Toshiba Portege M700 Tablet PC Released

Toshiba has just released their ninth generation Tablet PC, the Portege M700. The M700 is an updated version of it's predecessor, the ever so popular Portege M400. It will sport a T7500 Core 2 Duo processor, have a 12.1" widescreen indoor/outdoor display with touch capabilities and is Microsoft Vista or XP compatible.

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The Portege M700 is being marketed toward business professionals and I can see why. It is loaded with features including a webcam, a main 6-cell battery and a parallel battery for a supposed combined battery life of nine hours and an optical drive. Everything a user could want is packed into this small tablet.

Toshiba Portege M700 Tablet PC specs:

• Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz T7500 processor
• 160GB hard drive
• 1GB or 2GB RAM options
• 12.1” WXGA (1280x800) LED backlit LCD display with both touchscreen and digital pen/ink capabilities
• 802.11a/g/n, Gigabit Ethernet
• Full Suite of Toshiba 3rd Generation EasyGuard Technology
• Shock absorbing design
• Hard drive protection and LCD display protection
• Spill resistant keyboard
• DVD Super Multi Drive
• Two Sleep and Charge USB ports
• PC Card Slot
• IEEE 1394
• Integrated webcam
• Fingerprint reader
• 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery (claimed 5 hour life)

I personally can't wait to get my hands-on the M700, so we can bring you a complete review. Hopefully, that will happen soon. Then the battery life and performance features can be tested. I would like to see how durable and solid the chassis is as well. From the looks of it, the M700 has a nice sleek design.

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Pricing and Availability

The Portege M700 will be priced at $1,699 and $1,799. The only difference between the models is the $1,699 configuration will have 1GB RAM and run XP as the operating system and the $1,799 configuration has 2GB RAM and Vista. They should be available soon to order from Toshiba's website.

 

Nice , but why so thick Toshiba ?

Answer to myself : so they can continue selling the overpriced stylish 3000$ R400 ( which I have to admit comes without a built-in optical drive ) .

 

That is very true. At least this tablet has a lot of features for the price. The optical drive is nice. Once we get our review unit in, we will be able to test the M700's performance and see how heavy it actually is, so stay tuned.

 

Maybe it's the shock absorbers. But I am just guessing here.

 

Hmm, I like the idea of the modular bay, being able to replace the optical drive with a second hard drive. We need more notebooks with modular bays!

Why no Expresscard slot?

Looks like its up on their website as BTO.

 

Look like the same chassie as the Tecra M8.

 

So this is another dual digitizer tablet? I like that the idea is catching on now, it seems like a brilliant idea.

 

hope toshiba does something on the fan noise ..the m400 is terrible!

 

Well I got in my M700 and can compare it to my M400.

I got the M400 about a week ago and my Toshiba Salesman sent me the M700 and gave me an RMA to send my "old" M400 back.

Not sure which one I am sending back right now.

M700 is quieter than the M400.
The screen is wonderfully bright and clear.
It has a proper keyboard (Win and step keys are on the bottom row, where they should be, the Tab is a doublekey size like it should be.).
It is showing a longer battery life than the M400 (about 30% more).
It has N Wifi, not sure if that is a biggie since the spec is still being ratified but I am sure the final spec is just a download.
The rotation of the screen is much smoother.

The bads:
The screen seems smaller and less "paper-like" than the M400.
The pen silo is rough when inserting or removing the stylus from the M700.
The screen also grabs the pen more, I do miss the smooth stylus operation of the M400.


Both seem pretty simular in performance (the M700 is 300mhz faster than my m400 (2.3 vs. 2.6)

Not sure which I am going to keep.

HB