Welcome to a laptop battery specialist
of the Toshiba Laptop Battery
Connect the tablet portion of the Z20T to its included keyboard dock and it becomes a reasonably stylish-looking laptop. You can flip the tablet around and connect it backwards so that the keyboard dock becomes nothing more than a glorified tablet stand. It’s not really designed to be used that way though, if only because the latch for releasing the docking mechanism is located on the hinge facing towards the keyboard and the keyboard itself is still active so you will have to take care to avoid inadvertently tapping the keys.
We did have some initial problems getting the docked tablet to recognise the keyboard with battery like Toshiba PA3536U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3537U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba Satellite P200 Battery, Toshiba PA3640U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PABAS121 Battery, Toshiba PA3216U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3288U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3788U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3479U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3480U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3465U-1BRS Battery, Toshiba PA3509U-1BRM Batterydock - keyboard and touchpad input would frequently stop working inexplicably. This was very frustrating, but was almost completely resolved by installing a BIOS update via Toshiba’s own software update utility. Although eventually fixed, we’d expect a higher degree of polish at this price.
Although the hinge only tilts back approximately 120 degrees, we didn’t have any trouble getting a comfortable viewing angle, when used either on a desk or on our laps, apart from in the most cramped of conditions. This was due, in large part, to the relatively tall height of the 12.5in screen.
Although contrast and colour accuracy aren’t quite as good as the very best laptop and tablet screens, it’s good enough for all but colour-critical tasks. Plus, it’s very bright and has a matte finish too which reduces glare caused by overhead lights reflecting off the screen. This occurs particularly frequently in offices with fluorescent lighting strips, so the matte finish is a very welcome feature. It’s a shame matte finishes aren’t more common, in hybrids as well as standalone laptops and tablets.
Squeezing 1920x1080 pixels into a 12.5in screen sometimes makes text a little too small to read comfortably though, especially as Windows continues to struggle with text scaling on such relatively high DPI screens.
We’re used to seeing shonky, poorly designed keyboards accompanying tablets, but that’s not the case here. The large keys have plenty of travel and feedback so typing was fast and comfortable. The hinge props the keyboard up at a slight angle, which makes typing more comfortable for some. The keyboard here is far superior to its counterparts on many of Toshiba’s other laptops and hybrids.
Sadly, the touchpad wasn’t as good. The touchpad’s jerky motion meant it wasn’t very smooth or accurate, while the buttons built into the bottom of the pad often require a firm, precise press. Gestures were often quite juddery too, especially swiping two fingers to scroll up and down. This is hardly surprising though; iffy touchpads are distressingly common on Windows laptops.
There is an alternative, aside from using the touchscreen, in the form of the touchstick. It’ll be familiar to long-time Portege and ThinkPad users, but it won’t suit everyone - like Marmite, you’ll either love it or hate it. Even if you love touchsticks, its spongy buttons need improvement.
The keyboard dock adds more than just a selection of input devices. Its second battery almost doubled the Z20T’s battery life in our light usage test, adding another 11 hours and 35 minutes and added almost nine extra hours of H.264 playback. Cleverly, Windows uses power from the keyboard’s battery first so you can still use the Z20T as a tablet once the keyboard battery is depleted.
The big battery also adds some welcome heft to the keyboard dock so that the docked computer doesn’t feel too top-heavy, a problem which afflicts many other detachable hybrids. The keyboard dock also adds a pair of USB3 ports, a full-size HDMI port, Gigabit Ethernet and even a VGA socket. The latter might seem antiquated, but is useful for connecting to the legion of old projectors that you’re likely to encounter in conference centres and meeting rooms, while Gigabit Ethernet is a useful and faster fallback alternative to the built-in 802.11ac.