Tablet notebook users fit in a very small and specialized niche of computing needs: they want the ability to be portable, but also the flexibility to compute without having to break out a keyboard and mouse/touchpad. There are pure tablet PC's which have no user input built-in except for a stylus and there are also hybrid units that can transform between standard notebook and tablet mode, like the Toshiba we're looking at today.
Overview
Tablet notebook users fit in a very small and specialized niche of computing needs: they want the ability to be portable, but also the flexibility to compute without having to break out a keyboard and mouse/touchpad. There are pure tablet PC's which have no user input built-in except for a stylus and there are also hybrid units that can transform between standard notebook and tablet mode, like the Toshiba we're looking at today.
The Toshiba Portege M400-S933 (here on referred to as the M400) is a new hybrid tablet notebook based on Intel's Centrino Solo platform. Using the Core Solo T1300 (1.66GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB), Intel's 3945ABG wireless card, and the 915GM chipset, the M400 brings the latest in single-core performance and battery life. The features continue with 512MB DDR2 RAM, a spacious 80GB 5400RPM SATA hard drive, 5-in-1 card reader, and integrated CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. Your tablet experience will be conducted using a 12" XGA screen, powered by Intel's GMA950 integrated graphics. In the past users have had to compromise the hardware in their tablet to get a reasonably small machine, but Intel's latest technology allows for all the features of a regular notebook with the flexibility of a tablet.
If the tablet experience is for you, then Toshiba's Portege M400 series is worth a long, hard look. The build quality of this machine is outstanding and Toshiba has an extremely comprehensive software package to customize the tablet to your every desire. Battery life is a little weak, but keeping the chassis reasonably light means sacrificing a little on battery capacity; the digitizer that allows the tablet interface also draws some extra power. The system's performance is more than adequate for any normal usage and the $1899 price tag is a steal for the features & quality oozing out of the Portege M400-S933.
Design Portability
Most people looking at a 12" notebook want something considered "ultraportable," but the dual-nature of this machine makes it substantially bulkier than your standard ultraportable. Weighing in at a hefty 4.5lbs and measuring 11.6" x 9.8" x 1.53", the 12" M400 has the size and feel of a 14-15" notebook without the screen real estate. If you're in need of a tablet that doesn't sacrifice traditional computing (i.e. via a keyboard & touchpad), the M400's size can be easily overlooked.
Case and Design
Toshiba went with a fairly conventional design, and a well built one at that. Dressed mostly in grey with some black accents and black LCD bezel, the M400 has a simple yet modern look.
The only LED indicators are located on the front bezel of the machine, and with the way the LCD sits slightly back from the front edge you can view the LEDs with the notebook opened or closed. From left to right you have AC Power, Power Indicator, Battery 1 status, Battery 2 status, Hard Drive Activity, and Wireless indicator.
Designed to allow access when the notebook is in Tablet mode, there are a number of buttons on the LCD itself. The power switch is also here and is actually a button which you slide to the right to activate. From left to right you have the Cross-Functional joystick, ESC/Display Rotate, Windows Security, Toshiba Assist, and Toshiba Presentation buttons. The Cross-Functional joystick is a directional joystick-like button that can be used to scroll a page and when pressed will generally perform the same function as if you hit the ENTER key. The ESC/Display Rotate button either performs the function of the Escape key or when held, rotates the display to either landscape or portrait mode. Windows Security locks the computer or brings up the Toshiba security options. Toshiba Assist launches Toshiba's custom utility which offers near endless customization of the computer. Finally, the Toshiba Presentation button toggles between display output settings for presentation use.
Toshiba has a reputation in most circles as having good built quality with their business models and the M400 is a shining example of it. From the LCD cover to the keyboard to the palm rest, the entire notebook feels incredibly solid and robust. The case is made of a Magnesium and Polycarbonate ABS plastic material. The M400 tablet ranks up their with Thinkpads and Apples for build quality, which is quite a testament to Toshiba.
Keyboard
We have two things to say about the M400's keyboard: it is a top-notch keyboard with an incredibly unique layout. To touch on the first point there, if you have been using anything short of a Thinkpad or Apple keyboard you will be amazed. The key size is comfortable and there is no flex even when pressing hard. Key travel depth is near perfect and the overall feel is just amazing. Here's the catch: Toshiba has pretty much the most unique layout ever. When I say unique, I'm trying not to say pointless and un-intuitive. The Start and Context keys are on the upper right corner, the tilde key is left of the space bar, and the Ins & Del keys are to the right of the space bar. This takes a lot of getting used to, to say the least. You will hit the tilde key a lot when getting used to the layout and most people will probably hunt for the Start key quite a bit. Make your own judgements about the layout, but we really prefer a more common layout.
Toshiba has included a unique feature on the keyboard. When you press the Fn key, a green LED lights up below the F10 key, something we've not seen from any other manufacturer.
| Toshiba Portege M400-S933 Keyboard | |
| Number of keys | 84 keys |
| Number of rows | 6 rows |
| Key Pitch/Stroke | 19mm / 1.7mm |
| Special/Function Keys | Fn+Esc: Audio Mute Fn+F1: Lock Fn+F2: Power Schemes Fn+F3: Standy Fn+F4: Hibernate Fn+F5: Video Output Fn+F6/F7: Brightness Down/Up Fn+F8: Wireless Fn+F9: Touchpad Enable/Disable Fn+F10: Directional Arrows On/Off Fn+F11: NumPad On/Off Fn+Home/End: Pause/Break Fn+Space: Zoom Fn+Tab: Optical Drive On/Eject |
Design Continued
Touchpad
For the most part, a touchpad is a touchpad is a touchpad. The feel of the M400's touchpad is smooth and responsive. The two buttons have a very shallow, solid click to them. While a bit on the small side, most users should find the touchpad sufficient.
Connectivity Options
The front of the machine is home to some indicator lights, wireless on/off switch, headphone/mic jacks, volume control, and of course the LCD release button.
Going against traditional wisdom, Toshiba has placed a number of ports on the back. From left to right: AC plug, USB 2.0 port, VGA output, modem, and network connections.
The left side has from left to right: cooling vent, security lock slot, two USB 2.0 ports, 4-pin Firewire, and PC Card slot.
The right side features the stylus, 5-in-1 card reader, and optical drive.
3 USB 2.0 ports, Firewire, and a 5-in-1 card reader make this a pretty fully featured tablet. Unfortunately we have two problems with the layout: the rear ports and lack of ExpressCard support. Used as a traditional notebook, ports on the rear of the notebook are a hassle. While being used as a tablet, users will probably not care where the ports are as they are all equally accessible. Disappointingly, Toshiba elected to use the more common PC Card slot instead of the more recent ExpressCard format. While this is good news for mobile users who may rely on a device only available in PC Card format, we prefer notebooks that support the latest standards to increase "future proofing." With more and more devices being announced in ExpressCard format, in general we recommend users to elect for the newer technology.
Heat and Noise
At over 1.5" thick, Toshiba certainly had room to fit in a robust cooling system. At idle while clocked at 1GHz, the relatively power thrifty Core Solo T1300 is in the mid-30 degree Celcius range. Bump the CPU up to Maximum Performance and the temperature will idle at 40 C. Pegging the CPU won't flog temperatures too much, staying in a relatively comfortable 50 C range.
We didn't notice any abnormal hot spots around the notebook, on the palm rest or otherwise. This is another testament to the cooling system of the M400, especially in a 12" chassis. Fan noise isn't noticeable or even present except under the highest load situations.
Upgrading and Expansion
Unfortunately the M400 is a mixed bag with regards to upgrades. The hard drive is easily accesible via a removeable panel on the bottom, but system RAM is under the keyboard. Should one get ambitious, the CPU looks to be easily upgradeable as you can see it through grill on the bottom side.
Features
Technical Specifications
The Toshiba Portege M400-S933 uses Intel's Core Solo processor, the single core T1300. This CPU sports a 2MB L2 cache, runs on a 667 MHz Font Side Bus, and is built on a 65nm manufacturing process. The maximum power dissipation (Thermal Design Power, TDP) of the Core Solo models is at 27W, compared to Core Duo's 31W, but average power of this CPU should only be slightly less than Core Duo. To save space and power, Intel's 945GM chipset is used with the GMA950 integrated graphics solution. It is worth noting that GMA950 supports the Windows Vista Aero interface. All of the 945 chipsets support dual channel DDR2 667 RAM, although our M400-S933 came equipped with one 512MB module.
The hard drive included in our machine is a 2.5" 80GB Toshiba MK8032GSX, spinning at 5400RPM with 8MB cache. You can see how the IDE version of this drive fared against others in our 160GB Seagate 5400.3 drive review. In a perfectly silent room, you might hear a little clicking as the hard drive spins away, but its unlikely. Performance is excellent on this hard drive and the 80GB of storage space is extremely useful.
The M400 comes with stereo speakers, placed at the rear of the notebook just below each corner of the LCD. There is no doubt the speakers are plenty loud, but of course lack any bass or midrange quality. Those who want to watch movies frequently will still want to invest in a decent set of headphones, and maybe even an external sound card like the Creative Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA.
Display
With standard laptop displays, most users are concerned about brightness, clarity, and viewing angle. While these attributes are important, a relatively poor screen generally doesn't make or break the notebook. However with a tablet PC, the display is of uptmost importance. If you first unpackage and turn on your M400 anywhere except a brightly lit room, the first thing you will notice is how bright the screen is. The maximum brightness setting is overpowering in most settings, which bodes well for the display's performance outdoors.
When scrolling web pages or other text quickly, there is some noticeable text blurring. The blurring isn't terrible and if you scroll slower it isn't an issue. As previously discussed in our Thinkpad X60s review, another 12" XGA notebook, this editor finds XGA resolution to be limiting on even a small 12" display. We know Toshiba has in the past produced SXGA+ (1400x1050) 12" notebooks and would love to see the re-emergence of these displays. With Windows Vista's ability to scale text more appropriately with respect to both resolution and display size, it is entirely possible we will see a re-emergence of high resolution, small size displays.
When you head outside with this tablet PC, the screen's special coating and high brightness make it very useable even on a bright day. It also has an excellent viewing angle, which will make the screen easily viewable for another person standing next to you. Users should have no problem using the M400's screen in a regular or tablet mode, indoors or outdoors.
Optical Drive
Despite being an ultraportable tablet, a model aimed at portability and flexibility, Toshiba was able to include an optical drive in the M400. The M400-S933 model comes equipped with a CD-RW/DVD-ROM. The noise level is moderate, but not bothersome. There is a Toshiba applet included which allows you to power off the optical drive via a convenient icon to save power, and the Fn+Tab key combination allows you to power the optical drive on and optionally eject it as well.
The supported read and write capabilities are as follows:
- Read: 24X CD-ROM/CD-R, 8X DVD-ROM, 8X DVD+/-R, 8X DVD+/-RW
- Write: 24X CD-R, 10X CD-RW
Stylus Interface
So you bought this fancy schmancy tablet and now you can write down your own notes & navigate Windows with a pen. But really, how easy to use is it? Pop Toshiba's stylus out of the right side of the notebook and you've got a convenient way to make your way through Windows. You can hover the pen near the screen if you like, or rest directly on it. The cursor follows the pen accurately and without much delay.
Like with a touchpad, you tap the screen once for a single-click and twice for a double-click. This action isn't terribly effective on default settings and you have to get used to it. After some practice you'll be navigating like a pro, but there are some settings you can alter that may make things proceed smoother. There is a small button about where your thumb rests on the stylus, when held while tapping a right-click is triggered.
One complaint I would've had is regarding scrolling in tablet mode, but then I discovered the joystick-like button on the LCD panel allows you to easily scroll. You can also of course use the stylus to interact with the scroll bar, but in the age of scroll wheels and scroll touch pads, that just seems so inefficient.
If the application you're using supports it, you can also flip the stylus over and use the other end as an "eraser" of sorts and clear your previous input.
Features Continued
Wi-Fi
As a Centrino-branded notebook, the M400 uses Intel's 3945ABG wireless card. Performance was as expected and satisfactory. Unlike most companies, Toshiba has included some utilities to manager your WiFi connection. The ConfigFree utility offers a few different tools to manage your network connections, but overall these are just your standard options with a pretty user interface. It is not nearly as functional as Lenovo's Access Connections, and less practical than the Intel utility due to its convoluted interface, but cool nonetheless.
Battery
The rated capacity and voltage of the 6-cell lithium ion battery is 4700 mAh and 10.8V, respectively. Battery performance is sufficient, but unimpressive. Users will see around 4 hours on average, which is reasonable given the extra power that the digitizer draws in order to provide the tablet capabilities. Since the battery is a small block which pops into the underside of the notebook, there is no room for an extended size battery.
AC Adapter
The M400's AC adapter is on the small side, given it is a 75W charger versus the more common 90W models. Each cable is about six feet long, providing plenty of length to find a wall plug, and the wall-side connector is a 2-prong type.
Fingerprint Scanner
Biometric security is becoming common on most business laptops and even some consumer laptops these days. Toshiba has included a fingerprint scanner on the bottom right corner of the screen. This is a very convenient location for a quick thumb scan, but any other digit may be awkward to scan when the laptop is open.
The software setup is as easy to use as any other we've come across. Simply select which finger you want to register, scan the appropriate finger three times successfully, and you're good to go. As with most fully featured fingerprint software, Toshiba's solution allows you to password protect the hard drive with the fingerprint scanner as well as associate website logins with your fingerprint.
Setup Method
The Thinkpad X60s was set to run at full performance by setting the power scheme set to 'Home/Office Desk' with the AC plugged in, meaning that the CPU will not underclock while running the tests. For the battery performance test, the power scheme was set to 'Portable/Laptop'. This activates Intel's Enhanced Speedstep technology, which lowers CPU speed when not needed, thus increasing battery life. Screen brightness and audio were both set to 50% and Wi-Fi were turned on. Each test was repeated 3 times to ensure accuracy. Before each test was run, the laptop was rebooted and its hard drive defragmented.
Bapco SYSmark2004SE is popular benchmark suite consists of two different performance scenarios and generates an overall score by taking the geometric mean of the individual scores.
Internet Content Creation: In this scenario, the content creator creates a product related website targeting a broadband and narrowband audience. The user first renders a 3D model to a bitmap, while preparing web pages using a web site publishing tool. The user opens a video editing package, creates a movie from several raw input movie cuts and sound cuts and starts exporting it. While waiting on this operation, the user imports the rendered image into an image-processing package; modifies it and saves the results. Back in the 3D modeling software, the user modifies a 3D model and exports it to a vector-graphics format. Once the movie is assembled, the user edits it and creates special effects using one of the modified images as input. The user extracts content from an archive. Meanwhile, he uses an animation creation tool to open the exported 3D vector graphics file. He modifies it by including other pictures and optimizes it for faster animation. The final movie with the special effects is then compressed in a format that can be broadcast over broadband Internet. The web site is given the final touches and the system is scanned for viruses.
Office Productivity: In this scenario, the office productivity user creates a marketing presentation and supporting documents for a new product. The user receives email containing a collection of documents in a compressed file. The user reviews his email and updates his calendar while a virus checking software scans the system. The corporate web site is viewed and the user begins creating the collateral documents. The user also accesses a database and runs some queries. A collection of documents are compressed. The queries' results are imported into a spreadsheet and used to generate graphical charts. The user then transcribes a document.. The user edits and adds elements to a slide show template. Finally, the user looks at the results of his work (both the slide show and the portable document) in an Internet browser.
Bapco MobileMark 2005 is the latest version of the premier notebook battery life and performance under battery life metric based on real world applications.
Office Productivity: The workloads in this category model a mobile professional at a fictitious automobile company. The worker creates documents using Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, accesses email, and creates graphics and animation with Photoshop and Flash to include in a multimedia presentation. An Internet browser is used to view presentations. The user also invokes file compression and virus detection in the background.
DVD Playback: The DVD playback 2005 workload is based on a 1 hours 55 minute movie that BAPCo has created from content provided by BMW®. The DVD playback test starts the movie playerapplication, sets up a full screen playback, and the loops over the content on the disk in the DVDplayer. This playback will continue until system shutdown at battery depletion.
3DMark 2001 SE PRO build 3.3.0 measures graphics performance by benchmarking the CPU, memory, and graphics through a series of 21 tests, including simulated games, theoretical tests, DX8 feature tests, and image quality tests. Resolution was set to 1024x768 with all default settings.
3DMark 2003 build 3.6.0 measures DX9 performance through a series of 3D game based sound, graphics, and CPU tests. Resolution was set to 1024x768 with all default settings.
3DMark2005 build 1.2.0 is a graphics intensive benchmark best suited for the latest generation of DirectX 9.0 graphics cards. It combines high quality 3D tests, CPU tests, and is the first benchmark to require Pixel Shader 2.0 support, making this a highly stressful 3D benchmark.
PCMark 2005 Advanced build 1.1.0 is the latest update to Futuremark's popular overall system benchmarking program. The 2005 version adds multithreading, DirectX 9, Windows Media Player 10, virus scanning, High Defintion video playback (WMVHD), and a vast number of other tests to its suite. Testing your computer's CPU, RAM, hard drive and graphics card, PCMark05 drives your computer to the max to determine its strengths and weaknesses.
Configurations
| Specifications | Toshiba Portege M400 | Lenovo Thinkpad X60s | MSI Mega Book S271 |
| Processor | Intel Core Solo T1300 (1.66GHz, 2MB L2 Cache) | Intel Core Duo L2400 (1.66GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, Dual Core) | AMD Turion X2 TL-50 (1.6GHz, 512KB L2 Cache, Dual Core) |
| Front Side Bus | 667MHz | 667MHz | 2000 MHz |
| Chipset | Intel 945GM | Intel 945GM | ATI RS485M |
| Wireless LAN | Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG 802.11 a/b/g | Lenovo a/b/g II | MSI MS-6855B 802.11b/g + Bluetooth |
| LCD | 12" XGA TFT LCD (1024x768) | 12" XGA TFT LCD (1024x768) | 12" WXGA Glare TFT LCD (1280x800) |
| Hard Drive | 80GB Toshiba MK8032GSX 5400RPM 8MB Cache SATA | 80GB Toshiba MK8032GSX 5400RPM 8MB Cache SATA | 80GB Toshiba MK8032GSX 5400RPM 8MB Cache SATA |
| Memory | 512MB DDR2 667 PC5300 SDRAM (1 x 512MB) | 512MB DDR2 667 PC5300 SDRAM (1 x 512MB) | 512MB DDR2 667 PC5300 SDRAM (1 x 512MB) |
| Graphics | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 | ATI Xpress 200M |
| Graphics Interface | VGA-out | VGA-out | VGA-out |
| Optical Drive | CD-RW/DVD-ROM | CD-RW/DVD-ROM (Ultrabase X6) | CD-RW, DVD+/-RW DL |
| Modem | Integrated V.90 Modem | Integrated V.90 Modem | Integrated V.90 Modem |
| Ethernet | 10BASE-T/1000BASE-TX Ethernet | 10BASE-T/1000BASE-TX Ethernet | 10BASE-T/1000BASE-TX Ethernet |
| Audio | SigmaTel STAC9200 | AD HD Audio SoundMAX AD1981HD | Azalia HD Audio |
| Audio Interface | Microphone, two stereo speakers, headphone/line-out | Microphone, two stereo speakers, headphone/line-out with SPDIF support | Microphone, two stereo speakers, headphone |
| Ports | 3 x USB 2.0 PC Card Firewire 1394 5-in-1 Card Reader | 3 x USB 2.0 Cardbus Plus Firewire 1394 SD Card Reader | 3 x USB 2.0 ExpressCard Firewire 1394 SD Card Reader |
| Weight | 4.5 lbs. with 6-cell battery | 3.46 lbs. with 8-cell battery | 4.5 lbs. with 8-cell battery |
| Size (W x D x H) | 11.6" x 9.8" x 1.53" | 10.5" x 8.3" x 0.8-1.1" | 11.93" x 8.86" x 1.1-1.18" |
| Operating System | Windows XP Pro w/SP2 | Windows XP Pro w/SP2 | Windows XP Pro w/SP2 |
| Battery | 4,700 mAh | 5,200 mAh | 14.4V, 4400mAh |
Performance
Bapco SYSmark2004SE
Internet Content Creation
Having a dual core processor clearly makes a huge difference in SYSmark2004SE. The Core Duo architecture is a bit faster here than the MSI's Turion 64 X2, but the Core Solo in our Toshiba trails both.
Office Productivity
The Office Productivity test is mainly single-threaded, showing no real advantatage to dual core processors. This evens the playing field for the Core Solo & Duo brothers, leaving the more meager Turion 64 X2 behind.
Total Score
Intel's efficient "Core" architecture allows the Core Solo-based Toshiba to keep pace with the MSI Turion 64 X2 dual core nicely, but the lead clearly goes to the Core Duo Thinkpad.
PCMark05 Advanced
All of these results are very close, except for the CPU scores.
Here are the associated scores:
| PCMark05 | Toshiba M400 | Thinkpad X60s | MSI S271 |
| CPU | 2746 | 3867 | 3243 |
| Memory | 2680 | 2676 | 2870 |
| Graphics | 927 | 887 | 859 |
| HDD | 2805 | 2984 | 2802 |
and the PCMark05 Advanced Overall Score:
PCMark05 shows the clear differentation between single and dual core processors here, on systems that all use integrated graphics.
Multi-Tasking Performance
We added these tests for a better way to compare dual core systems. Looking at numerous testing methods and results, we found the existing SYSmark2004SE benchmarks to be an excellent choice. The tests are easily performed and repeatable, providing a consistent and simple way to test dual core systems. The three sub-tests below show a noticeable correlation in CPU and memory performance, the two most important aspects of a multi-CPU system.
Bapco SYSmark2004SE
3D Content Creation
"The user renders a 3D model to a bitmap using 3ds max 5.1, while preparing web pages in Dreamweaver MX. Then the user renders a 3D animation in a vector graphics format."
The playing field is pretty evenly divided here, between the two vastly different dual core CPU's and the lone single core from Toshiba.
2D Content Creation
"The user uses Premiere 6.5 to create a movie from several raw input movie cuts and sound cuts and starts exporting it. While waiting on this operation, the user imports the rendered image into Photoshop 7.01, modifies it and saves the results. Once the movie is assembled, the user edits it and creates special effects using After Effects 5.5."
While the gap between the Core Solo and Turion lessen, we still see the expected correlation.
Web Publication
"The user extracts content from an archive using WinZip 8.1. Meanwhile, he uses Flash MX to open the exported 3D vector graphics file. He modifies it by including other pictures and optimizes it for faster animation. The final movie with the special effects is then compressed using Windows Media Encoder 9 series in a format that can be broadcast over broadband Internet. The web site is given the final touches in Dreamweaver MX and the system is scanned by VirusScan 7.0."
We come to our final multitasking test and see our expected spread of scores. For the average user running only one major application at a time the Core Solo processor is fine, but with the low cost of dual core options these days it only makes sense to opt for dual cores.
3D Performance
3DMark 2001 SE
3DMark01 is generally CPU limited, but not quite so with the integrated graphics on show here. The Toshiba pulls ahead of the Thinkpad, despite the two having the same clock speed CPU, same amount of RAM, and same graphics. The performance difference is likely a driver issue, which we will see change shortly.
3DMark 2003
3DMark 2003 is entirely GPU limited here, with the dual core Thinkpad and the more robust ATI integrated graphics in the MSI taking the lead.
3DMark 05
3DMark 2005 is 100% GPU limited in all but very high end GPU's, which aren't featured here. The high graphics strain of 3DMark05 pretty much evens the GMA950 scores, with ATI's Radeon Xpress 1150 integrated graphics leading in the MSI notebook.
We were unable to run 3DMark 2006 on the M400 due to it being limited to a 1024x768 resolution. 3DMark 2006 has increased the standard test resolution to 1280x1024, thus results at 1024x768 would not be comparable to other results.
Battery Performance
An even five hours of run-time is pretty respectable given the small battery capacity and power draining screen, but still not enough for someone who desires all day computing.
The Office Productivity test only reduces life another thirty minutes below the Reader test, showing that even real world usage doesn't increase power consumption much. We have Intel's excellent Core Solo processor to thank here, along with the power optimized chipset and graphics.
Finally, we are down to a sufficient three hour runtime on the DVD test. This should be enough to watch most any movie, but the general trend here is what we wish there was a bit more battery life. Users looking to go all day on a single charge won't find that from the Toshiba M400.
Conclusion
Pros:
- Runs very cool
- Lots of customizable system utilities
- Excellent build quality
Cons:
- Bundled software slows machine down
- Mediocre battery life
Recommendation
Users who need the flexibility of a tablet hybrid notebook are a unique group, and as such sometimes have to compromise in what they get from a machine. Toshiba's Portege M400 series seeks to reduce that compromise, by including Intel's latest dual core platform in a functional hybrid form factor. Top notch build quality, reasonable system performance, a superb screen, and a not-so-high price tag all make the M400-S933 a quality entrant into the hybrid tablet market. If you can get past the keyboard's extraordinarily unique layout, typing is extremely comfortable and accurate with practice.
While we like the M400 model for its quality and features, the S933 configuration just doesn't impress a whole lot. It is a good machine, but just unremarkable. The Core Solo T1300 is adequate, but again unimpressive. While the $1599 price tag is on the low end for a tablet, users looking at Toshiba should opt for the M400-S4031 model which adds a Core Duo T2300E and 1GB DDR2 RAM for an additional $100. Considering Intel's list price for the Core Duo T2300E and Core Solo T1300 are the same, it would be nice for Toshiba to maybe include a Core Duo standard as most manufacturers these days are doing.
Technical specifications aside, our only real complaint about the M400 is its battery. In a machine meant to be ultimately flexible, the battery life will likely end up limiting you more than anything else. Since space is a premium and the current design prohobits an extended size battery, the M400 platform is screaming for a Low Voltage chip. The Core Duo L2400 (1.66GHz) low voltage dual core processor led the Lenovo Thinkpad X60s to over 8 hours of battery life in a 3.46lbs chassis. Toshiba could maintain or even possibly reduce the M400's size and increase battery life substantially, making the M400 a more viable option for users in need of long battery life.
We just wanted to make quick mention of the software package included with the M400. The default software overflows with Toshiba utilities and bundled software. While the experienced user will love to make use of all these options and customizations, the sheer volume of programs running overwhelms the system's meager 512MB RAM. We highly recommend users to disable the software they don't use (which can be reinstalled from Toshiba's excellent support website) and add more RAM, as 512MB just won't cut it to use this tablet to its fullets. Toshiba really should make 1GB standard on these, but as previously mentioned another $100 buys you a Core Duo processor and 1GB RAM.
We checked out pricing on competing tablet PCs from HP, Gateway, Fujitsu, and Lenovo. Lenovo's only tablet right now is the aging Thinkpad X41 Tablet, which only offers ULV Pentium M processors and 1.8" hard drives, not something meant to compete against the Core Duo based participants of today. Gateway's only business tablet offering is a 14" widescreen model, of which Toshiba has a more direct competitor in the Tecra M7. HP and Fujitsu however have 12" hybrid tablets priced competitively with Toshiba's offering. HP starts on the low end of the price range, Fujitsu fills out the high end, and Toshiba is square in the middle. This puts Toshiba in a good starting position, but HP still offers more for the money. We'll have to take a detailed look at those companies' offerings, but what this does tell us is that Toshiba has made a competitive product and priced it reasonably.
Overall, Toshiba has a quality hybrid tablet solution in the M400 series. Shoppers should definitely look into HP and Fujitsu's offerings, as they may offer a configuration that (for the money) better suits your needs. The M400's battery life is a bit disappointing, so hopefully one day we may see a Low Voltage CPU option to help with that problem. The M400-S933 model can certainly be the right choice for certain users out there, but not for all or even most of them.
Availability/Warranty
The Toshiba Portege M400-S933 is available now for $1,599 in the United States. The M400-4031 features a Core Duo T2300E and 1GB DRR2 RAM for $1,699. The default warranty coverage is for three year parts and labor, one year on the battery.
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