Dynabook’s Portege laptop bets you’ll want a user-replaceable battery

A decade after the Portege laptop exited the consumer market, it’s back — and with a user-replaceable battery, too.

On Friday, Dynabook — which, as Sharp, took over Toshiba’s PC business in 2018 and then renamed itself — announced the Portege Z40L-N, a $1,699 laptop based upon the Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processor. The laptops ship immediately, in fixed “EZ-Buy” configurations as well as Built-to-Order models that are configurable.

The Z40L-N is a business laptop, and for the last decade Dynabook has sold its Portege, Tecra, and Satellite Pro laptops exclusively to commercial customers. As of today, that’s changed, and anyone can buy a Dynabook laptop at the company’s website.

The Z40L-N is built inside a magnesium chassis, with a conventional mix of features such as the integrated NPU inside the Core Ultra 5 226V on up to the Core Ultra 7 268V (with vPro). Users have the option of either 16GB or 32GB of LPDDR5 memory and storage up to 2TB, all behind a 14-inch 1920×1200 screen and powered by a 65Wh battery. It’s not clear if users will be able to source a replacement battery from the Dynabook store, but the company is explicitly marketing it as user-replaceable, significantly increasing its lifespan.

Dynabook

The laptop is equipped with two Thunderbolt ports, and Dynabook will sell a variety of docks and other accessories to accompany it.

The laptop will ship with a three-year warranty for the prebuilt EZ-Buy models and a four-year warranty for Built-to-Order devices.