Toshiba Portégé M800 review

Toshiba seem to have taken a slice of inspiration from Apple with the design of their new Portégé M800, although previous generations of Mac kit have been as strong an influence as the current minimalist models.

The Portégé's compact chassis, covered with subtle grey pinstripes that are only visible up close, is attractive enough except for some misguided faux-chrome flourishes such as the Toshiba logo on the lid and the mouse buttons, which look cheap and plasticky. The white LEDs behind the indicator lights and media buttons that lie above and below the keyboard are a nice idea, but their illumination bleeds into the surround, making them hard to identify.

Think different

Just as the generally pleasant design is marred by a few small points, the generally decent build quality is undermined by the keyboard. Typing on it causes the flimsy supports below to flex, dipping the keys slightly and limiting your typing speed.

On the inside, though, Toshiba has got things very right. A dual core Intel processor running at 2.26GHz and accompanied by a massive 4GB of RAM helped the M800 to breeze through tasks in Windows Vista Home Premium, and although the M800 arrived too late for us to run our usual benchmark tests before going to press, we'd be confident of seeing a good score here. The 320GB hard disk is very spacious for a laptop, with room for all the programs, documents and media that most users are likely to need.

That it's not up to gaming is forgivable for a laptop at this price. But Intel's new GMA 4500MHD graphics chip does a great job of driving the 1280x800 pixel 13 inch screen, which manages bright colour and a clear picture as well as providing enough resolution for comfortable work in most office and creative applications. There's also an HDMI output for a separate monitor or HDTV.

For other add-ons, two USB ports are provided, along with a combined eSATA and USB port to connect either another peripheral or a high speed external hard disk. Tape-based camcorder users should note the absence of a FireWire port.

For the rest of us

If you're in the market for a smallish laptop, the MacBook is the clear winner on style, and has the same size and resolution screen and a slightly faster processor, though only half the hard disk space and RAM as standard. It can run Windows Vista if necessary (though you'll have to buy your own copy) as well as its native and better Mac OS X, and handles everyday tasks effortlessly. But if a standard Windows PC is what you're after, and the extra storage appeals, the Portégé is an affordable and speedy machine.