The Apps Bundled With The Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B

Unfortunately Toshiba has chosen to bundle lots of desktop apps, modern apps as well as its own utilities. As you can see below, the list of bundled software is very long and it includes the following:

• Desktop apps: Evernote, Google Drive, McAfee LiveSafe - Internet Security, a Microsoft Office trial, Skype, Spotify, Symbaloo, Wacom Pen and a trial version of WinZip. We highly recommend that you uninstall McAfee, which is an annoying security solution that's also not very effective. Also, uninstall Symbaloo - a shortcut to a web portal you may not want to use. We recommend you to test all the desktop apps that are installed and remove those you don't need. It will improve the general performance of the ultrabook and lower its boot timings.
• Modern apps: Skype WiFi, McAfee Central, MyToshiba, SkyScanner, Flipboard, Camera 365 for Toshiba, Evernote Touch and CyberLink Power Media Player. Again, some of these apps may be useful to you while most of them won't be. Don't hesitate to remove those you don't need.
• Toshiba utilities: TOSHIBA Display Utility, TOSHIBA eco Utility, TOSHIBA Function Key, TOSHIBA Manuals, TOSHIBA Password Utility, TOSHIBA PC Health Monitor, TOSHIBA Recovery Media Creator, TOSHIBA Service Station, TOSHIBA System Driver, TOSHIBA System Settings, TOSHIBA Tablet Access Code Logon Utility, TOSHIBA TEMPRO and TOSHIBA TruNote Support Service. While many in number, the Toshiba utilities are useful and you should keep most of them installed.

Unfortunately Toshiba decided to bundle lots of apps on the Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B and you should consider uninstalling many of them.

Performance In Benchmarks

It's time for benchmarks and the hard numbers measured by them. First, we used BootRacer to measure how fast Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B starts. The average boot time was of 18.47 seconds, which is good. However, you can improve it by uninstalling some of the software that's bundled with this ultrabook.

Then, we used 3DMark Vantage and the Performance preset, to see how well this device works for gaming. As you can see in the screenshot below, Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B obtained a score of 3134 points and very low numbers in terms of frames per second. It's clear that this device was not built for gaming. Yes, you can play games on it, but you should stick mostly to casual games which do not require a powerful video card in order to work well.

To evaluate the performance offered when used by a person at home, for things like browsing the web, writing, video chat, photo editing and casual gaming, we have run the PCMark 8 benchmark using the Home accelerated preset. As you can see, Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B scored 2547 points which is a good result, meaning that it will perform well for most home users.

Since this device is aimed at business professionals, we used also the Work accelerated preset, which simulates activities like web browsing, writing, working with spreadsheets and video chat. The overall score was of 2835 points, meaning that Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B will perform well for most business uses, except when doing professional video editing or other tasks that require a powerful video card or a very powerful processor.

In order to evaluate how fast the SSD drive is on the Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B, we ran the CrystalDiskMark benchmark. Below you can see the average read and write speeds that were measured by it. As you can see, the SSD drive on this ultrabook is fast enough for common computing tasks.

The default temperature of the CPU on the Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B is around 70 degrees Celsius (158 degrees Fahrenheit) in normal uses which don't place it under a lot of stress. However, things will heat up to 95 degrees Celsius (203 degrees Fahrenheit) when putting it under stress. That's quite hot. Fortunately, the heat is not felt on your lap, if you are using the device in ultrabook mode. The heat is felt mostly on the right side of the screen and makes it uncomfortable to use in tablet mode. However, it's rather unlikely that you will run resource intensive tasks when using Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B in tablet mode. Therefore, heat should not be an issue in most computing situations.

To evaluate the battery life provided by Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B, we have run the PowerMark benchmark. First, we ran it when using the device in tablet mode. We obtained an average battery life of 6 hours and 22 minutes, which is great, if you ask us.

When running Powermark with the keyboard connected to the device and a second battery being available, Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B lasted 13 hours and 2 minutes, which is great. It's clear that Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B will not have any issues lasting you a long work day, without charging it.

Our testing has shown that Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B is powerful enough for common computing tasks that people tend to perform at work. It's not good for video editing but it's fast enough for writing documents, working with spreadsheets, using business software of all kinds and for video conferencing. Also, the battery life is a major strength of this device, as demonstrated by our measurements.

Verdict

Toshiba PORTEGE Z20t-B is a solid hybrid ultrabook that's worth considering by many business users. It offers stellar battery life, lots of connectivity options, both a free upgrade to Windows 10 and a free downgrade to Windows 7, and generally good performance. Yes, it's not great for computing-intensive tasks like professional video-editing or gaming, but it offers more than decent performance for most business applications that you are likely to use at work. We are very pleased with the way it works and we recommend it to all our readers.