Stylish tablet packs features into nifty-looking package

By PETER GRIFFIN

If money was no object my laptop of choice would be a high-end Sony Vaio such as the Z1XGP, stacked with a gigabyte of Ram, wi-fi of the fast "g" variety and a speedy rewritable DVD drive.

But next in the dream line-up is pretty much any top-end Toshiba laptop - and the M200 tablet PC would suit just fine.

The machine is Toshiba's second generation of the hybrid tablet - a laptop that allows its screen to be reversed and folded flat for scribbling on in digital ink, or watching movies without a keyboard jutting out.

It's still arguable whether the tablet is relevant at all to the average consumer, but a couple of things weigh in its favour. One is 802.11g wi-fi, a wireless technology with a maximum through-put of 54Mbps (Megabits per second).

For wireless home networkers that means you can record TV signals from the desktop in your office using a TV tuner card, then stream the recorded video to your tablet, which you can carry around the house.

The tablet can also become a type of remote control, allowing you to select songs or access email or Word files from the comfort of the couch.

The other thing is improving screen quality and the evolving software underpinning ebooks and digital magazines. Looking a device that constantly emits light will never be totally pleasant to the eye, but playing with font sizes and backlighting allows reasonably comfortable reading.

In the workplace, being able to scribble pages of notes in digital ink during meetings is pretty useful.

The M200 is much improved on its predecessor. For one thing, Toshiba has got rid of that bulky swivel hinge and the straightforward keyboard layout has hot buttons to trigger features like the wireless connection.

The M200 is powered by a 1.4GHz Pentium M Intel Centrino processor and comes standard with 512MB of Ram. An NVIDIA GeForce card with 32MB of memory is plenty for moderately flashy games and video editing. A 60GB (gigabyte) hard drive provides good storage. A 30cm TFT screen has a crisp SXGA (super extended graphics array) 1400 X 1005 resolution.

The screen is of made of toughened poly-silicon to withstand the scribbling of the stylus.

And a feature known as "dual axis accelerometer" allows to scroll through webpages or flick through the pages of an ebook by tilting the tablet up and down or left to right. You don't even have to touch the screen.

This is a powerful machine and well capable of running standard software packages and multiple programs simultaneously.

Windows XP Tablet PC is bundled with the machine, along with Microsoft's OneNote 2003 - a means of organising notes that can include typed text, scrawled handwriting, web links and pictures.

And connectivity is abundant. There's two USB ports, a VGA port, Ethernet, dial-up and fast infra-red. An SD card - great for shifting songs to mp3 players or extracting photos from your digital camera, is built in. Disappointingly you only get the slower 802.11b wireless variety on the Intel chip, however an upgrade to "g" can be added and there is no built-in Bluetooth.

Rewritable DVD and CD drives are extras. Keeping them external is annoying but needed to keep the tablet light.

If the M200 is going to be your sole machine buying the optional docking station is a good idea. It will automatically charge the battery and position the tablet more naturally. Battery life is a claimed 4.5 hours but as usual, certain applications suck more juice than others and you may end up getting more like 3.5 hours, which is a respectable figure for any laptop.

The M200 has few flaws, but you'll need to decide whether a tablet is suitable and worth paying the premium for. For the information worker, it's a powerful tool but for the consumer it may be of limited use until more applications are available.

Toshiba M200

Pros: Stylish, good screen resolution, uncluttered layout.

Cons: Expensive, no built-in Bluetooth or 802.11g.

Price: $5147 (RRP)

Herald Rating: 7/10