Well, I've been lurking long enough (probably ov

[umbrage]

Well, I've been lurking long enough (probably over a year now); time to join the club. You guys have been an indispensable resource of unbiased advice and intelligent insight.

I've had my M200 for about a month now, and it's working fantastically. I am curious, however, if some of the long-time owners could tell me how well the machine's moving parts hold up.

To wit: my screen, in tablet mode, doesn't quite fit flush / rest evenly on the rubber contact points. Visually, it's probably not even a millimeter of play, but it's enough so that when I grip it on the latch side, or write near it, I feel and hear it rocking. I'm not even sure if it's the screen, the chassis, or the contacts.

If go to secondary portrait, I can grip it right on the hinge, but then I worry because I feel like I might break one of the docking bay bus port doors underneath. It seems like there's no relief for the mildly neurotic M200 owner :-)

I've never read any posts here complaining about mechanical problems (besides the occasional dust in the digitizer), so I figure I have nothing to worry about, but how have other people's M200s been holding up over the long haul?

[wmadan]

Umbrage,

Welcome to the M200!

I've had mine since Christmas, which makes me one of the old timers.

My machine has been fine overall. Your comment about the screen not being flush has been observed and is the case with mine as well.

How has my machine held up? Well, the hard drive crashed. It wasn't good, but I had it fixed same day under warranty repair. Other than this, I have lost one of my rubber feet from the bottom of the base unit and I have a very small and virtually unnoticeable nick in the screen in the lower right hand corner (near the clock in laptop mode). I also have a scratch on the outside silver casing, which was my bad when I turned the unit over to upgrade my memory.

Other than that (and the HDD crash notwithstanding), I plan to use this thing till it drops and believe it will last.

[WNewquay]

Umbrage,

Like you, I haven't had my M200 for very long.

I think that I noticed a little bit of "play" when in Tablet Mode when I first got the machine.

It is as if the screen latch is just the tiniest bit "taller" than the rubber baby buggy bumpers on the wrist rest.

For some reason this seemed fine. That is, it made more sense for there to be a little "wobble" in this way, rather than a constant pressure in the other direction (which would be the case if the rubber bumpers were too tall).

That raises the question: Why not make it perfect to begin with? I can't imagine what it would take to get it to be "perfect" and stay that way over time.

[mewpokemon]

Yes, yes... My screen does not completely rest on the rubber feet when in tablet mode. I guess this is because the screen is slightly curved? It seems to rock... I'm thinking about getting some other stick-on rubber feet to put on the machine.

Also, it seems that there is a progressive accumulation of "debris" (very small particles and amount - 3 or 4 particles) under the screen. When I first got the machine, I checked and double checked it for "non-conformant" pixels and dust and it was perfect. Now... Not so perfect :(

I don't know how but I have managed to put a small scratch on the screen (inner-top of the lower left quadrant when in primary portrait) and damaged some kind of protective surface over the pixels by accidentally "tapping" too hard.

You should rememeber that making these screens is apparently quite difficult and the ultimate reason for the expense. I read that only a percentage of them are actually accepted at the end of the manufacturing process. This is also part of the reason why they are relatively small.


Daniel.

[umbrage]

quote:Originally posted by WNewquay


It is as if the screen latch is just the tiniest bit "taller" than the rubber baby buggy bumpers on the wrist rest.

I will from now, until the end of time, refer to them as rubber baby buggy bumpers. Fantastic.

And honestly it's enough to have two people say they have the same situation to make me feel better about things. If the situation were, say, symptomatic of hinge problems, I had been hoping to find out.

But I have thought about what it would take to properly hold the screen flush on all contact points, and I think Toshiba does as good a job as possible; the tablet is probably just too large to not bend slightly under its own weight when held by any one edge. The only way to fix that might be a titanium / carbon-fiber tablet.

Mmmmmmmmm.

[Wcrocker]

WN coins another one it seems.I think my M200 dates back to being one of the oldest here. My screen and the rubber baby buggy bumpers seem to meet just fine. I've said from the beginning that I am impressed with how solid this machine feels. I still maintain that.

[The Chief Nerd]

I have lost 2 of my "rubber contact points" next to the keyboard from taking my M200 in and out of the 3-In-1 and TBL800 cases. Does anyone know where to get more of these?

Before you say to call Toshiba, I did that already and was lied to on 3 different occassions. Twice I was told that they would mail me a dozen of them, and one I was told someone would ring me back later that day to tell me where I could obtain them.

[machdoc]

For me, The screen does not contact the RBBB's when in portrait mode--never noticed it before--the give of the screen when writing has always seemed natural---just adding my experience to the thread..

[TreacherousDog]

Speaking of Carbon Fiber tablet PC's. JLT has a 'go anywhere' rugged tablet pc coming soon called the Gforce 850. More info here:

http://www.jltmobilecomputers.com/gforce850.htm

[eT]

quote:Originally posted by TreacherousDog

Speaking of Carbon Fiber tablet PC's. JLT has a 'go anywhere' rugged tablet pc coming soon called the Gforce 850. More info here:

http://www.jltmobilecomputers.com/gforce850.htm

touchscreen (800*600) = therfore NO tablet pc. :(