**Questions about M40/M45***

Hey, I am looking in to possibly buying the M40 (M45 in the US), and I have a few questions:

1. How long of a battery life can you get out of it when you're using battery save mode? I've heard some people get 3-4 hrs. out of the battery while others only get an hour and a half.

2. How is the fan/hard drive noise?

3. Does the M40 have the same freezing up problems as the A70 and A75? (I bought an A70 awhile ago but returned it because of freezing).

4. How is this laptop temperature wise? Is it cool enough to keep on your lap for extended periods of time?

5. Is the screen on the M40 glossy? Is that what "TruBrite" is?

6. Any other things worth mentioning.

Thanks a bunch. This will really help me out.

 

1. I'm not sure but if you do anything on it, even at max battery life, I wouldn't hope for more than 3 hours at the most. Expect more like 2 hours of ordinary work on it.

2. The fan has many different speeds so most of the time you won't even hear it, but when you do some intensive work, it kicks in a little faster and then you can hear it, but even then it's not as loud as many fans that are already quoted as "quiet". However, I heard it at full speed once and it can make quite a racket if it ever comes to that speed. The hard drive is pretty silent, you can hear minimal access noise.

3. About freezing I can't tell, it never froze while I was in front of it, however my previous unit (which had a graphic card problem, so maybe it was related) crashed once while its lid was closed and while I was not in front of it. When I came back, fan was at full speed, so I was wondering what was happening, I opened it and the screen was black, no OS response, I pressed the power button and it shut down immediately, quite strange I can say. Normally when the system is crashed you have to hold the power button 5 seconds for it to shut down, but then it was crashed and it shut down immediately. No HD access nothing, it was as if it was suspended in a weird BIOS halt state, can't understand what it is. Always with my previous unit, I had one blue screen that seemed to be related to its Config Free program and wireless connections. Else these two weird occurences, the machine works trouble free.

4. The heat generated seems to be pretty well exhausted on the left side, because the air pushed by the fan can get quite hot, but the unit itself stays pretty cool. You can use the exhaust as a hand-warmer

5. It's glossy, and very bright, it's one of the best screen I've seen. The only catch, as many LCD out there these days, it's an 18bits matrix. If you have good vision, you can notice minimal dithering in the picture.

6. This laptop is quite a laptop at the time of its introduction (now) and the graphic card, if you can get the Canadian version, is a really good thing for a notebook of this size, it's not the lightest, but 6 pounds for a 15 inch widescreen is quite good.

Oh yeah, about the battery, I think if you are in the USA, you can easily get a bigger battery (it adds around 11 oz to the unit's weight) that will last double the time. It's on shoptoshiba.com 's accessories.

The PC Express card slot is dummy. The keyboard has a short click but it feels solid. Touchpad works great. Sound is very good. I haven't tried burning discs yet so I can't tell.

That's about it.

Toshiba Satellite M40 - Pentium-M Sonoma 1.6ghz - 512mb DDR333 - 60gb 4200rpm - GeForce 6600 128mb - 15.4" BrightView WXGA TFT LCD

 

1. I get about 2 - 3 hours of battery life, depending on what I'm doing.

2. I can barely hear to fan or hard drive.

3. No strange problems yet.

4. The laptop gets a little warm. the touchpad seems to be the overall warmest spot. it's noticeable, but not bothersome. the bottom naturally seems to get warmer than the top. I would say you'd have no problem using the laptop on your lap, but I don't think it'd be the most comfortable thing in the world.

5. The LCD is glossy, which can be described as trubrite, xbrite, brightview, etc. it improves the overall contrast of the screen, especially black(LCDs can't display true black because of the backlight).

6. The build quality seems very good. only my Backspace button has a slight rattle. the touch pad is especially nice with the buttons very firm and tight(loose buttons on the touchpad turned me away from buying a Sony Vaio). a double layer dvd burner is a nice bonus, allowing 1:1 copies of retail DVDs(I haven't tried it, DL DVDs being $10 per disc and all).

Toshiba Satellite M40 - Pentium-M Sonoma 1.86ghz - 512mb DDR333 - 80gb 4200rpm - GeForce 6600 128mb - 15.4" BrightView WXGA TFT LCD

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that is has never tried to contact us.

 

How is the wireless performance on the M45? Any dropped connections?

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by murphyja

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Tech_Girl

 

Would anyone suggest if it's worth buying an extra battery or just leave it as it is? I mainly use it for emailing, surfing, word, powerpt, excel, acrobat, movies, etc. Not so much for gaming though.

Thanks!

 

Regarding the battery life, i forgot to mention that I was interested in the M40 model.

 

It depends if 2 to 3 hours at the uttermost maximum is enough for you. That's the maximum you'll get out of it.

Toshiba Satellite M40 - Pentium-M Sonoma 1.6ghz - 512mb DDR333 - 60gb 4200rpm - GeForce 6600 128mb - 15.4" BrightView WXGA TFT LCD

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by sct

 

I know it's been awhile, but I'm bumping this to hear more replies!

 

Tech_Girl,

I take from your bump you still haven't decided on the notebook. Are there still some concerns that you have?

From the posts I have read about the Toshiba M40/M45, it seems to be on the positive side, although battery life was it's main complaint.

You may be able to get yourself a larger battery (12cell), but that will add weight to the unit. It kinda defeats the purpose of the getting a Pentium M notebook (weight-wise). I'm not sure if you might consider other brands. I know HP is pretty good as I have one myself. Their Business notebooks are very well built and have decent battery runtimes. Personally, I'd go the HP route vs the Toshiba route.

-Vb-

 

Yeah, still looking for a laptop! I would really like to get on in the next week because I'm off to university next Sunday! I still have some concerns with the M40...problems I've heard people have had (don't know if the problems have been resolved yet or not...I wish I could know for sure!). Some issues I've heard of are: blue screens, freezing, and high-pitched noise. I've also heard of a few people mention heat was a bit of a problem.

 

I bought a M45-S355 about 2-3 weeks ago and have been using it everyday since. I've not experienced any problems whatsoever with it, except that the battery life is very bad. I'd be lucky to get 2 hours I think...

However, overall, I love this thing and am very happy with the purchase. No noisy fan, exhaust is good, display is great, no freezing up. I hope I have the same kind of review 6 months from now. We'll see.

JRink

 

Have you considered HP? I have an HP nx 8220 (Canadian Model, similar to the nc8230, slight spec changes) and I love the unit. Just a couple issue thoght to report:

1. Some LCD's might get a shimmer/glitter effect, it's the brand of LD used, so you might not get it
2. There's a high-pitched squeel noise from the nid-left side of the notebook. It's the Bluetooth module when it's not powered-on. Just power on and you're fine or use the lastest BIOS. CHnages the noise from a high-pitched squeel to a toned down buzz.

Other than that, there's no real big issues. I get no heat problems at all. The CPU run's at approx 45C when surfing or basic usage. The HDD operates at 35C when active or idle (surfing or watching /burning DVD's from HDD). My battery life is approx 2hrs or more if I run at full speed without battery management and over 4hrs if it's idle (basic usage will probably be approx 3.5hrs). That's on a standard 8cell battery. It also allows for a modular battery or a travel battery to be connected. That'll probably push runtimes to approx 8hrs.

Just a suggestion as this has pretty much similar specs other than the video card and LCD (video is an ATI x600 & LCD is a non-glossy screen). The nc8230 starts at $1400US.

Here's the link to my review:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2397

Here's the link to MClassic's review of his nc8230
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2357

-Vb-