Hurray for Portege! (Toshiba Portege M400-100)

Member Name: xxsupergirlxo

Product:	Toshiba Portege M400-100
Date:	27/05/08 (110 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great pc, good features - tablet

Disadvantages: keys break easily

When I first got this on order from amazon.co.uk, I looked at the box and thought 'jees its huge!' After stripping down the 100's of layers of wrapping and cardboard on the laptop, I finally got to it. It is very petite in real life, yet a good weight at 2.1 kg - not too heavy but not too light, about the weight of a little over 2 bags of sugar. It's 29.5 cm wide, 24.9 cm high and 3.9cm deep. Very easy to just stick in your backpack if you need it for a school or work project.

Using it is a pleasurable experience! It is excellent to use with either the touch pad or stylus. The stylus is very touch responsive, and this can be utilised for graphics artists and amateur artists alike.
The screen is great, very bright and you can even see it outside in bright light. Like a high definition tv screen almost, it is such a high quality.

One thing I found depressing was the frailness of the keys on the keyboard. I have broken one off by doing nothing other than quick touchtyping (although i may be rather too vigorous sometimes) but now I am left with a little rubber ball thing to press for my R key.
The laptop has very good battery life and often I can use it with a fully charged battery for around 4 hours, granted I am usually listening to music and working/drawing on it.

The hibernation mode takes quite a while to activate and also bring the computer back to life when it has been in hibernation.
I enjoy using the biometric fingerprint scanner, it makes me feel like a member of the FBI :). It is useful, now nobody but me can access my laptop. Great for stopping nosey friends from looking at your work!

The XP tablet edition works very well, and allows all of the features of the PC to be utilised to their full potential.
The one main thing I am disappointed with this PC for is the fact it is NOT TOUCH SENSITIVE. You can only use the stylus with it. This may be a good thing in some ways as you don't get a fingerprinty screen, but it would be nice if it was touch sensitive so you wouldn't have to use the stylus all the time, or when you really can't be bothered just click on the buttons on the screen and not have to navigate with the mouse or reach for the stylus. Yes I am rather lazy sometimes!

The laptop also comes with a 3g sim card and can be used wireless with the (expensive) 3g services as well as at hotspots. This may be attractive to any (rich) people who need to look at their emails immediately or watch a very important video on youtube.
The price of the computer isn't too steep either, about the same as most extra-portable or tablet PCs are nowadays.

Overall this is a great computer, I would highly recommend this or one of the m700 range - exactly the same as this but with a touch screen, not just using the stylus. Congratulations, Toshiba, for making another excellent creation for us all to enjoy!

Summary: Pretty great laptop!

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