Toshiba Portege M205: for light business computing tasks, this Tablet PC is a good fit at your desk or on the go.

A Tablet PC provides more mobility than a standard notebook computer, mostly because pen-based tools afford some useful mobile computing perks, such as the ability to jot down notes as you would on a PDA, or make highlighter annotations on a business document. On the Toshiba Portege M205, the pen truly is mightier than the keyboard--but the keyboard is still within reach if you need it. With its convertible design, you can use the Portege just like a standard notebook with a standard keyboard; but, the display also swivels and folds down to become a tablet so you can use the pen to track your schedule, control the operating system, or hand-write notes that automatically convert to text.

The Portege is light, fast, and packed with multi-media features. The only downside is the system isn't as expandable as a notebook because many PC cards and other hardware devices (including some printers) don't include drivers that support the Tablet PC operating system. There's also the consideration that you could buy two standard notebook computers for the cost of the Portege M205.

How much these issues matter depends on how mobile you want to get. Many Tablet PCs support speech recognition; but, on the Portege M205, you can use the dictation mode to create a business document or e-mail. If you use the voice command mode, you can control just about any program by saying a few words, such as "switch to" to move between applications.

I was initially skeptical of the voice command and dictation features. I'm not one to wear a headset all day long, but the speech recognition features are so well integrated and easy to use that 1 found myself relying on them during the course of my evaluation.

Mobile intelligence

The Portege M205 supports 802.11 g and includes a memory card slot and two USB slots. There's a microphone and headphone jack conveniently located on the bottom of the tablet and one PC card slot. (Remember, any card you use must include a Tablet PC driver.) There's also modem and Ethernet port along one edge. Overall, the system is quite portable. You can switch the tablet into portrait or landscape mode by pressing one button; although, I had some trouble with this feature. There were times when I pressed the button and nothing happened. Sometimes, the Portege M205 would switch orientation when I rotated the LCD screen or docked the unit, even though I wanted to keep using the previous orientation.

Performance on this 1.5GHz Centrino-based system was predictably slow. Tablets don't work well for photo editing or complex spreadsheet calculations. In fact, with just a 32MB graphics adapter, you might wonder if the Portege M205 is tip to any sort of visual processing task. Fortunately, word processing and other business-related functions (such as using Outlook e-mail) don't require a high-performance machine. The point of the Tablet PC is to get much more mobile and use a computer in a variety of situations.

I like the docking station that comes with the Portege M205. The base lets you hook up a keyboard and mouse, which makes M205 seem like a desktop system. Alter I snapped the tablet into place and rotated the screen into landscape or portrait mode, I could do just about any standard notebook task. My only complaint is that in the portrait position, the M205 looked slightly skewed because the locking mechanism is a bit loose.

Business chores

I'm not a big fan of Microsoft Works, a bare-bones version of Microsoft Office. It might seem like a minor complaint, but when you're used to being able to do little things like obtain a word count on a paragraph, check stock quotes in a reference window, or even rely on a robust grammar checker, Works just comes up short. Toshiba doesn't include many other important applications. However, my evaluation system did include Microsoft OneNote, a powerful organizer that lets you jot down notes, and track your schedule, contacts, and other information. Even though Tablet PCs have been on the market for two years, there are still few applications available for the operating system. One quick check at Download.com and I found that there are a few pen-based games and various utilities, but not many full-blown applications.

UpShot

Overall, the Portege M205 is one of the best designed Tablet PCs I've used. It's light and portable enough to use anywhere at any time, yet you can dock it so it functions just like a desktop computer when you need to type long documents. You can fold the display tip and tap quickly on the keyboard, or use dictation and voice commands. Although it comes tip short on the software side, design-wise, the Portege M205 is a best-of-breed example of how to make a Tablet PC work in a mobile computing environment.

Toshiba

http://www.Toshiba.com

Portege M205

US$2,499

DIMENSIONS: 11.6" WIDE, 9.8" deep, 1.5" tall; 4.4lbs

DISPLAY: 12.1"; 1400X1050 resolution

OPERATING SYSTEM: Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

PROCESSOR: Intel Pentium M 1.5GHz

MEMORY: 512MB RAM

STORAGE: 40GB

BATTERY LIFE: Up to 4.5 hours

ADVISOR[R] EVAL[TM]

BUSINESS BENEFITS

This is a Tablet PC with a user-friendly desing--but where's the software?

(+) Speech commands that actually work

(+) Swivel design for tablet or laptop modes

(-) Limited software options

(-) Expensive

John Brandon is a freelance writer from Buffalo, Minnesota. Before starting his writing career, he worked as an IT manager with a large consumer electronics retailer. His areas of expertise include handheld computers, notebooks, smartphones, wireless technology, displays, and any other computer-oriented device. [e-mail].