Design
The 2.18kg Portege M400 measures 295 by 250 by 40mm (WHD) -- making it a bit bulkier than other convertible tables with 12.1-inch displays, such as the 2.18kg Fujitsu LifeBook T4020 and the 1.63kg Lenovo ThinkPad X41 Tablet. Though the Portege M400's AC adaptor tacks on another 450g, the total package is still light enough for semi-frequent travel and short stints of clipboard-style note-taking.
Like most convertible tablets, the Portege M400's screen swivels between landscape and portrait modes, automatically switching its orientation in midswivel. The display appears bright and clear both indoors and outside. Its standard 1,024x768 native resolution doesn't provide minute graphics detail, but makes for big, readable text. Two preset buttons alongside the screen serve to manually change the display's orientation and call up Windows Task Manager, while two other buttons can be programmed to launch the applications of your choice. Finally, a biometric fingerprint sensor sits in the screen's corner, providing an easy and secure way to log on to Windows and access other password-protected content.
The Portege M400's keyboard is on the smaller side, but we were able to type for an hour or two without cramping our hands. The touch pad and mouse buttons are also small, even for a tablet, yet tolerable. We experienced no problems with the included stylus, though its plastic construction seems a bit cheap -- we did appreciate the handy 'eraser' on its end, which works just like a pencil rubber on your digital notes. As with most tablets, the M400 has a built-in microphone for on-the-fly dictation and recording. Two integrated speakers reside in the far upper corners above the keyboard, where their mediocre sound is partially obscured by the lid, whether it's in laptop or tablet mode. A convenient wheel on the front edge helps you adjust the volume.
Features
You'll discover a pretty typical mix of ports, jacks, and slots on the Portege M400. The list includes FireWire, VGA and three USB 2.0 ports, headphone and microphone jacks, and one Type II PC Card slot, as well as a 5-in-1 flash media card slot. The M400 can connect to networks via 56K modem, Ethernet or 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi. The tablet also offers a hot-swappable bay for an optical drive -- our unit included a CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. Windows XP Tablet Edition 2005 comes preloaded on the Toshiba Portege M400, along with a nice assortment of additional software, such as Microsoft Office OneNote 2003, for stylus note-taking, the Microsoft Works mini-productivity suite, Toshiba's EasyGuard security and utilities suite, which includes a Trusted Platform Module and hard-drive protection capabilities, and various applications for disc playing and burning.
Performance
We tested the Toshiba Portege M400-S933. The unit includes a 1.66GHz Intel Core Solo processor, a standard 512MB of memory running at a fast 667MHz, a respectably sized 80GB hard drive spinning at an average 5,400rpm and integrated Intel 950 graphics. Both the Fujitsu LifeBook T4020 and Lenovo ThinkPad X41 Tablet offer older Pentium M processors and smaller hard drives.
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jinkie 15 October 2011
Good: An amazing laptop. Fast, long battery life, performance of a laptop and convenience of a tablet
Bad: Perhaps the fan noise?
Comment: I bought this laptop when it first came out, five years ago. From the day I got it I knew it was the best computer to me in every way. I am twelve now, and have had this since I was seven. My Dad also had one for ages, and then gave that one to my brother after four years of continuous use. I have to admit, I did modify it a bit, I put 2 gigabytes of RAM in there, but still, even with the preinstalled ram, it never lagged, and could run at least 20 programs at once, but that was a bit heavy on the cpu. Recently, after accidentally held town the task manager or windows security button, as Toshiba call it, I managed 437 windows open at once, all responding and all with moving elements. The fact that it is light weight, means that I can carry it around and us it for school. It will fit easilly in my school bag, and with it high resolution screen, I was able to plug a microscope into the USB port and after putting it in tablet mode, I was able to hang it up with a few photo pins on the science lab wall. This convinced my teacher to get one. I can't really think of many major drawbacks, but people say my fan is too loud, but I fixed that with a BIOS upgrade.
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