Toshiba Portege R400 Tablet PC Review – featuring convertible tablet PC

Tuesday, November 18, 2008, 4:46
Laptops
406 views
View Comments

Toshiba has introduced the concept of convertible tablet PC in its new release of Portege R400 Tablet PC. You can use this tablet PC as a laptop supported by a full-featured keyboard, or you can even use it as a slate tablet PC with the support of digital ink. Apart from the concept of convertible tablet PC, another outstanding feature that has been introduced in this model is a ‘STOP’ feature that stops the user from rotating the PC screen in a wrong direction. It is a useful feature indeed. A little different from Toshiba’s usual dark or silver colors, the R400 is all in white with an elegant look.

Weighing 1.8Kg or 3.70lbs, the Toshiba’s Portege R400 Tablet PC is actually a laptop that can be taken anywhere you like. Integrated with Intel Core Duo U2500 1.2GHz processor, R400 Tablet PC is perfect enough to run office as well as browser applications. Other system integrations includes, a wide screen 1280 x 800 pixels XGA display of 12.1”, an 80GB 4200RPM hard drive, shared memory of 8MB to 256MB and built in Graphics Media Accelerator 950.

Although the integrated graphics of R400 Tablet PC is not applicable to run rich 3D applications, but it is able enough to support Windows Vista Aero interface with Glass effects. Another added feature is the Windows SideShow technology, which is a secondary display that displays generated information from small applications. Even if the R400 is in sleeping mode, the Personal Information Assistant can easily interface with a Microsoft Exchange Server and receive e-mails. But the underlying problem is that it only works with its in-built 3G card and no other.

In addition, the Toshiba’s R400 Tablet PC is configured with a 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet port, Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG 802.11a/b/g and Bluetooth V2.0 plus EDR and does not have any modem port. If you face any network configuration problem, a set of programs has been added in R400, which helps you to connect and diagnose the problems. Moreover, it also helps you in finding wireless routers by a graphical representation that is similar to a radar screen. An in-built microphone is included for the VoIP applications. The U.S. version of R400 is designed with an in-built 3G.

As per the security issues are concerned, the R400 is designed with a small fingerprint scanner, located below the screen.