Light Use Only
Written: Feb 09 '04 (Updated Feb 11 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Small, powerful enough for productivity office stuff, Tablet PC with Notebook feel
Cons: DVD-ROM drive not detecting out of box, wireless woes
The Bottom Line: Are you a hardcore.... um.... office productivity stuff kinda person?
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| nad_masters's Full Review: Toshiba Portege 3505 (PP350U-0078DE) Tablet PC |
Wow... I never would have thought that a configuration as flimsy as this would ever be bought today on purpose! But my brother was looking for a couple things that made it happen:
1) Needs to be super small and portable. (was looking at a Pocket PC PDA as well)
2) Needs to be able to punch out MS Office documents and spreadsheets. (that ruled out the Palm OS)
3) Needs to be able to create forementioned documents and spreadsheets from scratch to completetion (including formating and printing). (This rules out the Pocket PC)
No need for video games, no need for movies (though he did say it would be a plus). He hates the touchpad, but would not be squeemish about it if he must get a device with one (as on a laptop).
Circuit City was clearing the Toshiba Portege 3505 Convertable Tablet PC. At first, he thought it was just a notebook until I told him it was not (I worked at Best Buy, and we had the same model). For some reason, though, CC wanted $1099 for it, while BB still wanted $1700 for theirs. Being that I worked at BB, it'd be nice to get it there via pricematch, and I can grab the 3 Year Performance Service Plan for cheap (using my discount). However, because the CC price is so low, they were not able to do it.
Oh well... CC's price was right, and so he went and grabbed it. Their service plan was not as good as BB, but at least he got a very nice coverage for something that will be obsolete (and tend to break down after a while anyways) in 3 years.
But before he plunked down his cash, I reminded him that he was only getting a mobile Pentium III 1.33 GHz with 256 MB of RAM, and an external PCMCIA PC Card DVD-ROM drive (no CD-RW). For the same price, he could have gotten something with a bigger screen (though he didn't want that), and a much beefier configuration (Athlon XP 2500 , 256 MB RAM, DVD/CD-RW combo drive). The Toshiba, by the by, only has a 12.1". The hard drive was only 30 GB as well (compared to others at this price carrying 40 GB).
Now, I will side with him on the screen size subject: bigger isn't always better. I think that a 12.1" to 14" is the perfect size for notebooks. 15" and up is just way to bulky!
Nonetheless, he got it, and it ended up costing about $1300 after tax and service plan.
So after getting it back home, we were gonna have fun setting this wee guy up. After unpacking, we found that the external DVD-ROM drive has two interface cards: one 16-bit and one 32-bit. The 16-bit PCMCIA card is for booting up from the DVD-ROM drive. The 32-bit PC Card is used for normal use under Windows XP Tablet Edition. Not only that, but the DVD-ROM drive has it's own power brick and a battery pack that doesn't even charge!
The Protege initially took 2 hours to charge, but after that, other charging experiences were only 1 hour to get a complete full charge.
The set up is a b*tch. Even from a techie standpoint. I would have thought that out of the box, everything should be working, but here are the hoops we had to jump through:
1) DVD-ROM drive not recognized. It kept asking for drivers! And the CDs that included were no help. Did you get the catch 22 yet? (Can't use the DVD-ROM drive to install from). The website was no help, either. I ended up using Google to "Google it" (tm), and found the driver deep inside Toshiba's web site (though there was no way of me to find it at their main site).
2) The wireless LAN did not detect my WLAN router. It took forever to find out that it had to be on "shared authentication" to work.
Other than that, the laptop peforms admirably, proving that you don't need a super fast CPU for office work. Office 2003 was not installed on it (only got Works), but once installed, it was a perfect match (esp. with Onenote!).
Bored and want some tunes? The dinky little speakers aren't even in stereo! There is just one speaker on the bottom-right side of the laptop that belches out dings, and squeezes out MP3s. Must...use...stereo headphones!!!
Just as well, it comes with 2 USB 2.0 ports. Surprising for an "old" Tablet PC (it is discontinued as of press time). No floppy drive, my brother bought a SanDisk 256 MB USB 2.0 Flash Drive. When plugged into my Compaq, it complained that they were only USB 1.1, but "will work at reduced speeds". No such compaints on the Toshiba.
Tablet Edition includes a place to pen in inputs using a stylus. It works okay, but still have much trouble recognizing our penmension (written or cursive). It was then we realized that he was lucky that he didn't get a dedicated Tablet PC. (Funny side story: since I worked at BB, I had a couple customers asking to get USB keyboards and kept insisting on USB and not PS2 - when asked why, they respond: "it's for a tablet PC"). The other feature that Tablet Edition added to XP Pro was the voice recognition. It's fun to mess with both "new" and different technologies, but at the end, they are just that: toys. Both of us ended up using the keyboard most of the time. While I prefer the touch pad, he likes using the stylus to mouse around (which solves his pet peeve for touch pads).
He's very happy with it as it satisfies his needs, but I still look at it as an expensive, under-powered laptop. I guess at $1099, it's not too expensive, and it's much more portable than my 15" Compaq 2110US laptop. Heck... I love borrowing it to surf the net as a tablet with just the stylus. ;) It's just got a cool factor to it.
By the by, battery life is still 3 hours with the mobile P3 at 1.33 GHz. Can't complain too much, as that is how long my Compaq lasts untethered.
So, if you are one of those people who are workaholics, and don't game outside of Solitare, do I have a Tablet PC for you! If so, then I also found the best laptop for you as well (while I was doing my own research for my bro). I feel in love with the Sony V505DX, a Centrino 1.4 GHz machine with 512 MB of RAM, DVD/CD-RW combo, an ATI Radeon 9200 /w 32 MB, lasts 5 hours on battery, and has a pettite 12.1" screen. Fast for gaming, portable for traveling and productivity office stuff. Of course, it costs $1700 before rebates, and I already offered that option to my brother. He gave me a $700-difference "NO!" stare. :)
Recommended:
Yes
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