Toshiba Portege M700 Tablet PC
I’ve been using a Portege M400 Tablet PC at work since I started in May, and although I liked it well enough as a Tablet PC, there were some things about it that didn’t sit well with me. For example, the fan would run constantly (and loudly), and it had lousy battery life as a result. All of the known fixes from Toshiba (and some other forums) didn’t resolve it, so I was stuck with it. Also, as much as I like high-resolution displays on a desktop monitor, the 1450×1050 resolution of the M400 was too high for the 12.1" screen profile. I found myself squinting to read everything. There were a few other minor things, but they’re not really sticking out in my mind right now.
Fortunately, Toshiba released the M700 in December to remedy the issues of the M400. Customer Service needed a Tablet PC for testing purposes, so I handed down my M400 to them for that purpose in favor of the M700 that we ordered. It may seem a little unfair that I get a new PC after being here less than a year, but remember– I actually use my Tablet PC on a daily basis for work, and Customer Service will only be using it occasionally for testing and demonstrations.
Anyway, the M700 arrived yesterday morning, and I have to say– I am VERY, VERY impressed with it! Here’s a look at why:
I’m not going to be a total dork and post pictures of the packaging or a video of the unboxing process, but I do want to say that I’ve always liked Toshiba’s packaging. Small profile boxes that are packed well and easy to unpack make things extremely easy for a buyer, and yes– it’s less wasteful, thus favoring the environment.
(Click Read More to Continue)
The Hardware
First of all, the case of the system itself is almost identical to the M400… a black underbody with dark silver top that looks very professionally done. They have moved some of the ports around on it to allow better spacing between USB devices (for those who are forced to use oversized USB devices), and the pen is spaced further from the CD/DVD drive making it a little easier to access when needed for tablet mode. The only thing I’m not a fan of is the audio and Firewire ports being located on the front rather than rear of the body (though I do like the front presence of the volume slider and the wireless radio on/off switch). It also features a fairly standard PC Card slot and an SD/xD card reader slot.
Where the system really shines is the display. The system still has a single hinge display so that it can convert to Tablet PC mode, however, they have a very nice hinge lock on each side of the display to help reduce screen wobbling when in laptop mode. It’s fairly secure, although it does require the display to be at a 90-degree angle to the keyboard to rotate it easily (otherwise you risk breaking the clips). It’s not necessarily a negative, but it’s something to be cautious about, since you don’t want to just force it to rotate. Also, the display itself still has a smudge-resistant film over it like other Toshiba models, however, this unit seems to have a slightly different film from previous Toshiba models, because the display doesn’t have a grainy, fuzzy quality to it. The stylus feels identical to the Toshiba models before it, which is very nice. I’ve always been fond of how it feels more like a medium ball-point pen rather than the felt-tip pen that some tablets (such as the Gateway models) have. The buttons on Toshiba’s displays have always been useful– cross-hair for navigation/enter, screen rotation/escape key, security key for CTRL-ALT-DELETE, and the Presentation Mode button that switches the display resolution to a projector-friendly resolution. Also on this model (as with the M400) is the finger print reader that I don’t really use, but is a nice feature to have– especially those like me with complicated passwords.
The biggest benefit to this system, however, is the touch screen, in my opinion. You do have to solidly touch the screen to click or drag, but I prefer that to minimize errors. I don’t know if it’s by design or just an added bonus, but it definitely seems like the display is capable of multi-touch, if an application running on it supports the functionality. I can tell with multiple fingers that it responds to each finger’s presence. While I like using the pen a lot, I think having the touch option is nice, especially for web surfing and other navigation needs. I will be looking for a suitable on-screen keyboard to see if I can use it for typing in tablet mode.
Although I suspect I will rarely use it, especially at work, it also features a built-in webcam, which I think is a very nice feature to add.
Finally, the battery life seems to be very respectable. Out of the box without a charge, I got about 3.5 hours with the primary battery. With a full charge using Toshiba’s Power Saver utility with customized settings, that increased to about 4.5 hours. I happen to have the slice battery that I bought with my M400, and adding that got me to about 6 hours of life. For the record, my power scheme in Power Saver is a customized "Long Life" scheme: Level 5 brightness, Enable PCIe Power Save, Auto CPU Method, Level 3-4 Processor Speed, Battery Optimized Cooling, Monitor Off at 5 minutes, Hard Drive Off at 10 minutes, Standby at 15 minutes, Hibernation disabled. You can eek out much more battery life with other settings, but I strike a balance between performance and battery life that fits my needs.
The Software
What I don’t like about the M700– and every Toshiba system, really– is the overabundance of pre-installed software. When I booted the system for the first time, I had 93 processes listed in Task Manager. This is completely uncalled for and inexcusable, in my opinion. Had I not ordered the system with 2GB of RAM, it would have been crawling! Needless to say, I spent the first few hours uninstalling all the crap. Kudos, however, to Toshiba for making it easily possible to reinstall apps that I mistakenly removed (the Intel Management software). I’ll provide a full list of software that I removed later in this review.
Some people may find some of the applications useful. For example, I do like Toshiba’s Power Management utility and I like the Optical Disk Drive controls that allow you disable/enable the optical drive. The service also prevents you from accidentally ejecting the drive while in Tablet PC mode, since the system must remain still for 3 seconds before it allows you to eject it (a nice feature compared to the M400 and other Toshiba models). Most of the other features, however, waste memory, processor, and battery resources. I do, however, wish Toshiba would stop wasting time with their own Bluetooth stack and would just stick with the Microsoft stack that is included with Windows. Not only is it easier to use, but it integrates with Windows more effectively. Toshiba’s ConfigFree app is kind of hit or miss with most users. I prefer to configure things manually, so I dislike it, but it is a pretty handy program for configuring wireless and networking devices.
I’m also particularly annoyed by the McAfee Security Suite and Google Desktop Search being installed AND ENABLED by default. Google is a great web search engine, but their desktop search has been known to index things on the local machine to the web among other privacy concerns, so its presence immediately irritated me. McAfee has some of the worst detection rates for viruses, and it bogs down system resources like they’re going out of style, so I wish they’d find another vendor for those services.
There are also lots of little tray utilities that just take up more space and resources rather than do anything helpful. Fortunately, all of the software issues are easily resolved. Here’s the list of software that MUST remain installed in order for all hardware functionality to remain in tact:
- ALPS Touchpad Driver
- Bluetooth Monitor (if, like me, you prefer the Microsoft stack instead of the Toshiba stack. This is available in the C:\Toshiba\BtMonitor3 folder… be sure to remove the Toshiba Bluetooth stack first).
- High Definition Audio Driver Package
- All of the Intel applications… although, if you download the "Driver Only" packages from Intel for the wireless adapter, you can remove the PROSet/Wireless application (recommended).
- InterVideo WinDVD
- Realtek High Definition Audio Driver
- Texas Instruments PCIxx21 drivers (for the Card Reader).
- Toshiba Controls (enables several of the Fn hotkeys… why not ALL of them rather than have umpteen services below to do the rest!?).
- Toshiba Display Devices Change Utility (Presentation Mode controls… again, why not have one service provide ALL button functionality rather than multiple!?)
- Toshiba HDD Protection (enables the hard drive shock absorber option, although I do recommend tweaking the settings for it).
- Toshiba Hotkey Utility for Display Devices (enables Fn-F5)
- Toshiba Mic Effect (enables echo reduction for audio)
- Toshiba Mobile Extensions (if you plan on using a docking station, otherwise remove it)
- Toshiba Power Saver (Power management controls)
- Toshiba Rotation Utility (enables Screen Rotate button in Tablet PC mode)
- Toshiba Software Modem
- Toshiba Touchpad On/Off Controls (if you wish to use the Fn F9 key to turn the touchpad on/off, otherwise remove it)
- Toshiba Utilities (complements Toshiba Controls)
- Toshiba Wireless Hotkey (enables Fn F8 to turn wireless networking on/off, otherwise remove it… that’s what the hardware switch on the front is for!)
- TrueSuite Access Manager (enables Fingerprint Reader)
- Wacom Tablet (enables Tablet and Touch functionality)
- Windows/.NET Framework/Windows Media Player/Internet Explorer Updates
- Everything else can be removed, and I generally feel that they should be removed in favor of alternative programs or newer versions (like Adobe Reader and Java)
Conclusions
In conclusion, the hardware is absolutely fantastic. Although the default software experience leaves a lot to be desired, it can be very easily remedied, at which time the M700 is by far one of the best tablets I’ve used. When I was setting mine up, I had the same joy– the "WOW" experience I had when I bought my first Tablet PC, the Toshiba Satellite R10.
Here’s a quick list of my configuration:
- Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7250 (2.00GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB)
- 2048MB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM (1024MBx2)
- 12.1" WXGA Backlit Display supporting digital pen with indoor/outdoor viewing (1280×800)
- Active Digitizer with Pen and Touch Screen Input
- Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
- 120GB HDD (7200rpm, Serial-ATA)
- Bluetooth® Version 2.0 +EDR
- 3 Year Standard Limited Warranty
- Sub-Total: $1,824.00
- Plus the Toshiba 3-Year SystemGuard + On-Site Repair for $277.20
So basically, I get all the functionality of the Dell Latitude XT for more than $600 less. Oh, and a faster processor.