What would we ever do without our eagle-eyed readers? Bob has spotted the above M780 tablet PC from Toshiba (which we first heard of
a couple of weeks ago) on the company's official site, though its product page has yet to be linked to from any of the home pages. So it's official, but sort of prematurely so. Browsing through the spec sheet, this update to the
M750 seems to lack for nothing, as its maxed out variant (priced at $1,799) offers a 2.66GHz
Core i7-620M, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 7200RPM 320GB hard drive. Okay, you could stand to upgrade those integrated graphics perhaps, but it's a potent package nonetheless. It's also interesting to see these 12-inch convertible tablets maturing to the point of offering viable workstation performance, as the M780 is joined by Lenovo's
ThinkPad X201T and Fujitsu's
upcoming tablet in offering Intel's finest and fastest dual-core processor inside.
[Thanks, Bob]
Update: Toshiba has completed the ceremonies of officialdom now, with a
full press release, which also notes the addition of a multitouch panel to the
Satellite Pro U500.
posted February 23rd 2010 6:37AM
That's what I'm talking about! I recon Photoshop will be pretty snappy with this set up. Hopefully they manage the heat well.
the desigh looks like my 6 years old laptop. ¯\(°_o)/¯
@ppsaoda
Isn't it nice? They paid more attention to what purchasers of these machines would want instead of going with whatever the current trendy design is.
WTF!!.. Can't someone do a hot tablet just like this with a option for a graphics card!?.... Damnit... Lenovo or Toshiba... I've been waiting for a few years & for the new options from them & still don't have it... It sucks...
@mrkalel
The HP TM2T has a Radeon 4550 option. Just have to deal with the retarded touchpad, flakey touchscreen, and auto-rotate wierdness(most of which people have come up with hacks to help)
@mrkalel
Heat + weight = bad for small notebooks, especially convertibles designed to be held in the crook of your arm. The only market (gamers) for this would be dissatisfied with the results. Even with a graphics card (it would have to be a marginal one at best), it would not be an ideal gaming machine, and it would probably cost twice as much to engineer all that stuff into a small form factor that is light weight and heat efficient. We just are not there technology-wise yet.
Plus, gamers represent a very small fickle segment that aren't known to be dependable when it comes to expensive notebooks. Better to aim this product at on-the-go graphics designers, photo editors and presenters. And if you can keep the costs down, you maybe capture some of the internet tablet market as well.
P.S. the HP has all sorts of issues.
@NXTwoThou
The other retarded thing you have to deal with is HP marketing, Just moronic that HP canada or mostly outside the U.S. offers no customization options when ordering on the web sites. There by, not getting the ATI graphics, "Yet" I hope !!
I would have purchased this yesterday if HP Canada would stop being such retards in only offering the basic setup.
@69camaroSS
I own the TM2 and I can tell you it doesn't get hot. It's topped 50C gaming in Dragon Age on high settings. It's more then acceptable to play games on.
What is with Toshiba fascination with cracker-sized trackpad on their big-ass laptops?
Shouldn't it be spelled "Protege?"
@knightrogen2 It's a bad pun that their tablet line has been using for a long, long time.
Hey, other graphic artists out there. What is you take on the tablets?
Obviously without dedicated graphics, apps like Maya, After Effects and even Photoshop will take a speed hit. But then, I think I want a tablet more for working on pre-design on the road. There are lots of time I am waiting for something (food, a client meeting, etc...) that would be great to pull out a tablet and start sketching up a storyboard or something. Generating production proposals and quotes is easy too as opposed to trying to type something nice up on an iPhone.
But then, is power like this really necessary? Maybe it is better to go with the HP TM2? Slightly lighter, less rendering power but switchable GPU. As it is a tablet for playing media, it might offer some features better for creating it?
Or is the best solution to hold out for something like the HP Slate? I am sure will be very underpowered, but if it ran OneNote snappy, you could use that for sketching storyboards. Although the Slate might not have a stylus. Is it even pressure sensitive?
And there is the iPad, of course. I feel very reserved about that working for business at all. In theory one could use iWork, but will I need to sync to get the data off? Will I be able to save in .doc format? Or export to PDF? Then there is the whole app switching thing. People tell me that multitasking isn't that important on the iPad, but I don't think they have to refer to client websites, and marketing PDFs while sketching out a new design for a new matching ad. Close app, open app, open file, view, close app, open app, open sketch, work, close app, open app, open file... ugh. If that isn't an argument for a full OS, nothing is.
Thoughts?
@Anatidae
Maybe Apple will release a convertible i7 tablet with a touchscreen as the next upgrade to the Macbook pro line.
Hey, at least I can dream. :)
@rcappo
keep dreaming; they had their shot with the iPad and let us down.
This concept of marrying a Core i7 intrigues me.
This article refers "Fujitsu's upcoming tablet" however Fujitsu led the pack introducing new Core brand processors -- LifeBook T900 with Core i7 has been out since Feb 2 in North America.