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Toshiba Portege M400 Core Solo tablet reviewed


With all the talk about UMPCs, it's good to see that manufacturers haven't abandoned good, old-fashioned, full-featured tablet PCs. And Toshiba's Portege M400, first unveiled at CES, looks to be one of the first of a new generation of tablets packing a 1.83GHz Core Duo processor, optional internal DVD burner and hard drive capacity up to 80GB, at a street price starting at about $1,700 (or about what a Samsung Q1 is probably going to cost once you add all the accessories needed to provide equivalent functionality). PC Magazine took a good look at the new tablet (using an early 1.67GHz Core Solo model), and found that it ran smoothly -- and coolly -- enough to handle office applications, DVD viewing and apps like Photoshop. The 1024 x 768 display was sharp, and the keyboard, while slightly smaller than full-size, was comfortable. The biggest downside: a sluggish response when switching the display from portrait to landscape. Then again, that's not something you're likely to need to do all that often, so if you're looking for a (relatively) affordable, solid tablet, this one (or the Core Duo version, due out shortly) could be worth a look.