In February 2010 Toshiba came out with a new model in its Portege tablet pc series, the Portege m780. Though its is bulkier than many of its competitors the Portege m780 is a great value. It is well engineered and has many cool features including touch screen, sleep and charge eSATA ports and tablet mode. Despite the cool features it has a few minor design flaws which are greatly outweighed by the good aspects. Overall this computer is nice and durable though it is a little on the expensive side. But don’t get me wrong it is a lot of bang for your buck.
I’ve had my Portege m780 for about a year now and use it one a daily basis. I am constantly typing and searching the internet and find it to be by far the best laptop I’ve owned. It comes with many great features, and my favorite is the tablet mode. The screen swivels an amazing 180 degrees and flips down to become a writing pad. The laptop is also equipped with the new Windows 7. The computer itself weighs about 4 1/2 lbs and the screen measures 13.3 inches diagonally and 12 inches across. It is very durable to swivel and can survive drops from up to three feet, as it is rumored. I have dropped the computer several times and it is still completely functional and working. I’ve had friends who have done worse and still have functional computers.
The laptop also comes with a stylus to assist with the tablet mode of the PC. On the right side of the machine is a holder for the stylus to keep up with it. This is one design flaw, one of the very few. When dropped this tends to become broken and unusable if severely damaged. Next to the stylus slot is an SD/XD card read and writer. It fits many other types of memory sticks and memory cards as well. Also with the standard to laptops the DVD/CD drive and burner. The laptop also includes two USB ports( a few more USB ports would be ideal), and eSATA port (the sleep and charge, which i have yet to figure out), and a projector connection in the back. In the front are a WiFi switch, audio input jack, 3.5 mm headphone jack and volume controls. The speakers on the computer are pretty decent compared to other laptops. A great feature, for security at least, is the fingerprint scanner and facial recognition with the web camera. You have to download both soft-wares , but I’ve only tried the fingerprint scanner and it’s great. The battery life of the computer last about 5-6 hours, though it can be longer depending on usage. The keyboard is 100 keys and spill- resistant.
All in all I think this computer is great and expect nothing but greatness in the future models of this computer. The pros are the computer is durable, well designed, and has cool features. The cons are that it is somewhat expensive( can run you up to a whopping $2,000), and has a couple design flaws. Personally I would recommend this computer to others who want a great computer. The Portege m780 is perfect for on-the-go students and business professional. This computer is a great all around computer. It definitely lives up to the Toshiba motto “Leading Innovation”.
