Let’s begin with the design. Decked out with a navy blue chassis and a black keyboard, the colour palette feels prefer it was pulled from the Nineties, and I additionally discovered it attracted fingerprints and smudges. You needn’t fear about getting these prints on the display screen, not less than, as a result of the 14-inch show (with a dated 1,920 x 1,200-pixel decision) isn’t a touchscreen.
The keyboard provides first rate motion however seems smaller than it’s, in all probability as a result of its tiny arrow keys and even tinier web page up/web page down buttons, which might be the smallest keys I’ve ever seen on a laptop computer keyboard. The touchpad is smallish in dimension, partially as a result of it options two discrete, bodily buttons beneath it. Buttons! I used to be semi-enamored of the wildly retro design till I felt how mushy and flimsy these buttons felt, which made me unhappy.
The first specs are midrange, that includes an Intel Core Extremely 7 258V CPU, 32 GB of RAM, and a 1-terabyte solid-state drive. Port choice, nevertheless, is superb for a company machine, sporting two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 assist (one wanted for charging), two USB-A ports, a full-size HDMI port, Ethernet, and a microSD card slot—cut up evenly throughout the left and proper sides of the machine.
{Photograph}: Chris Null
Sadly, all of that didn’t add as much as a lot on the efficiency entrance, with the Portégé handing over a number of the worst benchmark scores I’ve seen from an Intel-based machine within the Core Extremely period. Throughout enterprise apps, graphics-centric duties, and AI work, the Portégé might barely elevate its head off the pillow, dragging 10 to fifteen p.c behind the typical rating throughout the board. That’s not sufficient of a slowdown to make a visual distinction in easy duties like internet searching and lightweight productiveness app work, however anybody pushing their machines with extra complicated duties like picture modifying and AI picture creation will seemingly discover.
