Toshiba Portege 3500

The convertible notebook and Tablet.

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Price: £1999

Manufacturer: Toshiba

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Verdict

Pros:
A well-designed notebook in its own right.
Loads of ports.

Cons:
We're not convinced of the screen hinge's longevity.

Overall:
We have a feeling that most people who buy one of these machines will use it in notebook mode for most of the time, but there's no doubt that the Tablet form factor is useful on occasion. Time will tell whether the convertible Tablet PC concept has true staying power.

David Fearon, Personal Computer World 11 Feb 2003

It's Tablet PCs a go-go at the moment, with major manufacturers rushing to get their new babies out of the door. Toshiba gave us a peek at a pre-production version of its take on the genre.

The Portege 3500 sits in the convertible category of Tablet PCs, which can be used both as a standard notebook and, by swivelling the screen through 180 degrees and folding it back onto the keyboard, as a pen-driven Tablet.

Windows XP Tablet Edition includes the ability to switch the display to portrait mode to allow the unit to be held like a clipboard.

As a notebook, the Portege more than holds its own. There's a 1.3GHz Mobile Pentium III, allied to 256MB of SD-Ram. It weighs just 1.8kg but comes fully loaded with ports. The usual PC Card slot is there, but there's also a Compact Flash Type II port and a Secure Digital slot.

On the wireless front there's an 802.11b adaptor as well as Bluetooth. It lacks Firewire, but makes up for that with two USB2 ports. Wired 10/100 networking, 56K modem and fast infrared complete the package. The keyboard is excellent, sporting full-travel keys with a very solid feel.

Now for the clever part: the screen that swivels to turn the Portege into a Tablet. It's well designed but, frankly, the one on our review model wobbled. Rotating the thing round and back to go from standard notebook form factor to Tablet mode feels clumsy.

The single, central swivelling hinge may have been rigorously tested, but subjectively feels like a weak point.

On top of this, the screen tended not to stay put in its catch when folded back, continually floating out. This was a pre-production model, so the problem with the catch may be fixed, but we're wondering if the notion of the swivelling screen is really practical in the long run.

In Tablet mode the relatively large 12.1in TFT touch-sensitive screen made clicking on small icons easy, and a locking switch prevents you from accidentally turning the machine off when you're cradling it in Tablet mode.

Battery life was good. We used the Portege continually for around two hours and had juice to spare; Toshiba claims three and a half hours.

As a notebook PC, the Portege is a great machine. As a Tablet PC it's also very good, but it remains to be seen whether the price premium is really going to pay for itself through any sort of increased productivity.

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