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Cinebench: 7,039
3D Mark '06: 3,988
Batter Eater: 205 minutes
The Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U is the more advanced ultrabook of the two Satellite Z830s that Toshiba has produced, boasting an Intel Core i5 CPU, 6GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD hard drive.
The second model, the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10T, manages a Core i3 CPU and 4GB of RAM with the same 128GB SSD, but is £100 cheaper, at £899. The difference is negligible, but opting for the 10U will afford you that extra level of future-proofing, especially given the silhouette of Intel's next generation Ivy Bridge processors beginning to form on the horizon.
Performance shows here, and the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U can proudly take its place in the ultrabook ranks. We timed starting up from sleep mode to Windows at seven seconds, and from total shutdown at 25 seconds, which is well within Intel's specifications for ultrabook status.
The extra RAM keeps the Windows 7 Home Premium operating system on its toes, and multiple applications running at once.
Although the Sandy Bridge CPU has a built-in graphics rendering chip - the Intel HD 3000 - it's not quite up to Battlefield 3 levels of visual mastery. You'll be able to use the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U for some light gaming or working on Photoshop or Dreamweaver, but the most recent games and editing suites will struggle.
However, one sour point of using the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U is Toshiba's insistence on including bloatware from the get-go. A couple of antivirus samples, some music and games programs, Toshiba warranty registration and BBC iPlayer, Skype and Ebay apps all contribute to a cluttered start-up that users can easily do without.
Of course, part of the appeal of the ultrabook is the portability, and this wouldn't be the case without an impressive battery life. Thankfully the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U will keep you going through an entire day at the office.
Toshiba quotes an eight hour battery life, and our own extreme stress tests, involving a battery draining program and looped high definition video, gave us a respectable score of 205 minutes. We're pretty confident that the Toshiba Satellite Z830-10U would be able to survive a full day of real-world usage on just the battery.
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