Toshiba Tecra M3 review

Weighing just over 2kg, the Toshiba Tecra M3 is one of the lightest laptops in the business thin-and-light category. Despite its modest dimensions, the Tecra M3 houses its fair share of design perks, such as an external Wi-Fi on/off switch and a volume wheel. Unfortunately, the system was also light on performance and battery life in our benchmarks. While we like its overall design, the Tecra M3 isn't cheap enough to justify its middling test scores.

Measuring 314 by 35 by 259mm, the Tecra M3's dimensions are nearly identical to those of its thin-and-light corporate competitors, such as the IBM ThinkPad R52 and the Dell Latitude D610. However, the Tecra M3 weighs almost 220g less than the Latitude D610 and almost 450g less than the ThinkPad R52. Like the other models, the Tecra M3's compact AC adaptor adds approximately 360g to the package.

Design
The beauty of the Tecra M3 is that, while highly portable, it still accommodates many design niceties. It offers a full-size keyboard that's comfortable to type on, as well as a pointing stick and a touch pad that we wish were just a bit bigger. However, the touch pad does have handy arrows running along its right and bottom edges to help you figure out exactly where to place your finger for scrolling through documents and Web pages. Both pointing devices include their own pair of generously sized mouse buttons.

The Tecra M3's front edge features a useful volume wheel and a wireless on/off switch that make sound and Wi-Fi adjustment convenient. Two quick-launch buttons sit above the keyboard, one of which can be programmed to open the application of your choice. The other adjusts the display output settings when the laptop is connected to a digital projector, an external monitor, or a TV.

Features
You can pick up a preconfigured Tecra M3 at various computer stores, through several online resellers, and on Toshiba's Web site. If you take the latter route, you can build your own system.

We tested a version of the Tecra M3 that featured pretty average parts for its price (typically around £1350, as of May 2005). Our unit was equipped with a 1.73GHz Intel Pentium M 740 Sonoma processor; 512MB of speedy 533MHz RAM; an Intel Pro Wireless b/g card; and a DVD/CD-RW drive for its internal, hot-swappable bay. Our Tecra M3's 14.1-inch display (1024x768 native resolution), graphics chip with 64MB of dedicated video RAM and 60GB hard drive are also typical among thin-and-lights. And though Toshiba does offer hard drives that spin up to 7200rpm, the 4200rpm hard drive in our test unit is slower than those typically found in corporate thin-and-lights.

Though we'd prefer to see more than two side-by-side USB 2.0 ports on the Tecra M3, the system offers an otherwise gratifying list of connectors. Highlights include Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, S-Video out, and parallel ports, plus one Type II PC Card slot, one ExpressCard/54 slot, and a third slot for SD cards.

Given the Tecra M3's business bent, it's no surprise that our test unit came loaded with Windows XP Professional. Toshiba threw in a token copy of the Microsoft Works 8.0 mini office suite, plus InterVideo WinDVD Creator, Sonic RecordNow and Sonic DLA for burning and playing CDs and DVDs. The laptop also comes preloaded with Toshiba's useful ConfigFree software, which includes a handy wireless utility that displays the distance of all the Wi-Fi networks in your area on a bull's-eye-style map and lets you connect to the one you want via a simple drag-and-drop method. While our test unit didn't sport a secure Trusted Platform Module chip, Toshiba does offer it as an option.

Performance
In our mobile benchmarks, the system ran 11 percent behind another 1.73GHz Pentium M-based corporate laptop, the ThinkPad R52, and 12 percent behind the 2.0GHz Pentium M Dell Latitude D610. Employees working with basic business applications, such as email and Word, will not notice this speed difference, but those who deal with big PowerPoint presentations, giant databases or other intensive applications will find the Tecra M3 too slow. On average, Sonoma laptops' batteries last at least 200 minutes, but the Tecra M3's lasted just 184 minutes -- decent, but not great compared to the ThinkPad R52's 217 minutes and the Latitude D610's 249 minutes (though it has a larger battery).

Mobile application performance (Longer bars indicate faster performance)

BAPCo MobileMark2002 performance rating

Dell Latitude D610

216

IBM ThinkPad R52

214

Toshiba Tecra M3

190

Battery life (Longer bars indicate longer battery life)

BAPCo MobileMark2002 battery life in minutes

Dell Latitude D610

249

IBM ThinkPad R52

217

Toshiba Tecra M3

184

System configurations:

Dell Latitude D610
Windows XP Pro; 2GHz Intel Pentium M 760; 512MB DDR SDRAM 333MHz; ATI Mobility Radeon X300 64MB; Hitachi Travelstar 5K80 80GB 5400rpm

IBM ThinkPad R52
Windows XP Pro; 1.73GHz Intel Pentium M 735; 512MB DDR SDRAM; Intel 915GM/GMS 910GML Express 128MB; Hitachi 5K100 40GB 5400rpm

Toshiba Tecra M3
Windows XP Pro; 1.73GHz Intel Pentium M 740; 512MB DDR SDRAM; NVIDIA GeForce Go6600 TE/6200TE 64MB+A22; Toshiba MK6025GAS 60Gb

Edited by Michelle Thatcher
Additional editing by Nick Hide