Notebook Hunter

This deal is excellent because it brings one of the best Ultrabooks on the market within range of ordinary consumer budgets (one of the criticisms of Ultrabooks so far has been that the good ones have been priced for early adopters and prosumers). For $1,162.80 at retailer JB-HiFi, the 13.3in Toshiba Satellite Z830/001 Ultrabook gets you a supremely light and thin laptop that makes fewer compromises in the sake of slimness than most of its Ultrabook competitors. For instance, its connectivity options are those of a full-size notebook, not cut-back as on many Ultrabooks.

These include a full-sized HDMI port, three USB ports (one super-fast USB 3.0) an SD card reader, a VGA port and a Gigabit Ethernet port. This is really impressive, particularly given that the Z830 is one of the lightest Ultrabooks as well, weighing a measly 1.12kg. Only the new HP Folio 13 comes close to matching the kind of connectivity options on the Z830.

There’s also a backlit keyboard, a feature that's still hard to come by in an Ultrabook, the very kind of laptop you'd want to see it in because of all the places and lighting conditions in which you'll end up using such an ultralight.

In all, this is one of the best Ultrabook bargains yet, and perfect for anyone who needs to carry around a laptop all day that's both light and doesn't significantly compromise on performance, and which also has a 5-hour plus battery life. We'll say it again, even if the price is above the $1,000 mark, it's a great laptop for students who need something supremely light and slim for their backpacks, but which will last most of the day and run all standard applications without any drama.

Processor
The Z830 has a 2nd Gen Intel Core i5-2467M (1.6GHz), a mid-range low-voltage processor that can run productivity applications and some intensive software. It can burst up to 2.3GHz using Turbo Boost 2.0 Technology if a particularly demanding program is running.

Graphics
It has an integrated graphics solution called Intel HD Graphics 3000. It’s on par with a low-end dedicated graphics card, and is sufficient for modern games at the lowest settings.

RAM
4GB of RAM is enough to run several programs at once smoothly.

Storage
It sports a very small 128GB solid state drive. It does have very rapid response though for both reading and writing data.

Screen
It has a 13.3in (1,366x768 resolution) gloss screen. Although it’s very flexible, this is a conscious design choice in order to make it more resistant to damage.

Portability
The Z830 has exceptional portability, because it weighs 1.12kg and is 15.9mm thick.  It’s more than light enough to be taken anywhere without any problems whatsoever.

See the Toshiba Satellite Z830/001 in the Notebook Hunter database here.

See the special online here.

See the ad below.