With the popularity of lightweight business laptops increasing on the market, Dynabook offers some great models with enhanced security features. We got to review the Dynabook Portégé X30L-G-10L lightweight laptop and here are our thoughts about it.
Design
The Dynabook Portégé X30L-G-10L is easily one of the lightest business laptops that we have tried. The laptop weighs only 870g and is easy to carry. The device also comes with a thin form factor and features a dimension of 308.8 x 211.6 x 17.9 mm. Dynabook mentions that the laptop is built around a magnesium chassis and is also subject to MIL-STD 810G standards. This means the laptop is not only easy to carry around but also is sturdy enough to resist the daily bumps and shocks. The laptop comes with a very dark blue colour which Dynabook calls it Onyx Blue.
The laptop features a fantastic 13.3-inch Sharp non-reflective IGZO IPS display with excellent viewing angles and with FHD as the screen resolution. In fact, the display panel has one of the best viewing angles that we have seen and the visuals maintain when we look from the left and right side as well, as from the top and bottom angles.
The display also features a maximum brightness of 470 nits. The default colour temperature of the screen is also well balanced and the whites stay between cool and warm colours. There is also an IR camera on the top panel with a dual mic that brings support for Windows Hello and Intel Authenticate authentication.
While the laptop is extremely lightweight, the keyboard looks a bit small and the key travel falls a bit short. Typing on the keyboard takes a bit of time in getting used to since the keys are smaller than other laptops that we have tried. The tactile experience could also have been better since many brands do focus on that factor.
And even though the keys are backlit, the illumination of the LEDs is not so great either. We aren’t sure if Dynabook had to sacrifice all these to keep the weight of the laptop as light as possible but we think that the keyboard quality should not be compromised. We aren’t also a fan of the small trackpad that has limited space for movement. That said, there is a fingerprint scanner located on the top left side of the trackpad. Dynabook also placed a steel rim at the outer end of the trackpad. The power button is located on the top right portion of the keyboard.
Even with the thin and light design, the Portégé X30L-G-10L comes with a number of connectivity options and we are glad that Dynabook did not skip them. On the right side, the laptop features two USB-A 3.0 ports, one Gigabit LAN port and a lock slot. The left side of the laptop features a MicroSD card reader, a headphone jack, an HDMI port, a USB-C port, and a power connector.
The laptop also features air vents on the rear side and also under the device. The speakers are just okay, to say the least, and are also located on the left and right sides of the bottom panel. The rear side of the display features a polished hairline finish with the Dynabook logo located on the bottom left side.
Specs and Performance
The Dynabook Portégé X30L-G-10L isn’t just about the sturdiness and lightweight design, it also packs some impressive hardware for a business laptop that delivers smooth performance for users. The laptop comes powered by the Intel 10th generation i7-10710U processor with Intel UHD integrated graphics.
Even though the processor is a bit old, the chip is fast enough to handle the daily tasks done by business users. The processor is paired with 16GB DDR4 RAM that is quite sufficient by today’s standards. While the system features a 1TB QLC based 3D NAND SSD drive, the performance is super boosted with the help of 32GB Intel Optane technology. The laptop runs on Windows 10 Pro OS. The performance of the Portégé X30L-G-10L is fast enough and we did not notice any lags during our usage unless you are one of those who open dozens of tabs on Chrome and open a lot of large Excel sheets.
The laptop also offers good battery life and packs a 4-cell lithium-ion battery. According to Dynabook, the laptop ran up to 9 hours and 45 minutes when tested with MobileMark 2014 benchmark. We also did a test of our own using the PC Mark 10 Modern Office Battery benchmark and the laptop ran up to 7 hours and 35 minutes. The benchmark was tested using 60 percent brightness at balanced battery mode. For real-use cases, the laptop was able to last almost about the same with mixed usage that includes editorial work, web browsing and watching videos on Youtube.
We have also tested the laptop using benchmarks such as PC Mark 10 Office test, 3D Mark FireStrike, Night Raid, TimeSpy, GeekBench 5 CPU and GPU tests, Cinebench R23 for the CPU, and CrystakDiskMark for the SSD. Check out the results below.
Verdict
Dynabook makes some great business laptops that are lightweight and easy to carry around and the Portégé X30L-G-10L falls in that category. The laptop’s impressive 870g weight is lighter than most of the models in the market and this is something many users would want in their checklist. However, the keyboard does fall short with respect to typing experience and we hope the next iteration would come with an improved variant.
That said, the IPS display is also fantastic and offers great viewing angles. The build quality does not feel cheap and there are multiple connectivity options for the user to expand their productivity. The performance of the laptop is also fast and snappy. While the battery life of the laptop could have been better, the device is still able to get you throughout the day of work.
