One of the best portables ever
Written: Aug 16 '02
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Quality of Tech Support: |
|
|
|
Pros: Gorgeous casing, fast, comfortable typing
Cons: 800x600 resolution, not much else
The Bottom Line: One of the best laptop computers for doing real work ever made, highly recommended.
|
|
|
| lawman67's Full Review: Toshiba Portege 7000CT (PAP700U-T2W5) PC Notebook |
Let me start out by saying that as a hobby I buy, configure and then resell older laptops on eBay, and while I handle the occasional IBM ThinkPad, I tend to stick mostly to Toshiba. The reason for my Toshiba-bias is the same one that has made the last five out of six of my personal-use laptops Toshibas, which is simply that I like using them. Until last year, all Toshiba laptops used the eraserhead pointing device, which I prefer greatly over the touchpads on most other brands (IBM invented the stick, which is why I'll also play with their laptops).
Among Toshiba laptops of the last 7 years or so, there are five series, each aimed at a different customer. First are the Satellite series which are the low-cost consumer machines. Typically they are large and heavy, have the newest hardware and features, and the shortest product cycles. Satellites usually have everything built-in and are rather large and heavy, though no add-on accessories need be used.
The Satellite Pro series are the low-end business models, generally having longer production runs (lower costs for organizations deploying then by the tens or hundreds) and slightly better build quality.
At the top of the conventional laptop range are the Tecra series, which tend to be very ruggedly built and for the newer ones, comparitively lightweight. These are also the most expandable models, and (by far) the most expensive.
Next are the Portege series, which are my personal favorites. These are snall, lightweight, and since 1997, very thin. Porteges are also high--end business machines and they tend to look the part, with metallic finishes, magnesium casings and an extremely high build quality.
Finally are the Librettos, which are super-tiny, though to achieve their small size, they shrink the keyboard and display to levels that many users find uncomfortable.
Why the long description of Toshiba's various types of laptops? Well as a Portege, the 7000CT has many compromises inherent in its design, which the uninformed used laptop shopper will likely think of as deficiencies, rather than very reasonable trade-offs to achieve the higher degree of portability for which the Portege series were designed.
The compromises are quite simple really, the Portege series, with the exceptions of the 1996 660 series and the current 4000 series, are single-spindle computers, meaning the only 'spindle' built-in is the hard drive. To use floppy discs, CD or DVD roms or any other form of removeable media means connecting an external drive through either the USB port, PC card slot or using a dock. Most user have no problem seeing the logic in this for the smaller 3000 and 2000 series, which are less than an inch thick and weigh about 3lbs, but for the larger 7000 series with their slighly over 1 inch thickness, large casings and approximately 4lb weight, they typically believe that an optical drive should be built-in.
I won't speculate to the engineering limitations in the late 1990s to putting an optical drive into such a slim casing, but I will say that compared to other designs of the same era, the 7000 series Portege represents a terrific combination of light weight, spacious comfort and extreme portability. It is impressively thin even by today's standards, beautifully crafted out of very high quality materials, and it is easy to imagine that all of the 4lb weight goes into the extremely rigid chasis which suggests long-lasting quality.
I am typing this on the 7000CT, which was released in 1998 as the first model in the series. This particular machine came off corporate lease and by the scuff-marks on the metallic top cover, has travelled a lot, going in and out of a bag probably hundreds, if not thousands of times in its four-year life. That said, even that scuffed top cover still looks terrific and the machine remains a delight to type on and use. The keyboard action is positive and firm, the mouse buttons have a very positive click, and the mouse tracks accurately. The 12.1" TFT screen is sharp and clear, with excellent color and even illumination, though the single built-in speaker has picked up a scratchy distortion most likely the result of a dirty connection wire somewhere inside the case (sound is PERFECT through external speakers).
The 7000CT is equipped with a 266MHz mobile Pentium II processor and 32MB of ram, which is really too little for anything except perhaps Windows 95 and Office 97. If you run a more modern OS (I like and use Windows 2000 Professional on these), then you will want to upgrade the ram. 64MB is a good amount for a Windows 98 system, while the maximum 160MB makes Windows 2000 or even XP a good fit.
The machine has two 32-bit cardbus enabled PC card slots, a docking port that allows the connection of a port replicator, or either a CD or DVD docking 'slice' which fits underneath the computer and porks it out to the 8lb range, though adding all of the features that desktop-replacement laptops usually have, including a CD or DVD rom drive, floppy drive, 10/100 ethernet port and a full range of peripheral connectors. With the dock installed, the Portege remains relatively compact, will still fit in many computer bags, and becomes an extremely versatile computer, however it is undocked that the Portege really shines. One more thing about docks or external DVD drives, all 7000 series Portege computers have a HARDWARE MPEG2 DECODER built-in, which means that one of these laptops and an external DVD drive or DVD dock will give you much better movie playback than the vast majority of Pentium 4 laptops available today, most of which rely on software decoding. I played a movie on the 7000CT with a PC card DVD drive, then compared it to my Portege 4000 (750MHz Pentium III with software decoding and built-in DVD/CDRW drive) and the 7000CT won the contest, hands-down. That says a lot, as the software decoded PIII provides very good playback, the hardware decoded 7000CT is just that much better.
DVD movies aside, the real reason to buy one of these is because you travel a lot (even lugging a laptop around town all-day counts as frequent travel) and are tired of lugging an 8lb behemoth on your shoulder. It is for this highly mobile user that the Portege 7000CT (and other models in the 7000 series, all of which share accessories) shines. While thin and lightweight, this laptop is every bit as comfortable as the big and heavy ones to type on. The keyboard is the same one Toshiba used to fit to the Tecra, Satellite Pro and Satellite models, and has an ample palm rest area. For me at least, comfort is even better on these than the big-boys on account of that extremely thin profile, which puts the keys roughly 1/2 inch above the table surface. I find typing on a 2 inch laptop very uncomfortable, much like placing a desktop keyboard on top of a few magazines before typing on it.
Another important consideration with many laptops is battery life, and here the 7000 series really excels. For users who go from office to office and usually have access to AC power, the standard battery is slim, lightweight and gives about 90 minutes of realistic use (Toshiba claims 2.5hrs). What sets this unit apart however is the optional high-capacity battery which while slightly bulky and twice as heavy (adds about another .6lbs), still fits securely to the machine, doesn't make it in any way ungainly or clumsy, and most importantly, delivers 5 hours of real-world use. My 7000CT has this battery, and with the screen at maximum bright and the processor at full speed, I can still work on battery power for four hours without worry, and this is on a four-year-old battery. Toshiba claimed 6 hours of life, and on a new one, I would image that with aggressive power management it is quite possible. The only flaw here is that the high-capacity battery uses the same slot as the standard one. I would have preferred a second connector allowing the fitment of both at the same time, still, with the larger battery coast-to-coast work or play is a reality on this laptop.
So is there anything I don't like about this laptop? Actually, I wish the screen resolution was 1024x768. The Tecra 550CDT, which is six months or so older than the 7000CT uses the same 12.1" screen size, though at the higher resolution, and as any owner of a current model Portege 2000 or 4000 will tell you, 12.1" at 1024x768 is an optiimal arrangement. Later 7000 series models included a 13.3" panel at the higher resolution, and these are gorgeous, however it is at the cost of about 1/3 pound and 20 minutes or so of battery life. Since most web pages are still optimized for 800x600 its not much of a problem, and it represents my only complaint about using one of these as a primary computer. Of course, there is an on-board VGA port, so an external monitor can easily be plugged in. Other than that, I consider this laptop as well-nigh-unto perfect.
Even in the year 2002, there aren't any real compromises in using a 7000CT compared with the ultralight models of today. It is powerful enough, very ergonomic, visually impressive (the ever-important wow-factor) and rock-solid reliable. Selling for about $400 on eBay with the DVD dock or $300 without, it is very hard to go wrong with one of these. Newer 7200 series models with Pentium III processors and 13.3" screens cost considerably more, so I would recommend going for the Pentium II model 7000, 7010 or 7020, you won't be dissappointed. The 7000 will of course be the cheapest as it is the oldest and slowest. They come with 4GB drives, and most already have upgraded RAM.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 280 used
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium II
Processor speed: 201-300
Screen Size: 12
RAM: 128
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
lawman67
|
 in Computer Hardware |
 - Top 200 |
|
Member: Andrew F
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Reviews written: 210
Trusted by: 63 members
About Me:
Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl but she doesn't have a lot to say.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.