Inside its svelte silhouette, the M2 packs more than enough power for the average PowerPoint pie chart. A Pentium M processor hums along at 1.7 GHz, aided by a sizeable 512MB of memory. With a 60GB hard drive, our test unit was well equipped for lots and lots of slideshows.
As befits a high-end Toshiba notebook, ours came with 802.11b/g compatibility, as well as Bluetooth. The notebook’s 14.1-inch screen has XGA native resolution, a good match for most of today’s projectors.
For extra graphics punch, the screen is powered by Nvidia GeForce Go5200 graphics and 64MB of video memory. And, for outputting your presentation, the M2 has not only the standard VGA port, but also S-video.
Presenters using this system have two ways of activating a projector. The first is the standard function key combination, which has been enhanced with special Toshiba flair. Pressing Fn + F5 brings up a graphical menu of the five most common display combinations, including the internal LCD, a VGA external projector, an S-Video television, or certain combinations of these three. The second way to activate an external display is to use the Presentation button located near the power button.
With the Toshiba Console program, you can easily choose the appropriate display, power scheme, and slideshow file. This software also lets you display a slideshow on the projector and your notes on your Tecra’s screen.
Like all Toshiba notebooks, this one takes advantage of the superlative Toshiba Console utility program for squeezing the most out of your battery. The Toshiba Console also supplements the standard Windows XP Presentation power scheme with a much more useful one, ensuring that neither your monitor nor hard drive will conk out at an inopportune time.
This Tecra produced excellent images in our XGA projector tests. Also, the images displayed on our TV via the Tecra’s S-video port were some of the best we have ever seen. The quality was excellent and showed hardly any interlacing flicker at all. Like a number of notebooks, however, the Toshiba arrived with the Windows Clear Type feature enabled, thereby causing small text to appear less readable.
At $1,899, the Toshiba Tecra M2 is not only very friendly to presenters but to their accountants as well.
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|
| Processor |
| Processor Type |
Intel Pentium M Processor (Centrino) |
| Data Bus Speed |
400 MHz |
Cache Memory |
| Installed Size |
1 MB |
RAM |
| Installed Size |
512 MB |
| Technology |
DDR-SDRAM (DDRRAM) |
Storage |
| Hard Drive |
60 GB |
| Drive Controllers |
IDE (ATA/EIDE/ATAPI) |
Optical Storage |
| Type |
DVD/CD-RW Combo,
Hard Drive |
Display |
| Type |
Active Matrix LCD (TFT) |
| Graphics Processor / Vendor |
NVIDIA GeForce FX Go 5200 |
| Video Memory |
64 MB |
| Max. Resolution |
1024 x 768 (XGA),
1400 x 1050 (SXGA+) |
Audio |
| Sound Support |
Digital Audio (16-bit) |
Networking |
| Data Link Protocol |
Ethernet (10/100 Mbps),
Wireless Ethernet - 54 Mbps IEEE802.11g |
Expansion |
| Expansion |
SD Card,
Type I CardBus,
Type II CardBus,
Type III CardBus |
Miscellaneous |
| Chipset Type |
Intel 855PM |
| Input Devices |
Keyboard,
Touchpad |
| Included Devices |
Microphone,
Modem,
Power Cord,
Speakers |
Operating System |
| Operating System |
Microsoft Windows XP Pro |
Battery |
| Average Run Time |
4 hour(s) |
Dimensions (W x D x H) |
| Unit |
12.3 in x 10.1 in x 1.4 in |
Weight |
| Unit |
5.1 lbs |
Warranty |
| Warranty |
3 Year Limited Warranty & 1 Year Limited Warranty for Battery |
|
|
= Comment
= Outstanding
= Good
= Poor
= Bad
