Product Reviews

Using a notebook as a portable machine and a desktop PC is feasible, but to do so comfortably requires peripherals. And while an external monitor, keyboard and mouse make for a much more ergonomic setup, it does involve a lot of fiddling with connectors. Toshiba's Dynadock simplifies this beautifully by bundling up six USB ports, S/PDIF sound, ethernet, a serial port and VGA output (a DVI version is also available), and squeezing them all into one USB connection. Bandwidth limitations mean you can't watch video over the VGA link, of course, but it does an adequate job of displaying office documents and email, and the rest of it works perfectly. The only caveat is the £80 price tag, which is a touch on the expensive side.