Congratulations on the new M4. I think it's a great product.
The Hard drive protection alert has a little system tray icon so you can open the utility and has different sensitivity levels. I set mine down one notch instead of turning it off.
Enjoy!
OK so I just (like 5 minutes ago) took delivery
OK so I just (like 5 minutes ago) took delivery of a new M4, and booted it up. Here are some of my very first first impressions of the thing....
1. OK, it's heavy. I was warned, I was expecting it, but it still is a little bit of a surprise to hold the thing! Not a complaint, just an impression - it really is heavy!
2. Initial impression of "fit and finish" is good.
3. Screen looks <s>good</s> perfect, I don't see any dead/stuck pixels yet (I'm installing Photoshop right now to run some tests for this).
4. The CD drive/fan is loud and vibrates quite a bit. Not a big deal, but there's a perceptible "buzz" from the CD drive when it's spinning.
5. Sheesh, too many stickers. Six logo/marketing stickers. And I may be extremely anal about such things, but they're not even put on straight - if I was going to paste a bunch of unwanted marketing crap on a laptop I was selling, I'd at least make sure the ugly stickers were applied straight. Ptoey. Those will have to come off soon.
6. As expected, there's a boatload of bloatware on this thing. Ugh, when will manufacturers learn we don't want their spam? Looks like a bit of a project to de-gunk it.
7.The pen does indeed seem cheesey. Wacom Cintiq pen, here I come.
8. The hard drive vibration warning dialog is an incredible annoyance. It's a Tablet PC, so you're going to move it, but so far (after about 2 minutes of futzing with it) the vibration alert pops up every 2 seconds, even if I hold it v-e-r-y still. Good thing you can disable the alert dialog - but I wonder how the performance might be affected if the HD is parking itself every 1/2 second. I'll find out shortly I guess.
9. I wouldn't mind a larger, more idiot-proof Enter key. I'm used to keyboard layouts with a large, nearly-impossible-to-miss Enter key; the Enter key on the M4 is OK, but it's smaller than the Shift key, and since it's not along the right edge (there's a stack of Home/PgUp/PgDn/End keys running along the right edge), finding it takes a little more effort than I'm used to. The tab key could also be a bit bigger for my fat fingers.
10. Fan noise doesn't seem excessive - then again, I haven't pushed it yet. But sitting here running a small Photoshop document it was quiet enough.
After running through a full-screen Photoshop document with black, white, red, green and blue backgrounds, I see no stuck or dead pixels - that's good.
OK, that's enough for now. I'm going to poke it some more and later tonight I will report back on some of my next first impressions.
PS: And for those who doubt its continued existence, yes, this M4 came with the GeForce 6600/128 mb video option (which I ordered through my employer's internal Toshiba employee purchase website); this one also has the 2.13 GHz processor, and 1 gig of RAM right now; I'll upgrade to 2 gigs once my credit card recovers from the initial shock.
Congratulations on the new M4. I think it's a great product.
The Hard drive protection alert has a little system tray icon so you can open the utility and has different sensitivity levels. I set mine down one notch instead of turning it off.
Enjoy!
Thanks for that tip. I knocked the sensitivity down one notch, and it seems better.quote:The Hard drive protection alert has a little system tray icon so you can open the utility and has different sensitivity levels. I set mine down one notch instead of turning it off.
BTW (anybody) - I see numerous references to a "recovery disk" in other posts. I see no recovery DVDs or CDs amongst the stuff that came with my M4 - should I?(The only disk that came with mine is a "WinDVD Creator 2 Platinum" CD). Or am I expected to create a recovery disk myself?
I started wading in to the junkware and removed a couple of obvious throwaway items (some AOL junk, and one or two other items that I'm sure I'll never want/need). But I stopped myself figuring I would let things stand the way they were for a few days, and make sure I had bootable/recovery disk(s) before I started hacking away.
What are some of the first things a new M4 user should do?
Thanks.
First thing: buy blank CDs or DVDs and create your recovery disks.
Start->Programs->Toshiba->Utilities->Toshiba Assist->Protect & Fix
"Preinstalled Drivers Depository"
"Create Drivers And Tools CD-ROM"
Since you didn't get a recovery CD, there SHOULD be an option to create that as well ( I got the recovery disc, but then, mine is bought in the UK )
The M4 doesn't come with a recovery disk. If you use the "recovery disk creation" tool to create one, it merely copies data from the hidden partition of your HD to this recovery disk. I didn't even bother creating one, knowing I can just do the exact same recovery procedure by holding '0' when powering on the machine.
Another folder worth backing up is the (C:\TOSAPINS folder. This folder corresponds to the Toshiba Application Installation icon you see on your desktop. Some of the drivers/ applications in this folder cannot be downloaded from the Toshiba website.
How will you use the hidden partition if the drive itself has to be replaced? Seems like having an actual CD based bootable recovery disk is a good thing....quote:Originally posted by seemebreakthis
The M4 doesn't come with a recovery disk. If you use the "recovery disk creation" tool to create one, it merely copies data from the hidden partition of your HD to this recovery disk. I didn't even bother creating one, knowing I can just do the exact same recovery procedure by holding '0' when powering on the machine.....
Well, I made recovery disks last night, so I guess I can wade in and start de-gunking all the junk that it came with.
BTW, another minor issue: the CD/DVD drive seems a little too prone to pop open. I tossed in a DVD, folded it down into tablet mode, and carried the thing to the living room to show my spouse our cool new "portable flat screen TV". She was appropriately impressed and admitted it was cool to be able to watch a movie in your lap. As I was cradling the hefty 6-lb tablet (which was playing the movie), my fingers inadvertently brushed up against the DVD drive's "eject" button and - poof - movie stopped, and out popped the DVD. It would be nice if there were some sort of locking mechanism one could engage to keep the drive from inadvertently opening up when slightly jostled.
i agree... maybe there's a way to disable the eject button via software.
Kalakala,
Your problem with the DVD drive is well documented, and, as far as I know, still not fixed.
Eric Mack wrote about it earlier this year when he first received his M4, and has put out a call to tablet programmers for a fix, a call that I don't remember seeing answered: http://www.ericmackonline.com/ica/bl...trict=n&sort=D
My answer is to swap out the DVD drive with the extra battery when I'm going mobile. My CD/DVD usage is at the work station 99.9999999% of the time, so this has never been a problem for me.
wouldn't help during the actual play of a DVD, but for all other times... I posted this a while ago, but nobody else really seemed to be able to do any thing - or at least they didn't comment
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