Review: Dynabook Portege X30W-J

Dynabook is the new name for Toshiba branded laptops. The company has been launching one laptop model after the other quite regularly and the latest to come out of its assembly line is the new Portege X30W-J. This ultraportable and convertible laptop is built around the Intel Evo platform and comes packed with 28W 11th generation Intel Core processors, powerful Intel Xe graphics, and 16-hours of battery life.

The Portege X30W-J is quite lightweight, weighing less than 1kg, and measures just 17.9mm in thickness. The chassis of the laptop feels surprisingly strong for such a light body. This is because the company has used magnesium alloy for the chassis, which combined with a Corning Gorilla Glass for the matte screen makes it not only light but very strong, passing MIL-STD-810-G tests for drop, dust, humidity, temperature, and shock.

Inside the box, you get the Dynabook Portege X30W-J convertible laptop along with Dynabook Trupen, the power adaptor with two types of power plugs, the warranty info, and the quick start guide. The Dynabook Trupen runs on one AAAA-type battery, which is also included inside the box.

As soon as you open the lid that says Dynabook on the center, you come face to face with a 13.3-inch Sharp IGZO Full HD matte anti-glare touchscreen. This display offers a resolution of 1920-by-1080 pixels.

The display, as mentioned before, is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass. It is also quite vibrant and provides excellent horizontal and vertical viewing angles, which is just what you need for a laptop that can also be used as a tablet.

Yes, the Portege X30-J is a convertible laptop. Since it comes with an x360 hinge, you can use the laptop in clam-shell, tablet, presentation, and flat modes.

Furthermore, the laptop comes with two cameras: one is a web camera with infrared, to support facial recognition login, while the other is mounted just above the keyboard, pointing up in laptop mode. This can also be used to take photos when in tablet mode.

Under the hood, the Dynabook Portege X30W-J comes with an 11th Gen Intel Core i5 1135G7 processor running at a clock speed of 2.42-GHz. This is coupled with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage.

In terms of connectivity, you get two USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports that support data transfer, power delivery, and Display Port; one USB 3.1 port that supports USB Sleep-and-Charge; one HDMI-out which with 4K support; two built-in microphones that can pick up sounds from 4 meters away; one micro SD card slot; and one 3.5mm combo audio jack. You also get Harman Kardon stereo speakers for all your audio requirements.

In terms of performance, the Dynabook Portege X30W-J works wonders. The infrared-based camera is particularly fast at login and you can easily enroll your face through the Windows Settings Login options.

And for those of you that really worry about it, a built-in physical camera cover is there to make sure that even if the camera is activated nothing can be recorded.

Even though the Dynabook Portege X30W-J is slim and light, it does not cut corners when it comes to its performance. The laptop was able to handle everything we threw at it with aplomb. Day-to-day computing needs felt like a walk in the park and the laptop was even able to handle video rendering sessions with ease.

The bundled Dynabook TruPen also worked like a charm. The pen has a quick response time, so you actually feel like writing on the screen and you can even apply pressure – with support for up to 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity you can use it to put emphasis on some text or work the brush strokes on a digital image.

Even though the laptop comes with a dual-fan cooling solution, the Portege X30W-J was absolutely silent to use. While the tech specs claim that the laptop offers up to 16 hours of battery life, in our tests we were able to clock around 12 hours of battery life, which is great for mobile professionals. Also, since the laptop supports USB-C quick charge technology, you can get up to 4 hours of battery life from a quick 30-minute charge.

The Dynabook Portege X30W-J comes in at a price point starting at $1340 + VAT, which translated to approximately AED 4,921 + VAT. At this price point, the Portégé X30W-J comes across as value for money since it is an impressively lightweight convertible 13.3-inch laptop, with slim bezels giving it a decent screen-to-body ratio (81.3%). If you are a road warrior looking for a performance-based laptop that offers good battery life and fast charge capability, the Dynabook Portege X30W-J could be one of the options you could consider.

Price: $1340 + VAT

Photography by Ranbir Sen