Dynabook Portégé X40-J-11C
A competitively priced business laptop that, with one exception, oozes quality in all the right places
SCORE
PRICE £836 (£1,009 inc VAT) from box.co.uk
H ow do you take a once great laptop brand such as Toshiba and turn it into your own? It’s a tough challenge for Dynabook, which hitherto has made the minutest changes to the designs it inherited. The X40-J series, however, introduces subtle shifts that won’t put off its existing customer base but keep the range looking fresh.
Not that you would notice if you viewed this laptop head on. In use, it’s almost identical to every other slimline Portégé, with an attractive if understated dark blue finish – the “almost” is because Dynabook adds millimetre-thick silver outlines to the power key and trackpad. It’s a hint of pizzazz without going full Ratners.
Close the lid and you’ll see a far more significant design statement: the silver metal hinge, which stretches almost the width of the X40-J, has a ridged, cog-like design. It’s a welcome break from the finishes of most business laptops. And whilst it sticks to a familiar aluminium chassis, Dynabook has one more trick for its plastic base: a rippled, pinstripe effect that will go perfectly with your best suit.
For a 14in machine it’s compact, thin and light, even if a 1.4kg weight sounds porky next to the 985g Portégé X30W-J ( see issue 319, p56). But the X40-J-11C has three things in its favour: it’s £200 cheaper, has a larger screen and proved faster in PC Pro’s benchmarks, with a score of 140 versus 127.
On the surface, this high score is all the more surprising when you consider that Dynabook includes a single 8GB SODIMM of memory, with one slot free for an upgrade. Nor is it given a helping hand by the 256GB M.2 SSD, with solid sequential read speeds of 1,768MB/sec but a 692MB/sec write speed. By contrast, the Huawei MateBook X Pro ( opposite) has 16GB of RAM and a faster SSD but could only manage 126 in our benchmarks. I saw exactly the same perctentage gap in Cinebench and Geekbench 5.
This all points to excellent cooling inside, especially as the fans only kicked in on occasion. Even when they do reveal themselves, they’re restrained, as if having dinner with the in-laws and not wanting to cause offence. This is surely the right choice for the target audience – more likely to banging out spreadsheets than rendering 3D models – but if speed isn’t a key requirement then consider the Core i5-powered X40-J-119. This was £772 exc VAT from b a llicom . co . uk at the time of writing.
Almost as surprising as this laptop’s turn of pace in our CPU benchmarks was its lack of speed in our gaming tests. That’s despite the Iris Xe graphics, which could only average 36fps in the ageing Dirt: Showdown when the Huawei managed double.
That’s at the screen’s native 1,980 x 1,020 resolution, which is a good choice for a panel wit with a 14in diagonal as text remains sharp. It’s a touchscreen that bends back 180° (not 360° for a tablet-like experience) and also benefits from an effective anti-glare coating. What you can’t enjoy is the full sRGB colour gamut, with only 54% on show. It looks drab when placed next to a screen such as the MateBook X Pro’s, but I won’t condemn it; in isolation, this screen is fine, with a solid 1,102:1 contrast ensuring that you don’t get the mushing together of colours found on low-quality, cheap panels.
Consolation also comes in the keyboard, which is quiet, backlit and well laid-out. Touch typists will have no problem hitting high word rates, but it would be nice to have more resistance to the keys, and the spacebar would benefit from being a centimetre longer. You might also find that the trackpad, which measures 100 x 58mm, is too small for your tastes.
I can’t complain about security features. Along with a fingerprint reader built into the trackpad, and a smart card reader on the right, there’s an infrared camera to accompany the 720p webcam – with privacy shutter – integrated into the top bezel. The latter is of above average quality, even if the colours lack punch, and the dual microphones do an excellent job of capturing voices. On a similar note, the speakers are far better than you might expect from a business laptop, with their main drawback being their location on the front underside of the chassis: your wrists will naturally dampen their output when typing.
Intel’s latest silicon brings with it support for USB-C 4, and Dynabook includes two ports – which also support Thunderbolt 4 – on the left. The HDMI output and microSD slot sit alongside them, with two USB-A 3.1 ports over on the right. Wi-Fi 6 means you hopefully won’t mourn the absence of a wired Ethernet port.
Screen aside, this business laptop is packed with top-quality components – and if you choose the Core i5 version then its price significantly undercuts both the Dell XPS 13 ( see issue 317, p50) and HP EliteBooks such as the 845 G7 ( see
issue 316, 6, p50 p50). The Dynabook Portegé é X40-J falls short of a PC Pro Recommended ommended award due to a few w too many flaws, most notably the screen, but it’s a sound choice for businesses of all sizes.
SPECIFICATIONS
Four-core our-core 2.8GHz (4.7GHz burst) Intel tel Core i7-1165G7 processor Intel el Iris Xe graphics 8GB DDR4
3,200MHz MHz RAM 14in touchscreen IPS display, 1,920 920 x 1,080 resolution 256GB M.2 PCIe SSD 2x2 Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.1 2 x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) 2 x USB-A 3.1 HDMI microSD slot 720p IR webcam 53Wh battery Windows 10 Pro 323 x 220 x 17.9mm (WDH) 1.4kg 1yr C&R warranty
“When the fans kick in, they’re always restrained, as if having dinner with the in-laws and not wanting to cause offence”