The Portege R835 series makes the move to Intel’s Sandy Bridge platform, which means newer processors and chipsets. As opposed to the Portege R835-P50X, which comes with a Core i3 processor, the R835-P56X ships with a Core i5, making it a better choice considering that the price difference is marginal and that the i3 version lacks the important Turbo Boost feature that overclocks the CPU on demand. Toshiba’s Portege series is mainly targeted at business customers, but it works just as well for anyone looking for good overall performance in a highly portable (13-inch) package. Besides the Core i5 2410M (Sandy Bridge) processor it comes with 4GB of DDR3 memory and a 640GB hard drive. The Intel Core i5-2410M is a very good choice in terms of price vs. performance. The processor has a clock frequency of 2.3GHz, but may clock itself up to 2.9GHz using Intel’s Turbo Boost technology.

The machine can be equipped with up to 16 gigabytes of memory, which is a means of future-proofing the laptop, but hardly necessary for most users. Its included 4GB is sufficient in most circumstances, but some users that work with memory-hogging applications like Photoshop might want to upgrade to 8GB. There is no dedicated GPU in the R835-P56X–the graphics are handled by Intel’s integrated graphics processor HD 3000. This one does a satisfactory job when it comes to common applications and video playback, but is not suitable for games. Based on experience with this chip, it is capable of older and less demanding games like World of Warcraft or Half Life 2 with the detail settings turned down. Otherwise the processor is very powerful for a laptop in this size category.

Design and Features

The laptop is equipped with an optical drive–something that most 13.3-inch laptops in this size and weight range do not have. At the same time, most users can get by without the optical drive today, so arguably Toshiba could have saved some weight and shipped the laptop with an external drive, or none at all. In terms of overall design, the R835-P56X is an elegant and sophisticated machine, even if it’s not as slim as the Samsung series 9 or the MacBook Air–none of which have made room for an optical drive.

Compared to a few other 13.3-inch laptops on the market now, such as the aforementioned, the R830 is not among the thinnest, but it is still a compact and convenient PC. If you take into that it comes with an optical drive and a standard-voltage processor, the weight and measurements – 12.44 inches x 8.94 inches x 1.05 inches and just 3.2 pounds – are more than OK. The chassis is a combination of a magnesium alloy and plastic to keep the weight to a minimum.

The display is a glossy “TruBrite” LCD with LEDs used for back-lighting and the overall brightness is good, as is color reproduction. It has a resolution of 1366×768 pixels, which is well suited for subnotebooks–this has become a standard resolution and is often used in laptops all the way up to 16″, but it is much better for 11 to 13-inch laptops.

You can connect to an external monitor (or HDTV) via VGA or HDMI and both display ports are located on the same side of the laptop, along with a USB 3.0 “Super Speed” port. On the other side of the laptop is a USB 2.0 / eSATA combo port. It also has a regular Gigabit LAN port and a memory card reader, as well as headphone/mic jacks.

The R835′s keyboard and trackpad combination is very likable. The keyboard is spill-resistant and quite firm, although it makes some noise while typing. There is some basic multi-touch functionality in the trackpad, and it is not too large or too small.

In terms of preinstalled software, the Toshiba R835 comes with some of the usual bloatware, but also some pretty good software for system monitoring diagnostics.

Performance and Battery Life

The lion’s share of notebooks in the thin-and-light market use LV or ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) processors that have a lower power consumption but also significantly lower performance. In the R835-P56X, however, Toshiba has opted for a standard voltage CPU, which does a great deal for performance while the impact on the laptop’s battery life is quite small.

During what you could call “regular use”–opening standard applications and editing documents etc, we managed to get a running time of over eight hours, which needless to say is very good. This was with the screen brightness set to a medium setting. Using it with full brightness will cut off at least half an hour from that number. A full day’s work on a standard voltage processor is nevertheless excellent and more in line with what you’d expect from a throttled low-voltage CPU. During video playback it lasted for about five hours, which is also a good figure.

Thanks to the aforementioned processor, the laptop is very responsive in most applications. There is some noise from the fan under slightly heavier load, but during normal office application use it’s not at all disturbing.

Summary and Conclusion

Toshiba’s Portege series has previously been marketed as a premium laptop with a significant price markup to match. It is arguably still a premium laptop, but thanks to the fierce competition in this segment, Toshiba has had to lower the price even on their ultraportable range. It currently sells for about $799, which has to be considered excellent value for money. Considering this laptop’s low weight and small measurements it also packs a punch in the performance department.