Hands on: Toshiba Satellite Ultrabook review

Toshiba Satellite Ultrabook
There's very little detail on this new Satellite from Tosh

Amongst the throngs of new Ultrabooks announced at CES 2012, one has been kept a little quieter, but can be seen at the Toshiba stand, and could turn into a leading contender.

Larger 14-inch Ultrabooks have been announced by HP, Samsung and LG offering larger screens but bulkier builds, and with the exception of Samsung, no pay off in improved power, storage or graphics.

The Toshiba is different. It still maintains a waif like design, despite packing in the extra inch of LED real estate. The prototype model is emblazoned with Satellite branding, which usually demotes home consumer use, rather than Portege, which denotes portability.

Toshiba satellite ultrabook

The build quality is more solid than the existing Toshiba Portege Z830, which uses a honeycomb effect to make it the lightest Ultrabook on the market at just 1.1KG but flexes heavily. This 14-inch version has a brushed metal finish, solid lines, and while we didn't have a set of scales on the stand, is around 1.6KG, clocking in under the Samsung and HP models.

There's precious little information on what's under the hood, and the unit we saw was running an Intel Core i3 processor, but that's certain to change once it's released.

Toshiba satellite ultrabook

Sticking with the design, the mysterious 14-inch Ultrabook has a full range of connectivity, placed on either side, including Ethernet, which is missing from most models.

Toshiba satellite ultrabook

There's no word on pricing, availability, spec or even a name for this model yet, but that doesn't stop us from being excited about this great looking Ultrabook.

Toshiba satellite ultrabook