The Toshiba Portege M400 tablet is one cool computer and I really enjoy using it. It’s reasonably light and I really like the small form factor.

However, (and there is always a but) there are a couple of fairly serious issues that affect my enjoyment of the computer.

1. The fan runs almost continuously. It’s not usually loud (except if you are in a silent room) but it is always there and something that I am always aware of. I use Notebook Hardware Control to keep an eye on the temperature and most of the time the CPU hovers around the 33-37 degrees celcius. That’s cooler than I am.
2. I get random pieces of dust and fluff inside the screen. Sounds crazy? This was a major issue with the Portege M200 and you would consider that it would be fixed three years after the M200 was released. I got a piece of dust inside the layers of the screen just ten days after getting my tablet. That machine was replaced under warranty. Since then I have had a stray hair appear (it disappeared after a few weeks) and tonight there was a piece of dust inside the screen layers. It too disappeared after I moved the tablet from my knee to the table in front of me. It annoys me that this happens. I don’t like to have a non-pristine screen.
3. I also have a problem with random blue screening. It’s happened probably five times over the last month. Not often but still enough to be a bit of a concern. The message that I get is the old “IRQ less or not equal to error“. In my experience this is an issue with a piece of hardware. With a notebook you don’t usually install extra hardware cards so it must be a problem with a built in component or perhaps with the memory chips. The event logs aren’t any help in tracking down the error so I’ll have to have a think.

Thankfully that’s all bad stuff (I think). Now the good stuff.

The pen makes drawing and digital image editting really fun. ArtRage is absolutely fantanstic anyway; the pen puts it into the sublime category. It’s easy to edit photos or digital images in Paintshop Pro or even humble old MS Paint. Unfortunately even amazing tools aren’t going to turn me into an artist.

I have become evry comfortable with the small keyboard (except for the fact that it has a single Ctrl key – I have mapped the Insert key to Ctrl so that when I’m using the tablet in keyboard mode I can use the Firefox shortcut Ctrl +/- to enlarge or reduce the text size). Using the pen is great. The handwriting recognition is excellent; after several years of using a Pocket PC it’s a real treat to have my scrawl recognised.

I’m using all my usual programmes but I have found a couple of exciting new additions.

I am seriously in love with OneNote 12. Although its a beta programme it rocks. I’m a great collector of information, ideas and scraps of stuff from all over the place. OneNote is a terrific place to store it all and be able to sort and sift later. I have set up note flags that correspond with my Outlook categories so that I can think through my own productivity system.

Speaking of Outlook (and I’m holding onto Office 2003 as this is my working machine), the tablet community introduced me to the best ever addon: Tablet Enhancements for Outlook (TEO) version 3. This little gem allows you to ink in contacts, tasks and appointments. The latest version also has a fabulous integration with Windows Journal. there is also a research feature which takes you straight to the Wikipedia. Everyone knows about how much I love the Wikipedia. You can take audio notes and the whole fandango synchronises with the Pocket PC. Which only makes Pocket Informant even more useful.

I also love the snipping tool (available through the MS Experience Pack and the Enhancement Pack) and the Send to OneNote tool (available in the Education Pack and and the Enhancement Pack). The Websearch Power Tool is great when I am surfing in tablet mode.

I’m playing with the screen real estate a little. I’ve (possibly temporarily) dumped the Quick Launch Bar for RocketBar. I’ve got it on the right hand side of my screen and on auto-hide. Very useful and it looks very sexy.

What else? There’s a lot more but in the interests of actually retaining some readers I’d better finish this missive now!

Related posts:

1. Tablet @ Work – Day 1
2. Tablet @ Work – One Week In!
3. Taking My Tablet