With its new Portege X30L-G announced Monday at CES in Las Vegas, Dynabook has taken aim at the HP Elite Dragonfly, with its own 13-inch business notebook that weighs a feathery 1.9 pounds.
First, some recap: if the Portege name sounds familiar, it should: this is the Toshiba Portege line that Sharp purchased in 2018, along with Toshiba’s other PC assets, for a paltry $36 million. Sharp resuscitated Toshiba’s laptop lines, changing the main brand to Dynabook but keeping the Tecra and Portege brand names. Our review of the Dynabook Tecra X50-F revealed some growing pains, but that hasn’t stopped Dynabook from aggressively pushing forward with new designs.
Dynabook’s Portege X30L-G.
Some aspects of Dynabook’s laptops designs reflect its strong customer base in Asia. For instance, the Portege X30L features a full-size ethernet port, sticking out a little awkwardly from one of its slender sides. American users might be used to seeing drop-jaw ethernet on thin-and-light laptops, but Dynabook told PCWorld that its Asian customers prefer full ethernet because it’s more durable.
Portability is a key selling point. In fact, the scant 3-pound weight of the Tecra X50-F we reviewed—impressively light for a 15-inch notebook—was one of the stronger elements of the design. Dynabook manufactured the Tecra X50-F, as well as the new Portege, out of magnesium alloy, offering sturdy construction, though with a somewhat plasticky feel. You couldn’t argue with the Tecra’s weight, though, and the Portege appears to offer more of the same.
As a 13.3-inch notebook, the Portege X30L-G weighs less than 2 pounds—not quite as light as, say, the 14-inch Acer Swift 7 (1.84 pounds), but pretty darn close. Inside the Portege’s chassis sits one of Intel’s latest 10th-gen Comet Lake chips, optimized for speed.
Dynabook has paired the chip with a 1080p display with 220-, 300-, and 470-nit options. We consider about 260 nits suitable for comfortable business use. The 42Wh battery should deliver a solid 14.5 hours of battery life, though not in the same ballpark as the HP Elite Dragonfly’s reported 24-hour battery life.
Still, if you keep taking big swings, chances are you’ll hit something. We don’t have a price or availability for the Dynabook Portege X30L-G yet, but its key features are below. Executives tell us that while its products are currently limited to corporate clients and PC resellers like CDW at the moment, they hope to make them more generally available through Amazon soon.
Dynabook Portege X30L basic specs
- Display: 13.3-inch (1366×768, 1920×1080) with 200-, 300-, or 470-nit options
- Processor: Core i3-10110U, i5-10210U, i7-10510U, i7-10710U
- Graphics: UHD Graphics
- Memory: Up to 24GB dual-channel DDR4
- Storage: M.2 SATA (up to 512GB), M.2 PCIe NVMe (up to 512GB), M.2 PCIe NVMe with Optane (up to 1TB)
- Ports: HDMI, 2 USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 (with 1 supporting sleep and charge), 1 USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 w/power and display; ethernet, microSD, 3.5mm audio jack
- Camera: webcam (resolution undefined) with Windows Hello IR
- Battery: 42Wh
- Wireless: WiFi 6 (802.11ax), Bluetooth 5.0
- Other features: Fingerprint reader, security lock
- Operating system: Windows 10 Pro
- Dimensions: 12.16 x 8.33 x 0.70 inches (17.9mm)
- Weight: Starting at 1.9 pounds
- Color: Magnesium alloy chassis, in Onyx Blue Metallic color
