Tecra M2 reviews

Does anyone know of any reviews of the Tecra M2 series? I have been hunting high and low and I can't find any.

Thanks for the help

 

Thanks,

When it comes in can you post your general impressions.
Thanks

Mark

 

I was looking all over too.
Hope someone finds one.
But, I am going on a trip soon and had to just order it.
judging from all the reads in different forums ... others are looking for a review too.
* don't have my M2 yet ... but should in a week.
ordered the 512mb config. from Brian ext 7029 $ 2,539.73 Total with ship to Hawaii. I got a lot of stuff on it ... the base model is much cheaper.
and ordered the extra dimm 512mb from www.crucial.com $131.96 including ship to Hawaii(extra) ... never had a problem with this ram supplier on the web, and they ship fast.

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

 

Well, I finally got a good look at one of the M2's today at a local retailer. I must admit that I was disappointed. The overall look and feel of the unit is fairly unspectacular. It feels cheap and "plastiky" to me, very much like the Dell's do. It is light, but really doesn't seem that thin at all, especially not compared to LG, Apple, etc. The keyboard did have a solid feel, a real concern of mine with toshiba after test driving a M30--what a POS keybaord!! The screen/resolition was nice, and I do like the dual touchpad and "eraser-pointer" option including the extra set of buttons for the pointing device.

Right next to the M2 was an older S1--and there's no doubt in my mind that the M1/S1/A1 series were a must more robust build. On the other side were two Porteges the M100 and A100 The M100 is nice, but VERY spendy, the A100 really seems like a nice little machine and very well priced, though also "plastiky" in feel.

Overall, I'm pretty disapointed with the M2, I was really hoping this would be the machine I went with, but now I'm having serious doubts. One other thing, I need a serial port for my uses, and Toshiba does offer the port replicator III whcih is compatible with the M2, and gives you just about every port you could imagine (including firewire if you go for one of the cheaper M2 models that doesn't offer a firewaire port....) but the replicator itself is HUGE!! I mean all this talk about portability and all that, and i could use the replicator for spare boat anchor......oh well.

Now I'm leaning heavily towards the Fujitsu s6130 or the new s7000 series....I'd just like to test drive them first too. If there's one thing I realized out of all this, I would NEVER buy ANY laptop that I hadn't seen first--now matter how good the specs/reviews/price.

My $.02

NP

 

[ ] I am glad you posted your comments .. even if I have already ordered it ... really[8D]
Good to hear from others that have experiance with the M2 and other Notebooks, and hear there comparison.
This will be my first notebook, although I run 6 towers in my office ... two on a KVM switch for myself.

I do have a few questions ... and sorry it sounds uninformed:
1) Are there many under 5lbs Notebooks that feel solid & not plasticy ... other than say, the expensive IBM?

2) Could you tell if it was running "cool" and quiet?

3) the screen was it SXGA?

4) good to know about the size of the port rep III ... but, is there anything smaller the M2 can use?
Can't it use almost any Tecra Dock?

* fyi: the IBM was my first choice but the configuation was about $500.00 more
it was a tough choice.
I did get the 3yrs idiot proof warranty on the M2 only $179.00

for me anyway it was also the 2003 PCmag Service & Reliability Survey. Toshiba "A" rating along with IBM and iMAC
Yes, all my corp customers are using IBM (that's impressive) ... but, I am paying for it out of my pocket ... and what is a cheap guy to do? when he has to go on a trip soon?

p.s. I am a little irritated at IBM products right now too.
I have got 3 of 4 IBM Deskstar IDE drives (2001) that have gone down in the past 6 months. (and they did not have the "decency" to all go at once)
And ALL my Maxtor drives that are older keep on running .. including the 4 on a RAID 0 on my main computer.

Then, there's my Lexmark 2450 Network Printer's paper sensor (a little arm) keeps breaking and jaming the paper path!

* sometimes you just want it to work [ ]

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

 

1) Are there many under 5lbs Notebooks that feel solid & not plasticy ... other than say, the expensive IBM?

The Fujitsu S6120D meets that test. I just bought one. It's light (weights a smidge more than 4 lbs) and feels solid with its magnesium-clad body. There is an optional port replicator that doesn't look too huge.

The Fujitsu's not for everyone. It doesn't have dedicated memory like the M2. But it is definitely less expensive than the price quoted by Hawaii geek, and it seems, judging by nonprophet's comments on the M2, to have a nicer build.

Nonprophet, will any online retailers in the US let you test drive a Fujitsu?

 

I forgot a few crucial things, as far as heat goes I am really surprised, I used to have a Presario that you couldn't set on your lap when it was hot, when i am working with my M2 I sometimes wonder where the heat is going. Sometimes I feel a mild heat around the front edge of the keyboard (not on the same plane as the keyboard but if you set it down the edge facing you) You can feel warm air come out of the side vent if you put your hand there. For the most part the whole system is fairly silent, sometimes if it's been on for a long while with the screen saver on it makes a noise kind of like a clock ticking and I am not sure what it is. the keyboard is comfortable and dosen't feel cramped up although I have to adjust the antenna on my wireless GPRS card because it kind of sticks up where my pinky wants to be because the PC card slots are near the front of the keyboard. Screen quality is ok, I really wanted an amazing screen and I went with SXGA+ I don't have any realistic issues with it except I would prefer to have one of those ultra clear glossy screens that you see on a few laptops. In general I would like to see wider viewing angles on notebook computers, just look at tablet examples, I bought my first laptop before TFT came out and it was atrocious, my uncle has a brand new vaio and I can tell you the screen on the toshiba is noticably better than the vaio. Is it one of the best? No. Is it adequate? by all means. but it's not the shining star of the whole system that's for sure. my beef is with laptops in general not with this particular notebook.

 

I've owned my Tecra M2 for a month now, I went all out and got the high res screen, 1.7 ghz, and also an 80 GB HD. I can tell you that I am 100% satisfied with my purchase. I use my computer to be mobile all day long. I spend all day in the office and go to school at night, I am always at my friends house, my parents house etc... I am a mobile user. This thing travels with me everywhere and it's great. Solid machine, much more sexier in person than it looks on the website. As far as "plasticy" feel, personally I don't think it feels cheap, (if you paid what I paid for a computer it wouldn't feel cheap to you LOL) seriously, to me it feels solid, I looked at a lot of computers before settling on this one and there was always something about them I didn't like. The wifi was ultra easy, even for me, a first time user. I have mine set up with a wireless card that provides me with my internet connection via GPRS, so I am always on. The battery life is plenty adequate, I plan on upgrading to the 12 cell eventually though, just cause I wished I had bought it at first. Of course if you are ragging on your optical drive battery life goes way down, but you can dictate to the computer how fast you want the optical drive to spin. Microsoft one note is great and comes pre-packaged, in fact it makes me wish I had a tablet PC, maybe in a few years I might get one, let's let that technology mature. Besides one-note the software package was pretty dismal, I need productivity software to do my job and this is supposed to be a business computer so why didn't I get it? That was a big oversight on Toshiba's part in my opinion. I went ahead and bought Office 2003 and now I am set. What's cool is that I can do all my work on my computer and fax it directly to my customers without ever having to come near a wall outlet or phone line, to me that is the price of freedom. My job is a 24 hour operation and on my week to take calls at night and on weekends I was tethered to a wall, now I can do anyhting, in fact last weekend I took my girlfriend to the museum and was able to fax and keep my business going. The whole system is smaller and weighs less than my calculus textbook. You could be happy living with this machine, I am sure of it, I stand by mine. I never owned toshiba before but i am quickly becoming a brand-loyalist. My other considerations were the gateway 505xl (i think) and the sony Z1. I am always impressed by sony but am unwilling to succumb to the way they lord their own technology over you. Once you go sony you are kind of pigeon holed into using their technology (not that their technology is bad, quite the opposite) I wanted to fall in love with fujitsu but I couldn't get into their machines, they had a weird look/feel to them. A toughbook could have been cool too, but I couldn't find any panasonic products to test drive so it was hard to decide. I'm am sure I got the best notebook though, at least for my purpouses and budget. I really do think tablets are the future of PC so if I could talk to myself a month ago I would have told me to look at the Toshiba Portege M2000 also but I doubt I would have went to it without an optical drive installed. Anyway those are my random thoughts on the M2, if you go for it you will not be disappointed

 

hi, im thinking of the TecraM2 PM1.6 with 512mb ram nVidia FX Go5200 64mB graphics. I would like to know if anyone has experience using this model or similar with CAD modelling/rendering/animating tasks.
Love to hear a response soon as im about to buy.
[?]

 

I dont use my tecra m2(which Ive owned for about a month) for cad but I do play a bunch of games on it. My newest game is battlefield vietname which is very graphics intensive and my tecra plays it great. Dont get me wrong I cant max out the graphics but I keep them at normal settings and have no trouble. As for the person who left the post stating the tecra is cheap and has a bad keyboard: WHATEVER!! I dont buy a computer without doing significant research and the toshiba is first class all the way. Two weeks before I bought the tecra I bought a sony vaio v505. This laptop was built ok but the keyboard was mushy and flimbsy, NOT THE CASE ON THE TOSHIBA. In fact I was so pissed of at sonys proprietary technology I took the damn thing back. The tecra has a very solid case, great keyboard, emits little heat(less that any other laptop ive used), and has great graphics capabilities.

 

PC Mag have just put out a review on the Tecra M2-630
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1567424,00.asp?kc=PCRSS02129TX1K0000530

I'm from Australia and Toshiba don't name the Tecra's in this fashion here so it is a bit hard to know exactly what the 630 model is compared to similar specs here.

I also just saw today that Toshiba have release the Tecra M2V. Anyone heard or seen anything about this one?

 

I looked at the M2V on Toshiba's website, and I can't understand the point of it. It has no trackpoint, no dedicated graphics, no upgrade to SXGA, and no upgrade to integrated bluetooth. I put together a custom M2 with the same specs (except the graphics card was at worst still better than the M2V's) as the pre-configured M2V-S310, and it was the same exact price. I tried creating some higher-priced comparisons, and the M2 actually came out cheaper. The website promises great battery life, but according to the Toshiba's own product specs, the M2's times are the same or longer. I don't understand why they made this model--was it just to get rid of the trackpoint, or what?