Toshiba Portege M205 S810 Tablet PC 1.50 GHz Pentium M Centrino , 512 MB RAM, 60 GB Hard Drive, USB DVD CD RW Combo

Customer Reviews

painful for travel and hiccups playing DVDs

2004-05-18
This is my first notebook computer with an external DVD/CD-writer drive. As it turns out whenever I travel I like to be able to burn a CD-ROM backup of my digital photos and watch DVDs in a hotel room. The DVD drive supplied by Toshiba cannot run from USB power so you end up carting around (1) the notebook, (2) the notebook power supply, (3) the notebook power supply's AC cord, (4) the DVD/CD drive, (5) the DVD/CD drive's external power supply, (6) the DVD/CD drive's external power supply's AC cord. In addition to being cumbersome the external drive was flimsy. The face plate jammed a few times and then fell off altogether. It was definitely not as well protected as the internal DVD/CD drive in my 4-year-old Thinkpad.

The speaker on this notebook can't play loud enough to listen to music or a movie soundtrack. So if you don't like headphones add a 1 lb. battery-powered travel speaker system to your list of stuff to lug around. It would be easier and maybe more compact to get one of those 7 lb. full-size notebooks.

Some combination of operating system and hardware is unequal to the task of playing MP3s or DVDs. Every 5 minutes or so there will be a brief pause in the music or the movie. This is kind of irritating. Anyway if you want to listen to background music budget cost and weight for a separate MP3 player.

Otherwise... no problems! The machine works fine as a notebook and the tablet features are sort of cool for impressing people who've never seen Tablet PC. On the other hand I've never actually managed to do anything useful with the stylus (this is my first Tablet PC).

I'll probably give this away or sell it on eBay as soon as I can get an IBM ThinkPad with a 160 GB hard drive. I prefer the IBM keyboard and the TrackPoint pointing device to the trackpad of the Toshiba.

The BEST Tablet PC! 2004-05-16
This is my second Tablet PC. Since I wrote the book on Tablet PCs (Absolute Beginner's Guide to Tablet PCs), I was able to evaluate most of the ones available. This Toshiba M-200 has the processing speed and 1400x1050 screen to get some serious work done.

Paired with a second LCD display, you have some serious screen real estate. I do a lot of graphics, processing-intensive work, and wireless computing, and this is a terrific machine to do just about anything.

Add some software like OneNote, Corel Painter 8, and FranklinCovey TabletPlanner, and you have a great tool for meetings and ultimate portability.

My prior Tablet PC was the Toshiba Portege 3500, which is also a capable machine. The M200 is more powerful and has better video capabilities, allowing you to run 32-bit color on the built-in display.

The new cross-functional button (more like a joystick) and the four side launch pen buttons are a welcome addition. I do miss the CF Card reader, but it's not that big a deal.

Because this machine is a convertible, there's no learning curve for new Tablet PC users. The screen swivels and folds flat to create a slate that you can write on. I found that because of the faster processor, handwriting and speech recognition is faster.

The only other machine I can recommend is the Panasonic Toughbook CF-18, which is a ruggedized Tablet PC. The Panasonic is not for mainstream users, but if you're constantly out in adverse conditions, the ToughBook has a double-bright screen, small size, sealed ports (Panasonic says to actually run the machine under warm water if you spill coffee on it), and great battery life. But the keyboard is small, so you really do need to have a burning desire for a ruggedized machine.

Worked well, then broke 2006-05-10
I love the weight of the machine, though the small screen was tough to see and I had to use my reading glasses for it. Also, I had some software compatibilty issues with Windows XP for Tablet PC. Still, it was quick and portable and OneNote worked well at recognizing my handwriting, though it couldn't do it in real time and I had to convert it paragraph by paragraph after a meeting. Then, after about 13 months the hard-drive crashed. I had it replaced and 3 months later the motherboard croaked, so I gave up. I would think about a tablet PC again, but I'd want to be sure the software issues with the operating system were fixed, and that the hard-drive could take being tilted while running (what else is a tablet for if not to hold in your hand while you write?).

Exactly what I had hoped for 2005-07-19
I'm an animator and I had previously used a Wacom tablet for drawing - but I found the distance between my screen and the Wacom a bit disorienting. I shopped around and researched awhile before I decided on the Toshiba. Animators gave this model consistently good reviews. This was my first tablet so I didn't know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised at how easily the tablet was to configure and use for my specific needs. I was drawing on day one, and it was so nice to be able to draw right on the screen. One note about that - before my tablet PC was delivered I also ordered a screen protector (from StrongEngineering), which I put over the screen before I began drawing. These are not expensive (about 8 dollars) but will save you from needing to replace your screen due to nicks and damage from the constant pressure of your pen. My other laptop weighs in at a pretty heavy 12 pounds, granted it has two hard drives and an internal DVD burner, but Wow - this machine is so light! When I pick it up I almost have to remind myself that it's not a toy and to be careful with it. There is the trade off in weight for specs, but there have been no problems burning backup data from the Toshiba via my USB external DVD burner. The battery lasts an impressive length of time, which is nice since my goal was to streamline this system as wireless and cordless as possible. And I had no problems setting up this system to my previously established wireless network. My range does seem more limited then my other laptop, but this could honestly be a configuration problem. I had a lot of fun downloading free programs for the Tablet PC operating system at the Microsoft website. I have had absolutely zero problems and I am looking forward to the creations that this draw on system enables me.

Good as a Toy 2005-05-06
If you have about $2500 to blow for a really cool toy then this is a great buy. However if you want to do anything useful with it don't buy it. I have had this computer about a a year now and for about the first month it was great. Now it's a P.O.S. I have already had to send it back to Toshiba because the motherboard fried and when I got it back they did not even finish connecting all the fans or even the wireless card.

Now it's not even two months later after they fixed it and it is worse than ever. The cd-rom/dvd burner fails to burn dvds and the gyroscope no longer works. Now I have to call tech support yet again and wait another two weeks before I can get the computer back. Did I mention when I tried to reformat, the computer wouldn't even recognize its own external dvdrom drive. This problem has persisted even after the first time i sent it to get serviced. I use this computer for webdevelopment and even upgraded to the 2 gig of ram and it still doesn't operate like when it was brand new.

Save yourself some money and get a palm pilot and a laptop instead. It will cost less in the end and work out better.

A Tool for the Cortroom 2004-08-05
I am a trial lawyer. I already have a great Toshiba laptop already, the Satellite M35-S359, which has power, speed and convenience. I truly love it.

So why did I go out and buy this PC Tablet? The answer lies in its weight and its swivel screen. When I first took my laptop to trial, I found that Microsoft Office OneNote program functions as an incredible litigation support tool. Easily modifiable I had my entire case from voir dire to closing argument at my fingertips.

But even a great laptop and superb support program have limitations. We lawyers ask questions and make arguments on our feet. You cannot hold a laptop in on hand and refer to it during direct or cross examination. The tablet solves that problem. Lightweight and locked in the tablet configuration, it's no more intrusive than a legal pad.

It is also a full featured laptop, with built-in WiFi. The screen size is some disappointing, but nothing is perfect. The four stars I give it instead of a five, is really a 4 1/2.

This is a very important advance in integrating computers into courtroom practice.

The standard in tablets, if you need a tablet Pc. 2004-06-02
Toshiba has competition in Fujitsu on performance and features, Visoneer and Acer on price. Taken as a whole, the Toshiba Portege tablets have no equal.

Use of the 1.5Ghz Pentium 4M CPU makes this more powerful than other tablets in the field, putting it in the same class as most pure laptops. As with any laptop, you have limitations on hard drive size, memory, and add-on peripherals. As a laptop, this is average, as more feature-rich and economical options exist. I would *not* recommend this machine to anyone looking for a pure laptop solution.

However, I'm a firm believer in tablets as the future. I've seen how much suffering people endure with folios of printouts and papers, almost solely because they need to markup the paper and have access to multiple sheets as they work. While this doesn't purport to expand the screen size to 36"x48" (which would be AWESOME... someday), it does allow most people to finally start editing documents by hand, and cut down on the paper waste.

Also, as a forms tool, tablets are unmatched. The user experience in Windows XP for tablets is much closer to the long-enjoyed PDA functionality of Palm and PocketPC users everywhere... without the annoying syncronization problems. And One Note from Microsoft is probably the best utility going for tablet users.

As a tablet PC, this delivers. I can't speak to the MP3/DVD problems, but the tablet does have the necessary horsepower to do either or both, so I would tend to think the problem is configuration, not intrinsic problems.

If you have the cash, buy one for your group as an evaluation item. Once people start using it, your next problem will be to find the budget room to buy more.

Fred