
2.2GHz Core 2 Duo T7500
2GB DDR2
160GB hard drive
Dual-layer DVD±RW
12.1-inch TFT
GMA X3100 (8MB-251MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory)
Windows Vista Business
Not everyone needs a tablet PC. But when you can get tablet functionality in a convertible form factor without tradeoffs, as with the Toshiba Port±g± M700-S7002, there's no reason not to give it a try. The $1,799 M700 is a thin-and-light aimed at business users, and while it isn't the sexiest notebook on the block, it delivers plenty of features, decent performance, and that split laptop/tablet personality.
The exterior of the M700 is rather subdued compared to other laptop designs. If you don't mind a buttoned-down gray-and-black color scheme, it should suit you just fine, and the clear-coat finish adds a bit of richness to an otherwise unremarkable look. What concerns us more is the relative heft of the chassis: A notebook with just a 12.1-inch screen has the potential to be a svelte traveling companion (say, an inch thick and 4 pounds), but the M700 is 1.5 inches thick and weighs about 5 pounds. That bulk is especially noticeable in tablet mode, where the unit gets uncomfortable in the crook of your arm in short order.
But we have no complaints about the screen. The LED backlight gives a rich, bright appearance, while the 1,280x800 resolution makes for sharp, clear text. Even more impressive is the fact that the digitizer—the overlay that senses the presence of the stylus for writing and onscreen navigation—does not detract from the screen's clarity. This isn't always the case with tablets, as we found with the HP Pavilion tx2000z we recently reviewed. On the downside, the matte (not glossy) panel means DVD movies look less vibrant than on other machines, and audio from the integrated stereo speakers is thin.
The screen pivots and folds flat on a sturdy center hinge for tablet use, and we found the digitizer very accurate. You can use your finger or the stylus, and the Windows Vista Business operating system includes the Input Panel utility for adding handwritten notes to an open document, converting written characters to text, or typing on an onscreen keyboard (which is convenient for tapping out URLs while Web surfing in tablet mode). Toshiba also includes the excellent Microsoft Office OneNote 2007, a note-taking and organizational program that lets you collect snippets (documents, portions of Web pages, and so on) into an electronic tabbed notebook. A 60-day trial version of Office 2007 is also preloaded, as are the handy Toshiba Assist utilities for connecting, backing up, diagnosing problems, and more.
Beyond the tablet functionality, Toshiba has included a wealth of features. There's a fingerprint reader, Webcam, PC Card and memory card slots, a DVD SuperMulti drive, Bluetooth, and 802.11a/g/n Wi-Fi. The 160GB hard drive features active protection, parking the heads when shock or vibration are detected—welcome on a tablet likely to see more walking-around use than a typical notebook. You can also swap out the optical drive in favor of a weight-saving filler piece or an extra battery or hard drive.
Performance from the M700's 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 CPU (with 2GB of RAM) is fine for a business-class machine. The laptop booted in a quick 1 minute and 2 seconds and scored 3,310 on Futuremark's PCMark05 benchmark. On our multimedia encoding, the M700 scored 678 on Cinebench 9.5, completed the Media Encoder 9 trial in 7 minutes and 13 seconds, and the iTunes conversion test in 4 minutes and 58 seconds, both decent scores for a business system.
As expected, the integrated Intel X3100 GPU is no match for serious 3D needs: It scored just 557 on Futuremark's 3DMark06. A game like F.E.A.R. is playable if you drop all the way down to 640x480 resolution, at which we attained 44 frames per second (fps), but at even just 1,024x768 the frame rate drops to 25fps. Because the OS is Vista Business OS, there are no Media Center components for handling music and DVD playback, organizing and accessing multimedia files, and so on. Toshiba claims battery life for the included 6-cell battery of around 4 hours and 45 minutes, though in our harsh DVD rundown test we saw only 1 hour and 15 minutes, which to us suggests typical-use battery life of more like 3 to 4 hours.
The Port±g± M700-S7002 has a lot going for it. It has all the features and performance a business user is likely to need, plus handy tablet functionality for when you want to change the way you work.
Price : $ 1548
author : Jamie Bsales
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