Users Voice Their Opinions About the Toshiba Tecra M7

The topic of today's "User Opinions" article is the Toshiba M7. The M7 has moved its way to number four on our most popular Tablet PC list. Since its release many users have commented on the pros and cons of this Tablet and we would like to share them with you. The opinions are chosen based on the value of the information (in our opinion) to our readers. We don't necessarily pick only the "positive" opinions or only the "negative" opinions. We pick the opinions that we think will be most helpful to you as you shop for and compare Tablets.

The M7 comes standard with an Intel Core Duo Processor, a 14.1" widescreen WXGA display, integrated graphics, a fingerprint reader for security and Windows XP. If you need more power or more memory the Toshiba M7 can be customized to your order specifications. The design of the Tablet makes it easy to use in Tablet or notebook mode, which comes in handy.

Excellent Tablet PC for college students.

Pros: Let's see, to start the Core Duo 1.83GHz, 100GB HD, 1GB MEM sure can replace my desktop. I've chosen this Tablet PC after researching most of the Tablets on the market. I was attracted to Toshiba Tablets because of their clean and sharp looking design and I choose the Tecra M7 because of its resolution. I would strongly recommend this Tablet PC for students who are looking forward to getting a laptop for their first year in college. It will make you more organized and it helps you keep track of your courses. Thanks to OneNote and Agilix GoBinder Lite. It took me several days to get used to using the pen, but after that everything was easy to navigate. The screen is nice and big, the fingerprint security rocks and it is pretty quiet. Overall, I am experiencing something that a normal laptop won't give me and I am glad I got this Tablet PC.

Cons: The battery life is pretty poor. Who said this lasts 4.1 hours? From my experience more like 2.5-3 hours, but I use the adapter so it's really not a problem. If you are the same way, keep your adapter somewhere handy. One thing that I hated about the M7 was that it comes with too many junk softwares. Honestly, I am pretty good at managing computer software, but I even got into a situation where I didn't know which software to turn off from configuration or even get rid of. So I recommend you go through the softwares once, just so you don't have to uninstall them. Some of them are actually pretty useful.

Support and customer support is the worst out there.

Pros: The tablet has a nice design overall.

Cons: Toshiba's service and support has got to be the worst in the industry. If you have a computer store near you or some place that works on Toshibas you can buy one because someone can probably help you. If you are relying on Toshiba's phone support or customer service don’t waste your money. This is just one of the many issues I have been having with Toshiba. I bought the extended warranty through them (ToshibaDirect) and they messed up the order, after a week of dealing with rude customer support personal I finally got a manager. When a manager finally did call me back he was very helpful and helped me with my problem, sort of. I got an email a week later showing that I now had the right warranty except it was not on my Tablet!!! I have been calling everyday, two to three times a day for over a week to try and get this fixed. No one will call or email me back to give me the status. The customer support is horrible, but their Tech support needs a lot of help too. I called to ask a question about shared memory and no one could answer my question. The sad part turned out to be I had to explain to their Tech support the difference between video shared and dedicated memory.

Nice first PC

Pros: I absolutely love how the pen is used to interact with the computer. Believe it or not, I don't have any complaints about the Microsoft software shipped with the computer. I am very impressed with the "handwriting to text", it gets about 1 out of 100 words wrong when reading my bad handwriting. The screen is very nice and the hand glides across smoothly as you write on it. In the house, the screen is easy to see.

Cons: The latch on the computer, when in Tablet mode doesn't seem to be tight. I often find that the top unlatches too easily either by itself or because the button is too accessible. The one item I'm most displeased about is the trackpad and trackpad buttons. (This is probably a personal preference since I use Macintosh portables all day long.) The buttons are set off about one quarter of an inch from the trackpad. I'm use to the button butting up against the trackpad. It gets frustrating to push the button median and not get a response from the computer. My issue with the M7 trackpad is that small movements are not noticed when I move my finger across the pad. There was also to much crappy software installed on the computer and it ran slow out of the box.

Finally a proper graphics card in a Tablet PC.

Pros: 128 MB dedicated nVidia graphics means that this tablet PC stands out as both a mobile graphics solution and a desktop replacement. The Core Duo future proves this somewhat and I don't think you could find a better optical drive. The screen size is great, although you wouldn't want it any larger. Speaker sound bounces nicely off the screen in laptop mode and still manages to squeeze out a bit of volume in Tablet mode. Battery life is good as long as you have the nifty slice battery attached, a bit average otherwise. If you've got the money then I think buying this baby is a no brainier.

Cons: Okay, so the screen can be a bit difficult to view under particular conditions, but the screen brightness can be adjusted (with the expected effect on battery life). I personally don't have a problem with the screen and I use it with a standard monitor when in "desktop replacement" mode. True gaming performance can only be achieved with the power plugged in, it seems impossible to force it to run as hard on batteries. Toshiba does load up the taskbar with small applications, some of which are strange/useless. Fortunately they're easy to configure/remove.

Looks great on paper, but has a host of problems.

Pros: It has everything I thought I wanted in a Tablet PC on paper. Solid CPU, high resolution screen, dedicated GPU, Wacom pen support. Toshiba Direct did not charge me a restocking fee for returning it (for which I am very thankful).

Cons: Terrible screen viewing angle and grainy. The screen coating makes using it in normal laptop mode unpleasant and agonizing in Tablet mode. It's buried in stickers on the palm rest and bloatware (piles and piles of outdated junk and demo programs) once you boot it up. Tech support was a major hassle of contradictory answers with respect to a problem accessing the DIMM slots as well.