Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 Notebook Review
For the original German review, see here.
Selling notebooks to large companies is probably the dream of every manufacturer: The customers order large quantities at once, replace their hardware every couple of years and provide important feedback about the usage scenarios. They obviously expect reliable devices in return, which protect sensitive data and are easy to manage at the same time.
Toshiba is a familiar company when it comes to business devices: The sophisticated and handy business notebooks also look good on your desk at home. The new notebooks from the Toshiba Tecra Z40-series are models with a 14-inch screen, a popular size for the office, and notebooks of this size are often complemented by docking stations and external displays.
The Tecra Z40 A-147 is equipped with a frugal Intel Core i5, 4 GB memory and a 500 GB hard drive. This configuration retails for 1,349 Euros (~$1835), even though hardly any retailer charges this price on the Internet: The current street price is around 1,000 Euros (~$1360) including VAT.
There are many rivals for a place on millions of office desks: Dell offers its comprehensive Latitude-series and we select the Latitude E7440 for the comparison. Acer has the TravelMate P645, Fujitsu offers the LifeBook E744 if you need more performance and HP the EliteBook 840. The Lenovo ThinkPad T440s is the classic of business notebooks.
Case
The Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 looks very nice: The subtle silver colored case and the restrained design, which is still appealing, will probably fit in every work environment. The only colored element is the blue "Accupoint" that works like Lenovo's "TrackPoint" and can be used as an additional input device.
The case is completely made of magnesium, a very high quality and light material. Small drawback: You always have the feeling of construction wear and tear if you move your fingers over the display. There are also visible traces of wiping, so the cover has to be cleaned every once in a while.
Toshiba sent the Tecra A40 to the TÜV for evaluation. They determined a drop resistance from a height of up to 76 centimeters (~30 inches) and keyboard splash protection against 30 milliliters (~6 teaspoons) of fluid.
However, the torsion resistance of the display is not very convincing in our test: Hold the screen at the corners and you can twist it, which is accompanied by quiet creaking sounds. The effects are also quickly visible on the display. The base unit can dent with medium force in the area of the palm rest and the same applies for the keyboard, but it is sturdy during normal typing. Overall, the Tecra Z40 A1-147 feels very high quality and the mentioned drawbacks in terms of stability hardly affect the usability in practice.
The dimensions border those small enough to meet the Ultrabook standard, but the business notebook does not include a touchscreen, for example, so it cannot carry the Ultrabook title. Toshiba avoids the name and calls the Tecra Z40 "ultra mobile". With a height of up to 20.4 millimeters (~0.8 inches), the device is slimmer than any notebook within the comparison, even though the difference is sometimes very small.
Connectivity
Offering all necessary ports in a slim chassis is obviously a challenge. However, Toshiba did a good job, and they were, for instance, able to integrate a full-sized LAN and VGA port. Besides an SD card reader, you also get a SmartCard reader and three USB 3.0 ports. Finally, there is a docking port at the bottom of the case.
Even though there are no ports at the back of the device, Toshiba still managed to locate the majority of ports on the rear area of the sides, so there should be no annoying cables when you use a mouse. Only the full-size HDMI port on the left side is further toward the front, which might be an issue for left-handers.
Communication
Although free Wi-Fi is increasingly popular, business customers still like the possibility to use the Internet via WWAN to improve the flexibility. Another aspect is that you probably do not want to transmit sensitive data over a free network.
Toshiba integrated a WWAN module that supports the fast LTE standard. At the left side is a slot for a full-size SIM card, which fortunately, can be opened without any tools. The installation of a WWAN connection is a bit tricky since Toshiba does not provide a tool, but there are Open Source tools on the Internet. You can activate or deactivate the WWAN with a key combination, but this will be handled by the system administrator in companies.
The signal is good once you have established a connection. During our test in the metropolitan area, we always had a decent UMTS signal and good transfer rates in the moderately developed E-Plus network. Unfortunately, we could not test LTE because it was not available at our location.
The WLAN module is provided by Intel and supports all the usual standards up to 802.11ac, which enables very fast WLAN connections with a corresponding router. The signal quality is very good as well: We still had the full signal and web pages quickly built up with a distance of 10 meters (~33 feet) from the router and through three walls. Another three meters (~10 feet) and another wall resulted in 3/4 of the signal.
Security
Even though intelligence services find pretty much everything that is transmitted via the Internet: At least the files on the laptop should be protected if it is lost or stolen. Toshiba provides hard drive encryption via software, integrates a fingerprint reader for secure access and obviously includes a TPM module.
The position of the fingerprint reader is a bit inconvenient (more on that in the section Input Devices), but it recognizes the fingerprint very reliably.
There is also a vibration sensor to protect the files on the hard drive. The sensor lifts the read head as soon as it detects a sudden movement. The keyboard is splash proof, so low amounts of fluid are no danger for the important components.
Accessories
You do not expect many accessories when you buy a business notebook, and the box of the Tecra Z40 A-147 only contains the power adaptor. The port replicator is probably the most useful accessory that is available in Toshiba's online store. It retails for 249 Euros (~$339) and offers more USB ports and a Gigabit Ethernet port besides DVI and DisplayPort.
Maintenance
You cannot replace the battery from the outside; you have to open the case first. This seems simple enough at first: You just have to loosen some Philips screws at the bottom. However, you cannot lift the bottom cover at the rear area, and Toshiba does not provide any information about the disassembly in the manual, either.
Warranty
Toshiba limits the warranty to 12 months, but the manufacturer offers extended plans on its website.
Input Devices
Keyboard
The chiclet keyboard has 87 keys and background illumination. The letter and number keys are 15 millimeters wide, 13 mm high and spaced 3 mm apart. These are good prerequisites for a fast typing experience without typos.
The typing is actually fairly fast as soon as you get used to the rather low keys. Still, the Dell Latitude E7440, for instance, provides a much better typing experience. One reason is the significantly larger keys, another one is the resistance, which is much lower in the case of the Tecra Z40 A-147 and results in somewhat spongy typing. The travel on the other hand is quite deep, so the overall impression is reasonable.
The keyboard illumination in a subtle white is activated when you press a key and is automatically deactivated 15 seconds after the last input. However, you can also activate or deactivate it permanently. Thanks to the black keys with white lettering, the keys are also easy to see if you activate the illumination during the day.
Touchpad
The touchpad is a ClickPad, which means that there are no dedicated buttons, but clicks can be activated by pressure on the corresponding lower corner on the pad. For a business notebook, in particular, we would prefer a touchpad with dedicated buttons to improve the precision. Working with the ClickPad is no problem, but drag and drop gestures, for instance, take some time getting used to. The surface provides good gliding capabilities in return and does not get smeary.
The Tecra Z40 A-147 also has an annoying feature: The fingerprint reader sits directly underneath the ClickPad in a chrome colored area. At first, we thought it was a touchpad button; we only noticed the ClickPad after several unsuccessful attempts to click on the fingerprint reader.
You can deactivate the ClickPad with a quick double tap in the upper left corner. On the right side is another touch-sensitive area for the Toshiba Eco Utility.
TrackPoint
The little stick between the letters "G", "H" and "B" is called "Accupoint" and can be used to control the cursor as well. This is our favorite, thanks to the two dedicated buttons above the ClickPad in particular. More or less strong minimal movements with the finger result in a very intuitive control of the cursor.
Display
Right away, we have to say that the 14-inch display is no highlight. The resolution of 1600x900 pixels is just okay, but Full HD would have been appropriate for this price category. The matte panel is pretty much mandatory for a business notebook. The average brightness of 250.6 cd/m² is reasonable as well, especially in comparison with the rivals. However, the maximum brightness is slightly reduced on battery power and you can see that the brightness distribution is uneven.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Brightness Distribution: 87 %
Center on Battery: 256 cd/m²
Contrast: 188:1 (Black: 1.36 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 10.86 | 0.5-29.43 Ø4.86
ΔE Greyscale 11.71 | 0.09-98 Ø5.1
38% AdobeRGB 1998 (Argyll 1.6.3 3D)
41.68% AdobeRGB 1998 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
60.6% sRGB (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
40.32% Display P3 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
Gamma: 2.16
The problems are bigger when we evaluate the black value and the contrast of the panel: With 1.36 cd/m², the black value is clearly too high and black areas always appear grayish. This also results in a contrast of just 188:1, which is even worse than the poor results of the rivals. Only the Acer TravelMate P645 has a decent contrast ratio with 679:1.
The detailed measurements with the software CalMAN and the colorimeter are quite bad and confirm our suspicions: We can measure high deviations of the colors from the reference value of the color space sRGB. Only yellow colors are still reasonable, all the other colors show high deviations. Only white and black are tolerable in terms of grayscale performance, everything in between has a strong blue cast. The saturation of blue is too high as well, whereas red and green are too pale.
Overall, the ThinkPad T440s, for example, offers a much better display with Full HD resolution.
The matte surface is definitely an advantage if you want to use the Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 outdoors. However, the brightness is not overwhelming, and it is even reduced on battery power, so the results are not great in practice: You can often not recognize enough under direct sunlight to work with the notebook. In the shade or indoors, however, there will not be any problems.
We already had to deal with the similar panel in the Toshiba Tecra S11-11H back in 2010. Back then, the viewing angles were limited and that did not change: The angles are wider to the left and right side without huge picture changes. Vertical changes from above or below on the other hand quickly result in contrast changes. Overall, the picture is the best if you sit directly in front of it, which could help in terms of privacy when you are on a plane or a train.
Performance
The Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 is equipped with an Intel Core i5-4200U processor with a nominal clock of 1.6 GHz, an integrated graphics card with the designation Intel HD Graphics 4400, 4,096 MB memory and a 500 GB hard drive.
The frugal but still powerful processor is not without reason a very popular processor, which is also used in the Dell Latitude E7440, for instance.
Processor
The Intel Core i5-4200U is a frugal processor with a TDP of 15 Watts and two native cores. Thanks to Hyperthreading, it can execute up to four tasks simultaneously. The nominal clock is 1.6 GHz, but it can be raised to 2.6 GHz for one core or 2.3 GHz for two cores via Turbo Boost.
The processor is a very good choice for a business notebook in practice: It is fast enough, even for more complex calculations without big delays, but it is also very frugal at the same time.
The results in the synthetic benchmarks are slightly below the rivals. The HP EliteBook 840 G1 has an advantage of around 20% with the more powerful Core i7-4600U. Dell's Latitude E7440, which uses the similar Intel Core i5-4200U, manages around 10% more performance. The reason for this difference is not apparent: When we look at the clocks of the Core i5-4200U in our review unit during Cinebench R15, we can see that the maximum Turbo Boost is always utilized.
| Cinebench R10 | |
| Rendering Single CPUs 64Bit (sort by value) | |
| Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 | |
| Dell Latitude E7440 | |
| Acer TravelMate P645-MG-74508G75tkk | |
| HP EliteBook 840 G1 | |
| Fujitsu LifeBook E744 | |
| Rendering Multiple CPUs 64Bit (sort by value) | |
| Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 | |
| Dell Latitude E7440 | |
| Acer TravelMate P645-MG-74508G75tkk | |
| HP EliteBook 840 G1 | |
| Fujitsu LifeBook E744 | |
System Performance
The Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 falls slightly behind the rivals in the system benchmarks as well. One reason for this could be the slow conventional hard drive or the limited amount of memory with 4 GB (Acer TravelMate P645, HP EliteBook 840, Fujitsu LifeBook E744: 8 GB).
| PCMark 7 Score | 4126 points | |
| PCMark 8 Home Score Accelerated v2 | 2810 points | |
| PCMark 8 Creative Score Accelerated v2 | 2495 points | |
| PCMark 8 Work Score Accelerated v2 | 4094 points | |
Help | ||
| PCMark 7 - Score (sort by value) | |
| Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 | |
| Dell Latitude E7440 | |
| Acer TravelMate P645-MG-74508G75tkk | |
| HP EliteBook 840 G1 | |
| Fujitsu LifeBook E744 | |
| PCMark 8 | |
| Work Score Accelerated v2 (sort by value) | |
| Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 | |
| HP EliteBook 840 G1 | |
| Fujitsu LifeBook E744 | |
| Creative Score Accelerated v2 (sort by value) | |
| Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 | |
| HP EliteBook 840 G1 | |
| Fujitsu LifeBook E744 | |
| Home Score Accelerated v2 (sort by value) | |
| Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 | |
| HP EliteBook 840 G1 | |
| Fujitsu LifeBook E744 | |
Storage Devices
The storage solution is a conventional hard drive with 7,200 revolutions per minute that is provided by Hitachi. It is obviously much slower than the SSDs, which are used by the competition.
Unfortunately, it is not easy to replace the hard drive, but there are also configurations of the Tecra Z40 with an SSD, so this should not be a huge problem when you buy the device.
* ... smaller is better
Graphics
The Intel HD Graphics 4400 with a core clock of 1,000 MHz is more than sufficient for usual office tasks. You will be disappointed, however, if you want to watch next generation videos: Our test video "Big Buck Bunny" in 4K resolution did not run smoothly with the VLC Media Player on the Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147. Gaming should be limited to older titles, but we will have a closer look in the next section.
| 3DMark 11 Performance | 782 points | |
| 3DMark Ice Storm Standard Score | 28516 points | |
| 3DMark Cloud Gate Standard Score | 3789 points | |
| 3DMark Fire Strike Score | 500 points | |
Help | ||
| 3DMark | |
| 1920x1080 Fire Strike Score (sort by value) | |
| Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 | |
| Acer TravelMate P645-MG-74508G75tkk | |
| HP EliteBook 840 G1 | |
| Fujitsu LifeBook E744 | |
| 1280x720 Cloud Gate Standard Score (sort by value) | |
| Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 | |
| Acer TravelMate P645-MG-74508G75tkk | |
| HP EliteBook 840 G1 | |
| Fujitsu LifeBook E744 | |
| 3DMark 11 - 1280x720 Performance (sort by value) | |
| Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 | |
| Acer TravelMate P645-MG-74508G75tkk | |
| HP EliteBook 840 G1 | |
| Fujitsu LifeBook E744 | |
Gaming Performance
The Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 behaves like other notebooks with the Intel HD Graphics 4400 in terms of gaming: The GPU is sufficient for older or simpler current games like Diablo 3. However, you might want to reduce the details or the resolution a bit. The latest 3D blockbusters cannot be played smoothly, not even in the lowest resolution.
| low | med. | high | ultra | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diablo III (2012) | 49.3 | 37.2 | 29.6 | |
| Tomb Raider (2013) | 40.2 | 24.3 | 12.1 | |
| Thief (2014) | 10.2 | 7.3 | 3.9 |
Emissions
System Noise
Is there anything more annoying than a noisy fan if you are sitting in an important meeting? Toshiba knows that as well and reduced the fan noise of the Tecra A-147 to a minimum. Despite the slightly thinner chassis, the review unit leaves a better impression than all the rivals.
The fan is often completely deactivated when idle, and it is almost inaudible if it is running with 30.2 dB(A). The hard drive is also very quiet with 29.5 dB(A). With more complex presentations, including animations or videos, we can measure up to 35.6 dB(A). This is audible, but hardly annoying due to the acceptable frequency.
Noise Level
| Idle |
| 28.7 / 28.7 / 30.2 dB(A) |
| HDD |
| 29.5 dB(A) |
| Load |
| 31.2 / 35.6 dB(A) |
 | ||
30 dB silent 40 dB(A) audible 50 dB(A) loud |
||
min:  , med:  , max:  Voltcraft sl-451 (15 cm distance) | ||
Temperature
Our review unit does not really get hot, despite the quiet and sometimes deactivated fan. If the device warms up at all, it is at the rear top, where you will hardly touch it. We measured up to 38.7 °C (101.66 °F) at this spot, which is perceptible, but this temperature is a result of continuous load and it is still not unpleasant. The palm rest stays very cool all the time, even under continuous maximum load.
The infrared thermometer measures up to 31.2 °C (88.16 °F) at the rear area of the top during idle. All other spots, and the palm rest in particular, are much cooler. Toshiba really did a good job with the cooling solution.
(+) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 38.7 °C / 102 F, compared to the average of 34.3 °C / 94 F, ranging from 21.2 to 62.5 °C for the class Office.
(+) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 33.6 °C / 92 F, compared to the average of 36.8 °C / 98 F
(+) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 28.7 °C / 84 F, compared to the device average of 29.5 °C / 85 F.
(+) The palmrests and touchpad are cooler than skin temperature with a maximum of 29.1 °C / 84.4 F and are therefore cool to the touch.
(±) The average temperature of the palmrest area of similar devices was 27.6 °C / 81.7 F (-1.5 °C / -2.7 F).
Speakers
The two speakers are beneath the front edge of the laptop. Toshiba promises that the sound of the Toshiba Tecra has been improved since video calls, company videos or presentations should sound decent via speakers. The maximum volume is actually sufficient for a quiet room, but you really have to use the maximum setting. Unfortunately, there is no onscreen display that shows the current volume when you use the corresponding buttons.
There is hardly any bass, but the sound is at least fairly balanced between medium and high tones. You can improve the sound via "DTS Studio Sound" and adjust it to your preferences with an equalizer. All in all the sound system is okay, but music enthusiasts should use headphones or attach external speakers.
Energy Management
Power Consumption
The Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-14 is exemplary in regard to the power consumption, especially when the laptop is in standby or turned off: In this case it consumes nothing or just 0.1 Watts, respectively. The review unit is also very frugal during operation and even beats the Dell Latitude E7440, which has the same processor, in some scenarios.
The minimum consumption when idle is 3.7 Watts up to 6.3 Watts and up to 28.3 Watts under maximum load. The Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 has a much lower consumption than all the rivals do.
| Off / Standby | 0 / 0.1 Watt |
| Idle | 3.7 / 6 / 6.3 Watt |
| Load |
26.5 / 28.3 Watt |
   
| |
Key:
min: ,
med: ,
max: Extech Power Analyzer | |
Battery Runtime
Thanks to the low consumption values, the review unit manages good battery runtimes with the comparatively large 62 Wh battery. The Haswell processor also saves some energy and the Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147 can beat the devices within our comparison in terms of battery runtimes.
You can browse the web with our review unit for more than 7 hours before the device shuts down. The Dell Latitude E7440 with the same processor, but a smaller battery, only manages 5:17 hours.
Verdict
You often notice the customer feedback when you use office devices: There are usually only small issues that could be improved. In the case of the Toshiba Tecra Z40 A-147, those would be the input devices, which could be reworked in our opinion. The keyboard would benefit from better feedback and a ClickPad is not perfect for a business device, either, even though you can use the buttons of the TrackPoint.
The weak construction observed when you swipe over the display cover affects the otherwise good quality impression a bit. You can also twist the display quite a lot. The speakers are just average, but still decent for a business device. The display is no highlight with its large color deviations, the low contrast and the high black value.
Otherwise, the Tecra Z40 A-147 has many positive aspects: The low weight and the slim chassis are exemplary, just like the port variety. The performance is okay, and the same applies to the signal quality of the WLAN and WWAN module. The useful security equipment, the quiet operating noise and the low heat development are other advantages.
The Toshiba Tecra A-147 is a good choice if you are looking for a high-quality office laptop with good performance and decent runtimes. The mentioned drawbacks carry less weight if the display is not so important for you and you do not want to type very long texts with the keyboard. Still, the review unit only gets the silver medal because of the mentioned drawbacks.
