Toshiba Portégé A30-D (7100U, 128 GB) Subnotebook Review

The almost completely matte-black plastic casing does not even make an attempt at the trendy unibody looks and comes with a quite jagged exterior, which the tester finds appealing. The unusual incorporated touchpad keys, the fingerprint scanner below them, the silver hinges and, of course, Toshiba's silver logo on the display's back are the primarily visual accents. According to the manufacturer, the display lid was made of magnesium, at least in the predecessor. Fingerprints do not become very visible on the non-slip surfaces with a hint of a brushed metal finish ("Hairline" design).

The base defies our twisting attempts with quite some resistance; a quiet cracking noise, at most, is heard in the area of the optical drive where the casing can also be dented to quite some degree from the upper side. The pressure resistant lid is rather pliable in return, but it does not make an inferior impression. It can easily be opened with one hand and hardly rocks on shaky surfaces. The build seems okay at first glance, but we found some protruding edges upon a closer examination. This does not really correspond to the Portégé's high price.

The surface areas of both Huawei's MateBook X and Dell's XPS 13 hardly differ. The MateBook has a slightly higher depth and the XPS 13 is wider. They are also the thinnest and in total most compact subnotebooks in the test. Our 13-inch review sample proves that it is quite close in terms of compactness and weight in the comparison with the 14-inch (!) Asus Zenbook UX3410UQ. These two laptops reserve roughly the same space on the desk and are almost equal in height.

We test the card reader with our Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II reference memory card. The type of interface is also important for the speed. Thus, it can be assumed that the sluggish model in Asus' Zenbook still operates with USB 2.0 while the review sample's medium speed points to USB 3.0. We believe that it is PCIe in Dell's XPS 13. By comparison: Some few card readers achieve an average transfer rate (JPG copy test) of over 200 MB/s and a maximum transfer rate of up to 257 MB/s when reading a 1 GB file.

The name already reveals the most important features of the installed Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265 Wi-Fi module. The user browses the Internet exclusively in the less frequented 5 GHz band in the latest IEEE 802.11ac standard. The maximum gross data rate is 867 MBit/s thanks to the MIMO 2x2 construct. An overhead of up to 200 MBit/s is not unusual.

Consequently, it can be confirmed that the Portégé achieves a very good transfer speed while the "just" 574 MBit/s in receive lags behind the transfer rate of the Zenbook with a technically similar Intel Dual Band Wireless AC 8260 module. It is still faster than the MateBook X that uses the same module as in the review sample. We perform the measurements under ideal conditions at a meter away from our Linksys EA8500 reference router.

In addition to the latest Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 2.0, the Portégé A30-D-139 also features a Windows Hello compatible fingerprint scanner. It responds to vertical swiping rather than touch. Unlocking the laptop usually functions at first attempt with a slight delay after a short period of getting used to.

Since Windows 10 Pro is preloaded, it is also possible to use the Bitlocker SSD encryption. Only the innovative Huawei MateBook X has a comparable security configuration in the test field.

The battery can be removed easily from the outside, which unfortunately is rare now. Maintenance will likely not be very difficult after removing the base plate secured with 14 Philips screws. However, we did not make any attempts to do this since the review sample is a shop sample. An empty RAM bank should be found then in any case. It allows upgrading the working memory up to 16 GB of DDR4 in dual-channel mode. If Toshiba had omitted the DVD burner, there would perhaps have been enough room for an additional 2.5-inch SSD/HDD.

Toshiba offers a one-year Reliability Guarantee (repair + money back in case of warranty claim) and a one-year European bring-in manufacturer warranty including an on-site pickup service in Germany and Austria when a repair is registered via Toshiba's laptop hotline. More information about the Reliability Guarantee offered in the UK can be found here and Toshiba's different European warranty extensions can be viewed here.

Processor

Intel's Core i3-7100U is a ULV dual-core from Intel's latest Kaby Lake generation. It has Hyperthreading but not Turbo Boost. The fixed maximum standard clock speed is 2.4 GHz. In addition to a DDR4 memory controller, an Intel HD 620 Graphics is integrated that shares the tight TDP of 15 W and the working memory with the CPU. Besides office programs, the processor also copes with more demanding software and multitasking.

The i3-7100U achieves exactly the expected score in Cinebench R15. The clock speeds remain pinned down to 2.4 GHz when looping the benchmark and the scores of each run only deviate marginally - ideal. The CPU apparently does not exhaust its TDP completely. The CPU's performance does not decrease in battery mode. All rivals in the test are faster because they have higher base speeds and Turbo Boost.

The review sample likely owes its last place finish in the PCMark 8 total performance results to the weakest CPU in the test field and primarily its overall slow SSD. Asus Zenbook UX3410UQ-GV077T additionally benefits from its dedicated graphics card in the Home benchmark. However, the deficits of Toshiba's laptop are within tight limits when disregarding the Zenbook's scores.

We did not have real problems with the subjective performance, but we believe that OS and program starts and particularly installing programs on laptops with faster SSDs run more smoothly. On the one hand, we think this is unnecessary but on the other, it is not crucial, either.

Intel's HD Graphics 620 limited to 1000 MHz does not have its own memory. It is a weak yet frugal graphics processor that easily copes with 2D tasks, but cannot deal with up-to-date and graphically demanding games at all. The HD Graphics by Intel benefits from fast DDR4 dual-channel RAMs. DDR4 is present, but the second, important memory channel is not. Thus, we end up with performance that is at the lower end of the relatively wide HD 620 range.

A look at our extensive database (3DMark 11 Graphics score) confirms our assumption. Compared with the dual-channel RAMs in some rivals and some that benefit from the HD 620 GPUs' higher Turbo speeds, Toshiba's laptop falls back to last place. We have said that the Zenbook hardly benefits from its 40 to 60% higher performance owed to its dedicated yet outdated Nvidia GeForce 940MX in the corresponding review. 3DMark 11's Cloud Gate total score does not change in battery mode.

As mentioned above, the user will have to be satisfied with graphically undemanding games, indie games or isometric games like Diablo III or Starcraft II. However, more than medium settings in 1366x768 or 1280x720 pixels are often not possible, as can be seen in the relatively new but not especially good-looking Farming Simulator 17 (chart below).

System Noise

Since the laptop did not make any noise in the energy-savings mode even after running Prime95 for 5 minutes, and also only rarely sped up for a short time, we additionally enabled FurMark. However, the only consequence was that Toshiba's laptop enabled the fan a bit more frequently and longer, but it remained quiet for most of the time.

Repeating the stress test in the "High Performance" profile revealed a persistent, quiet noise without annoying side noises, which could be heard at a few meters distance in a quiet office when the PC is on. A noiseless operation can be counted when using office software on the go. It is also difficult to extract a noise from Toshiba's A30-D-139 in energy-saving mode.

Apparently, something was wrong with the DTS sound system in our review sample. The maximum "volume" is a bad joke and barely reaches the level of a cheap smartphone. The sound when listening to music is so bad that it is senseless to describe it. We are dealing with the bottom of the barrel of sound that the tester has ever heard in all his years at Notebookcheck. Defect or not, we have to assess what we have. We give exactly one of the five possible points since Skype calls could function with restrictions.

Frequency diagram comparison (checkboxes above can be turned on/off!)

We have to exclude the MateBook X in the power consumption comparison since the inexplicably high power consumption of Huawei's debut laptop struck us. This does not have to apply to every sample.

When disregarding maximum load where the GeForce 940MX enters, Asus' Zenbook needs roughly the same amount of power as our Toshiba despite its faster CPU and slightly larger screen. In the total comparison, Dell's most frugal 13-inch laptop has the lead in many areas, sometimes by a clear distance. Thus, the Portégé is not an energy-saving marvel. The 45-watt power supply can always deal with its tasks easily.

Both the runtime and the battery capacity of Asus' Zenbook and Toshiba's Portégé are almost identical in the practical Wi-Fi test with a brightness reduced to approximately 150 cd/m² (Our test criteria). Compared with the review sample (45 Wh), the battery in Dell's frugal XPS 13 (60 Wh) is roughly one-third bigger, which is reflected in approximately corresponding runtimes in both the Wi-Fi test and the idle test. The differences could have been bigger due to the lower consumption. However, Dell's laptop is no longer as enduring during load and does not last as long as Toshiba's or Huawei's laptop (40 Wh) despite its larger battery.