Dynabook Portégé X30L
Performance and portability rarely go hand in hand, but this astonishing laptop excels in both departments
SCORE
PRICE 1,362 (£1,634 inc VAT) from lambda-tek.com
Corporate types will need no introduction to the Portégé brand, debuted by Toshiba all the way back in 1994. Today it’s been spun off to the Sharp-backed Dynabook, but the formula remains the same: high-end specifications in an ultra-light, ultraportable chassis.
When we say ultra-light, that’s not mere marketing fluff. Pick up the X30L and you’ll think you’re holding an empty shell, rather than a functioning PC. On the scale it registers just 870g; in practice, it’s a system you can take everywhere and never even notice the weight.
Though light, the Portégé X30L isn’t the smallest laptop on the block. The casing isn’t as compact as the Dell XPS 13, nor as slim as the HP Elite Dragonfly, but at a modest 309mm across and 18mm thick it doesn’t feel chunky, and the sombre “onyx blue” colour scheme is impeccably tasteful.
Raise the lid and you’ll find a 13.3in matte IGZO screen, offering a Full HD resolution. This isn’t what we’d call a huge amount of desktop space, but it’s fine. Similarly, the pixel density of 164ppi isn’t perfectly clean, but nor is it distractingly blocky.
And the overall impression is helped along by the screen’s blazing backlight. We measured a maximum luminance of 521cd/m 2 and a not-tooshabby contrast ratio of 1,397:1; in other words, whites are dazzlingly bright, while darker tones are suitably solid. Colour performance is strong too, with the panel offering 93.2% sRGB coverage and an excellent average Delta E of 1.3.
All of this makes the Portégé X30L perfect for a spot of Netflix when the working day is done. Maybe dig out some headphones, though, as the speakers have very little low end, and pumping up the volume just makes them sound nasty and harsh. Don’t expect too much on the gaming front, either: Dirt: Showdown was playable at 43.1fps, but the integrated GPU will struggle with newer games and higher detail settings.
Still, when it’s time to get down to work, the Portégé X30L has something none of this month’s rivals can match: its Intel Core i7-10710U CPU is a six-core model, capable of working on 12 threads at once. It was no surprise, therefore, to see the X30L take the gold medal in our multitasking benchmark tests, and come close to topping the overall rankings.
It doesn’t hurt that the CPU is partnered with the expected 16GB of RAM and a reasonably fast 512GB SSD. The Portégé X30L hits the most important practical notes too, with both Gigabit Ethernet and HDMI ports for conveniently slotting into an office setup, plus Wi-Fi 6 for ultrafast wireless connections.
There are some aspects of the design that we’re not in love with.
The magnesium casing is MIL-STD 810G-certified, so it should survive a bit of rough and tumble – but it still feels rather flimsy, with a perceptible flex as you pull open the lid.
There’s a sense of compromise to the keyboard too. While the backplate is good and firm, the keys don’t have an awful lot of travel and lack a really positive “click” when a press is rreeggiisstteerreedd. The touchpad is one of thhe smallest here, and the fingerprint reader in the top corner means you can’t use its entire surface area.
Then there’s the battery life, which is merely average in this month’s company. It’s not awful by any means, delivering 8hrs 45mins of video playback, but that suggests the X30L might not get you through a whole day if you hammer that six-core CPU.
Finally, Dynabook has evidently decided that business laptops don’t need touchscreens. It may be right, but in 2020 the omission feels a little strange and mean. There’s no stylus support either, nor a snazzy hinge mechanism: the lid folds back to around 150° and that’s your lot.
If that bothers you, the HP Elite Dragonfly opposite is the obvious alternative: it costs more, and is a touch heavier, but it’s as compact as they come, and flips into tablet mode with zero fuss.
Conversely, if you’re happy with a traditional laptop design, the Huawei Matebook X Pro on p86 might be a better bet. For a similar price to the Dynabook, Huawei’s system gives you a larger screen, a discrete Nvidia GPU, a nicer keyboard and touchpad, a bigger, faster SSD – and a touchscreen, just for the odd occasion when the need arises.
If your top criterion is portability, however, the X30L is a hard to beat. Its incredible lightness would make it an superb on-the-go companion even it were equipped with a low-end CPU. Throw in that six-core processor and it adds up to something quite special.
“It was no surprise to see the X30L take the gold medal in our multitasking tests, and come close to topping the overall rankings”