg heavy (the Portege R830 comes in very close though). And in the next few months we’re going to be seeing the Ivy Bridge chips offered in new Ultrabooks which will trump the 2nd Gen Intel Core inside the R830. But it could just be these failings that make the R830 a good choice for the mobile mover and frequent flyer.
Y’see, when the Ultrabooks do become available in SA, they’re going to be at a premium price. Certainly nothing far below R10 000. The R830 though is available for R9 000.
And the laptop’s specs are far from crap too. A 13,3-inch, 1366×769-pixel display, a Core i7 processor, 4GB of RAM (expandable to 8GB), and a 500GB Sata hard drive with USB 3.0 and HDMi outs offered.
The question then is: is it worth saving a few thousand bucks now and living with a feeling of inferiority and FOMO in a few months time?
This laptop is decent performance wise and in battery-life there’s little to complain about: I used it twice on two different flights to and from Cape Town without recharging. I got nothing done thanks to the fat guy sitting next to me who wouldn’t shut up but the point is that I could have.
But there are a few things about this specific laptop that really irritated me a lot.
Firstly the keyboard is awkward to type on and as a writer this is a big one. Strange rectangular keys with an un-explained gap between them and a fingerprint reader smack bam in the middle of the touchpad buttons….I dunno really.
The other feature that annoyed me (and mark this day because it’s the day I’ve decided to start saying something about this…laptop manufacturers be warned) was the inclusion of all the media software and play-time features on a machine that they’re proudly marketing to business men.
If it’s a business laptop made for self-important execs to look busy on flights overseas, then have the balls to leave the desktop blank without shoving distractions like bundled Ebay and Amazon software and Play Games and Toshiba Music Place down their throats. Stop being so obsessed with the extras and be confident that your machine is capable of making the user happy and will be immediately aware of that as soon as he or she starts exploring.
As always the choice is yours, but I would suggest putting up with a few more months of slow load time from your current laptop to see what the phenomenon of Ultrabooks brings to SA.
How much?
R9 000
From where?
www.mustek.co.za
