Tablet-notebook combinations are becoming more and more commonplace and Toshiba has upped the visual stakes with the new Portégé M200. With its 2GHz processor, 512Mb of memory and a 60Gb hard drive, the notebook is already powerful enough. However, electronic artists will appreciate the graphics card and screen as two of the M200’s best assets.
The Go5200 is at the lower end of the GeForce FX Go range of mobile graphics solutions. While gamers may be unimpressed with its performance and tempted to upgrade, most others will be satisfied.
A 12.1-inch SXGA+ TFT screen boasts a maximum resolution of 1400 x 1050 and a resplendent 16.7million colours. It offers a super-smooth display and also provides better pen input and usability. Unsurprisingly with such a good screen, viewing angles can be as wide as you like. This is good and bad - good if you want to share your work, bad if you don’t want others to see it.
Something I learnt during this review is that an accelerometer is a, err, device that measures acceleration, and a feature the Portégé M200 is a built-in accelerometer that allows the tablet to be tilt-aware. This has three main functions. The most useful is that you can hold the M200 whichever side you want to, press the Screen Orientation button and the screen automatically adjusts to the correct view. In other words, you don’t have to go through all the orientations manually.
With the accelerometer you can also shake the tablet to access shortcuts. So you could configure horizontal shakes to switch between programs and vertical shakes to launch a particular application or perhaps bring up the start menu. This is a unique but odd idea. Applications may be launched inadvertently and too much shaking can’t be good for the tablet especially if you lose your grip! It may be worth noting that the M200 is more ‘slippy’ than ‘grippy’.
With the accelerometer you can also control the mouse cursor by tilting the tablet. Again, a nice gimmick but awkward to use and rather pointless for me as there already is a stylus. Maybe Toshiba included this functionality for the event of a lost stylus - only one is provided with the M200.
The Portégé M200 is an average size and only weighs 2kgs. It doesn’t feel particularly durable and the plastic used for the casing seems cheap and flexes. The two biggest worries are the seemingly weak rotating hinge and accompanying plastic display latch. You’re warned specifically in the manual not to use excessive force when rotating the screen and you need to manually adjust the latch each time you switch between notebook and tablet.
Connectivity options are diverse through wired network, modem Internet, wifi, Bluetooth or even infrared connections. However, other ports are sparse. There are only two USBs, no FireWire and, stranger still, no optical drive. This really is a let-down considering the price of the notebook and the fact that it’s not ultra slim.
The M200 uses three microphones instead of 1. They provide the M200 with useful noise reduction capability, filtering out background noise, and self-dictation is actually made usable. Software provision is also good. As well as including Microsoft OneNote, Toshiba also includes an excellent suite of configuration utilities, most notably the network, and zooming tools that make life simple.
On the one hand the Portégé M200 is powerful, visually impressive, has a great range of connectivity options and comes with decent software. On the other, it has no optical drive, limited ports, a questionably useful accelerometer – and it isn’t the most durable but is certainly an expensive notebook.
| Details
Toshiba Portege M200
Tablet/notebook PC with Intel Centrino Mobile Technology including Pentium M755 Processor (2.00GHz), 60GB hard drive, 512MB memory, 12.1” SXGA+ TFT Screen, NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 graphics card, WiFi(802.11b/g), built in network and modem, Bluetooth, Infrared, 2 USB’s, PC and SD card slots, Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and Microsoft OneNote 2003, three-year warranty.
Price from £1,199 ex VAT
www.toshiba.co.uk
Ratings
Fitness for purpose 3/5
Ease of use 4/5
Features 4/5
Quality 3/5
Value for money 3/5
|
|
