Toshiba’s Tecra Z40 is strictly for business

SINGAPORE — While most of the competition is focused on producing ultrabooks, gaming laptops or hybrid notebooks, Toshiba has introduced a device that is built for business professionals who need a long-lasting, lightweight machine that allows them to work quickly on the go — the Tecra Z40.

Despite being just 2cm thin and tipping the scales at 1.46kg, the Z40 far from fragile. It has a shock-absorbing EasyGuard Technology coupled with a rigid magnesium chassis means that can sustain more than a few everyday knocks. Clad in a sleek finish of gun-metal grey, the Z40’s exterior does not attract fingerprint smudges, ensuring a clean look that is a charm to carry around.

The Z40 sports a matte screen that is great for use in any lighting conditions. Colours show up fairly decent and images are crisp, but are considerably dimmer — even in its brightest settings — than its counterparts in the market. Users can upgrade from the 1366 x 768 display screen to a 1600 x 900 one. Preloaded with Windows 7 Professional, users can also choose to upgrade it to Windows 8.1 Professional.

Perhaps what the Z40 excels most in would be its long-lasting battery life. Enduring about 9 hours and 12 minutes of staggered web-surfing at its brightest screen settings, the Z40 is a reliable partner to work with around the clock.

Unfortunately, the unnecessarily small keys on the chiclet-style keyboard make typing a chore. Thankfully the wide touchpad area and a convenient page-scrolling function make it easy to navigate through menus, documents and websites.

The Z40 is also a delightfully speedy machine, with its Intel Core i7 4th Generation processor. Starting up takes about slightly more than half a minute, and even with multiple programs running at once, the Z40 performs regular everyday functions seamlessly, without any lag.

Equipped with a Nvidia Geforce GT730M graphic card, the Z40 lets users stream videos, view high-resolution photographs and work on designs with ease. However, heavy gaming on this device is not recommended as gameplay is often sluggish and the frame rate per second cannot keep up with a game of League of Legends on medium settings.

The Tecra Z40 is a notebook that is built to last. Its sleek-yet-sturdy design and great battery life make it a decent option for those looking for a lightweight business laptop, but only if they can overlook the lacklustre display and minute keyboard keys.

The Toshiba Tecra Z40 is now available and the i5 and i7 versions retail for S$1,699 and S$2,199 respectively.