Toshiba Portege M400 Tablet PC Review
| Design |
| There is no doubt that Toshiba has designed this light weight Tablet PC with the traveller users in mind. For a start, the Portege M400 weighs a mere 4.5 pounds, so you can take it anywhere with you like you do with you mobile phone. No, it doesn’t fit on your pocket!, but with dimensions of 11.6 inches wide, 9.8 inches deep and 1.6 inches thick we are sure you will not complain. The new Toshiba Porege M400 comes in a very professional dark silver and black colour. Like the majority of convertible tablets, the screen is mounted on a single hinge, allowing you to swivel it around to change from Laptop mode to Tablet mode. When you change from Laptop mode to Tablet mode, the screen orientation automatically changes from landscape to portrait. The 12.1” XGA Display has a resolution of 1024x768, and alongside screen we have four buttons: two preset buttons to manually change the display’s orientation and to open Windows and two buttons that you can program to launch the applications you choose. On the corner of the screen we have a very cool biometric fingerprint sensor to securely log on to Windows and access other password-protected content. The keyboard on the Portege M400 is smaller than the one you would find on standard laptops, but it’s comfortable enough. The touchpad and mouse are also on the small side. The only complaint we have regarding the design of the Toshiba Portege M400 is the stylus. Toshiba could have spent a little bit more of money and include a stylus that is not made from cheap plastic. |
| Setup/Installation |
| The set up for this lovely Tablet PC is minimal. All the software you need comes already loaded so all you will need to do is charge the batteries and you are ready to go. |
| Features |
The main feature of the Toshiba Portege M400 is without a doubt its Intel Core Duo Processor T2400 (1.83GHz). This is the first Tablet PC to include Intel Core Duo Technology, making the Portege M400 a very desirable piece of equipment, but we were a bit disappointed when we discovered that it comes with only 512 RAM installed and we would have liked to see 1 GB at least to match the processor speed. On the storage side there is an 80GB hard drive, which is plenty of space. The Toshiba Portege M440 comes with a Dual Layer DVD±RW and a 5 in 1 card reader to easily transfer your photos from your digital camera. It has a built-in microphone and a very typical mix of ports which includes FireWire, VGA and three USB 2.0 ports; headphone and microphone jacks and one Type II PC Card slot. We are pleased to see that Toshiba has also included Bluetooth to make it easy to connect to your mobile phone or PDA. The Toshiba Portege M400 can connect to networks via 56K modem, Ethernet or 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi. It comes preloaded with Windows XP Tablet Edition 2005 and a nice mix of additional software, such as Microsoft Office OneNote2003 for taking notes with the stylus, the Microsoft Works mini-productivity suite and Toshiba’s EasyGuard security and utilities Suite. The Toshiba Portege M400 comes with one year manufacturers warranty with return-to-depot service. |
| Performance |
| The Toshiba Portege M400 performed very well under our tests and we found the system very fast indeed. The Core Duo Processor is everything we expected it to be and it coped remarkably well with everything we threw at it. The M400 boots very, very fast and running several applications is not an issue for this powerful Tablet PC. You can run your antivirus software at the same time you use Photoshop and even burn a CD and the Toshiba Portege M400 will not complain, on the contrary, we thought we heard the Portege M400 saying: Is that all you have for me? The screen is also great, much better that its predecessor, the Portege M200. The brightness and viewing angle are both excellent and the overall clarity of the screen is crystalline. Try watching a DVD and you will be impressed! Using Wi-Fi couldn’t be easier. We found several hot spots very quickly and the signal stayed strong with no disruptions. 10 out of 10! We were also very impressed with the battery life. During our tests, the battery lasted just over 4 hours, which is very good news. This means that you can take the Toshiba Portege M400 anywhere you want without having to worry too much abut finding a power socket to recharge the battery. |
| Overall Opinion |
| Overall we are very pleased with the Thoshiba Portege M400. It’s one of the fastest Tablet PCs on the market and its light weight and long battery-life make this little gem a truly portable device. A real must have for those Tablet PC fanatics out there. And you will not have to break the bank to get this great piece of technology as it’s very affordable indeed, despite being the first Tablet PC to include Intel Core Duo Processor. |
By Nacho Galvez |
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Pros + Light weight + Bluetooth + Affordable + Good battery life |
Cons - Only 512 Mb RAM - Cheap stylus |
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Overall Rating 
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4/12/2006 at 2:53:46pm
