Product Reviews

The lack of a model number on the Pentium-M is curious. It's as if Intel wants to forget the Pentium 4-M ever existed. Perhaps this isn't such a bad idea - the Pentium 4-M was a great way to bump the numbers up, but it consumed a lot of power and generated a fair amount of heat too. Let's face it, you were never going to get a Pentium 4-M ultra portable, but the new Pentium-M can also assist larger notebooks like the Toshiba Tecra M1.

The main benefit is battery life - we even had to redesign our graphs to accommodate the Tecra's staying power - an amazing five hours, 16 minutes under light use. What's more, unlike the Acer TravelMate 800 (see p58), the time doesn't drop too dramatically when you push it to the limits either. The Tecra still lasted for 159 minutes under our intensive test, which hammers the notebook through Word and Excel benchmarks with constant hard disk access.

How did Toshiba manage this? The first contributor is the processor - part of Intel's Centrino brand (see p59) - and the Tecra comes with the Intel 855PM motherboard chipset and PRO/Wireless LAN adaptor too. Then there's Toshiba's superb power-saving software.

This replaces the standard Windows power management applet and provides an amazing amount of control. You can set up several preset modes for battery power, and select the one you want when you need it. And we're not just talking about when it shuts down the monitor and hard disk - you can set up to eight steps in processor speed and monitor brightness, and over four stages of battery rundown too.

It all adds up to make the ideal travelling companion. While the Tecra's no ultra portable, at 2.7kg it's still a good 1kg lighter than many desktop replacements. And it's not really missing any features either. You get a 1.6GHz Pentium-M, 512MB of RAM, a 60GB hard disk, Gigabit Ethernet and fast combo drive.

But, with the same motherboard chipset and processor, you can't help but ask why the Acer is faster than the Toshiba. The Tecra's overall 2D benchmark score of 1.24 is well above average for a notebook, but it's a long way from the Acer's 1.46. However, it was only

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the Excel tests that let the Toshiba down, and in many tests (Photoshop, for example) the Toshiba was actually faster.

The poor Excel performance could possibly be attributed to the Trident graphics chip, as the constant drawing of graphs stresses the graphics chip's DirectDraw capabilities. Whatever the reason, though, the Tecra is still more than fast enough for any office applications.

That said, the price also looks tight next to the Acer's £1,299 with its larger screen and superior graphics chip, but the Toshiba has many other enticements to tempt the corporate buyer.

The first is build quality. There's no denying that the Acer has a great design and solid construction. But the Toshiba has the bonus of a magnesium alloy lid, which is far more rigid than the Acer's plastic, and will provide solid protection for the screen when travelling. This is worth the extra money alone.

And then there's the Toshiba's screen, which is another advantage over the Acer. It's only a 14in XGA panel, but it's incredibly bright and offers fantastic viewing angles. The only minor criticism is the colour purity, where bright whites have a slight pink tinge, but it's barely noticeable, and the screen is great for a notebook.

Even the keyboard is firm and solid, and the palmrests feel much more rigid and reassuring than those on the Dell Inspiron 5100 (see p61). The only complaint is that it's not quite as comfortable as the Acer to type on, and it also takes a while to get used to the Window key being at the top rather than the bottom.

Like the Acer, the Toshiba's design is otherwise well thought out. The styling - with its single hinge underneath the display - won't be to everyone's tastes, but the inclusion of both a touchpad and trackpoint will please everybody. So will the wide range of ports, with both parallel and serial ports round the back, as well as a four-pin FireWire port.

The three side-mounted USB 2 ports are a nice touch too - all easy to access with no fiddling round the back. The same can be said for the front-mounted infrared port, audio jacks and WLAN switch. Two PC Card slots are provided for future expansion, and digital camera users will appreciate the SD card slot on the left.

The Tecra M1 is a superb business notebook, offering fast performance, superb build quality, incredible battery life and a great-quality screen. What's more, if £1,799 is stretching your finances, Toshiba also has a 1.4GHz 256MB version with a 30GB hard disk and DVD-ROM for £1,399. But the £1,799 version outstrips the previous A-Listed business notebook, the Samsung P10 XTC 1900 Fingerprint (see issue 100, p117), in every important area, making the Tecra M1 the obvious successor.