Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N review: Featherweight and underpowered

When you're picking out a machine for work, you'll be looking for how portable it is, whether it can last you at least the full working day, and whether it's powerful enough to get the job done. There are plenty of appealing lightweight laptops to choose from these days, including the LG Gram14 and the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Pro. The Asus Zenbook A14, too, is a fantastic Copilot+ PC that offers a great OLED screen and an all-day battery life.

The Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N, meanwhile, is a premium machine that stays true to its corporate roots while adding some much-welcomed flair. It looks much sharper than previous Dynabook laptops, thanks to its deep blue finish, and it's much lighter than it has any business being. But that's a longstanding trait that the manufacturer has excelled in – having made plenty of lightweight notebooks through the years. With plenty of ports and connectivity options, and the latest hardware under the hood, is this newest edition worth picking out at just over $2,000?

Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N review: Design and display

The most striking change in the Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N is the deep blue finish, which gives the machine much more of an aura. But even this isn't enough to paper over the cracks of a design that's fundamentally dated. From the way the display is recluded within a plastic encasing to the trackpad that has two physical buttons, there are elements we feel that other manufacturers have moved beyond – including in their business notebooks.

Nothing is amiss – and there are no surprises, just not an awful lot of innovation to match the eye-catching finish. In a similar but more positive vein, this laptop's build quality is just as outstanding as you would expect. The magnesium alloy chassis is incredibly robust and has passed rigorous MIL-STD 810H testing – including a drop test, dust test, and examinations for withstanding different humidity levels, extreme temperatures, and shock.

It's also frighteningly light – weighing just 960g – which makes it ideal for working on the move or if you need to travel frequently. This is perhaps this machine's biggest selling point, its dimensions aren't the most compact when you look at the broader market – with a thickness of 18.9mm on the chunkier side. Most machines are usually under 17mm, with plenty in the 15-16mm range.

One thing you shouldn't buy this machine for is its display. We weren't overly impressed with the 14-inch IPS screen; Its relatively low 1,920 x 1,200 pixel resolution renders just 162 pixels per inch (PPI), which is considerably below average. With a 60Hz refresh rate and nothing particularly special otherwise, it's a disappointment considering how much you're paying for it. The brightness is around average (388 nits), while color accuracy is fine – with a 97.9% coverage of the sRGB spectrum, less than the 99% you get in plenty of premium options. The contrast ratio of 1,172:1 and 0.33 nits black level are fairly good, on the other hand. Overall, however, it's an unappealing if not inoffensive panel.

Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N review: Performance and battery life

The Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N includes an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V CPU as well as an integrated Intel Arc Graphics chip, which is complemented with 32GB LPDDR5X RAM and 1 TB SSD. Considering the strength of this configuration, on paper, we were let down with its performance in benchmarking.

In our testing with Geekbench 6, the laptop scored 1,762 and 8,337 for single-threaded and multi-threaded performance, respectively. This is among the lowest set of scores we registered across this generation and the previous generation of laptops. By contrast, the Lenovo ThinkPad X9 14 Aura Edition (fitted with the same Intel processor) clocked in 2,718 and 10,684. The most powerful laptops (excluding MacBooks – which vastly outperform Windows machines) usually score between 2,000 and 3,000 in single-threaded performance and up to 16,000 in the multi-threaded benchmark.

Its graphics performance, on the other hand, was strong – with the machine registering 26,960 in the OpenCL benchmark. You would expect a score like this from the new second-generation Intel chips, with most machines hovering between 25,000 and 29,000. This means it's more than capable of handling tasks with a moderate intensity.

Another benefit of the new Intel chip is the greater efficiency – with the Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N lasting 18hrs 55mins in my looped video playback test. This is much longer than the 11 hrs 51mins of the ThinkPad, and should give you plenty of assurances over using a laptop like this while you're on the move – or working somewhere that lacks a power socket. Importantly, however, the battery can be removed and replaced pretty easily – meaning if it ever degrades, you can easily swap in a new one.

Finally, worth noting is how fast the read and write speeds of the 1TB SSD were – with our tests registering 6,992MB/s and 5,576MB/s, respectively. These are certainly as high as you could expect – with only HP ZBook 8 G1ak 14 registering faster speeds in our tests.

Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N review: Features

While the keyboard is largely inoffensive – with plenty of bite to each keystroke and force feedback – the spacing may present a slight issue considering how small each key is, with rather wide gaps between them. It's not a dealbreaker, however. The keyboard also features an array of useful function keys -- including controls for taking phone calls if you connect your phone to the laptop.

The touchpad, however, is too small and is fiddly to use. The physical buttons are hard to negotiate with if you're used to a much wider buttonless touchpad. The most frustrating thing is instinctively attempting – and failing – to use the left-click function much higher up on the touchpad than the very bottom. It means having to overextend your thumb while typing. The surface of the touchpad itself feels smooth but there's a bit too much friction when you're changing direction quickly -- leading to a dragging feeling you could do without.

One of this machine's biggest advantages is its connectivity options, on the brighter side. Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 make up the wireless options. You also have plenty of ports for physical connections, including two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support, two USB-A ports, a 1Gbps LAN port, an HDMI 2.1 port, and even a microSD Card reader. This comes alongside a 3.5mm headphone jack. In short, it's an excellent proposition that should give you everything you need.

There are also plenty of fantastic security features – including a fingerprint reader as well as a 5MP IR camera with facial recognition, which supports Windows Hello and presence detection features. You'll also benefit from a slot for Secure Cable Lack, a webcam shutter slider, Intel Authenticate support, both a user password and supervisor password, and an SSD password on request. This is a comprehensive set of information security tools that should give you some added peace of mind.

Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N review: Is it worth it?

Dynabooks are usually fairly reliable, in that you know exactly what you should expect from them – a sturdy build quality, excellent connectivity options, and security features. These are widely considered to be solid enterprise-grade machines for a reason, but the Portégé Z40L-N left us feeling a little underwhelmed. While the lick of paint is fantastic, we wanted to see more innovation on the design front and to see the manufacturer make some bolder choices to match the of the shell.

Several disappointing notes included the lack of sharpness in the display as well as generally sluggish performances in benchmarking. While the scores were low, it's certainly powerful enough for day-to-day computing and basic workloads – including typing, spreadsheets, and basic graphics work.

What really matters is its long battery life, however. Combined with its great portability and weight, this is an appealing option if you primarily need a business-oriented machine to use on the move. That said, for more than $2,000 you find plenty more for your money, especially when it comes to performance and the quality of the display – so it's about weighing up whether the broad connectivity options, portability and security essentials, which are all excellent, are worth paying a little extra for.

Dynabook Portégé Z40L-N specifications