Toshiba Tecra M4-S435

Most tablets are for business use only. The Toshiba Tecra M4-S435 is a full-bore multimedia laptop that happens to have Tablet functionality. The Tablet side of the equation is not served as well as the notebook side and the price is a bit steep, but users looking for an all-purpose machine with pen-input will find enough of both worlds in this model. 

At 6.4 pounds, the Tecra M4 is heavier than most convertibles because it includes a larger 14.1-inch display and a DVD burner with double-layer writing capabilities. Being able to burn eight hours of DVD material is not something you see everyday in a Tablet. 

The 1.7-GHz Pentium CPU and 60GB 5,400-rpm hard drive load and run programs with all the speed and snappy response of a performance laptop. The MobileMark performance score of 210 is excellent, but you do pay a price in endurance for this power (a modest 2.5 hours of battery life).

In laptop mode, you can barely tell that the M4 is a convertible, except for that LCD wobble. Because the large display must sit atop a single swiveling post to convert to tablet mode, the screen tends to bounce when you reposition the M4 on your lap.
The full-sized keyboard has an excellent layout, but the keys felt a bit mushy.

Nevertheless, the touchpad is large and sensitive, and it has a second set of function keys that are better positioned for use with the included pointing stick. The unit does have a handy volume dial on the front edge, but it lacks any multimedia shortcut buttons.

Like most mid-sized multimedia laptops, the M4 has a full complement of ports, an SD memory card slot, and a port to accommodate a Toshiba docking station. Unlike most convertibles, the M4 has serious graphics chops. The 3DMark2001 score of nearly 12,000 suggests that the M4 won’t balk at playing most current games at acceptable resolutions. The NVIDIA GeForce Go 6200 TE video chipset even ran Doom 3 at 1020 x 768 for us without a hiccup.

In 2D mode, aging eyes may find the text on the 1400 x 1050 native resolution of this 14.1-inch display a bit small (we do), but slap in a DVD and you’ll be compensated with exceptionally sharp video playback. The stereo speakers atop the keyboard have decent spatial reproduction, but they tend to distort on the high volume end.

It’s solid as a multimedia notebook, but the M4 is merely a serviceable Tablet. The display flips around to lock over the keyboard with a single reversible latch, but we were disappointed that it wiggled a bit on the base. The Toshiba display does not automatically switch to portrait orientation in Tablet mode, and its limited array of two launch buttons and a four-way scrolling stick does not include the handy display orientation switch you find on many other Tablets. The 6.4-pound heft is tolerable for carrying in the crook of an arm, but we wish Toshiba had smoothed, contoured, or rubberized the M4’s bottom for a more comfortable Tablet feel.  

The stylus is long and substantial for easier use in large hands, and the screen recognizes the pen at a good hovering distance, which makes it easier to perform shortcut gestures. One downside of the high-resolution screen is a slight lag between larger sweeping pen movements and their appearance on the display, but this occurs only when scribbling quickly in paint programs.

Toshiba has provided a very sensitive and accurate integrated microphone. It picked up our dictation very well, so you can expect the M4 to record meetings and voice notes cleanly.

Altogether, the M4 is a competent, if not compelling, Tablet and a more convincing multimedia notebook. We would have liked to see more effort put into the ergonomics and shortcut button features that make stylus computing easier, but the M4 is acceptable for moderate use in Tablet mode. What may be most important for business users is that the M4 offers Tablet functionality without compromising the basics of notebook design and power.