Toshiba U840 Ultrabook Review

We recently took Toshiba’s high-end Z830 Ultrabook out for a spin and have come away impressed with the performance and overall form factor. It's one of the few Ultrabooks to give us really good battery life, which was a huge bonus. We have a slightly more ‘budget-friendly’ version of the notebook called the U840 here, featuring Intel’s latest Ivy Bridge. Let’s see if it can manage to outperform the existing Sandy Bridge-based Ultrabooks.Design and BuildThe U840 is not as slim or light as its higher-end brethren but manages to be portable enough. The tapering edges give it a wedge-like design and at 1.5 kg, it's not terribly uncomfortable to carry around in your backpack. The U840 uses a mix of aluminium and plastic for the chassis, which gives it a very good build; in fact, we like it a lot better than the Z830, which felt a bit too flimsy. There is also much lesser flex in the lid and rest of the body, which is good.