That won't have made much difference to the battery test, and here the M10 fared poorly when we ran PCMark05 over and over again until the laptop's 5100mAh power pack gave out. The screen was kept on maximum brightness throughout and the Wi-Fi was on and connected to our access point. The M10 ran for just 1h 21m.
Battery Life Results
Battery life in minutes
Longer bars are better
To be fair, it's a tough test and real-world usage is likely to see the battery drain far less rapidly. We'd expect the M10 to run for three hours or so under a more realistic workload. Given the size of this machine, we'd say it's not the sort of box likely to be used away from the mains for too long in any case.
Toshiba's M10 range stretches to eight models, running from £631 (£549 exc. VAT) to £1034 (£899 exc VAT). A couple of models have on-board HSDPA 3G modems - the review unit didn't - but it's primarily CPU speed, and memory and hard drive capacity that change as you go up the line.
Track down networks with Toshiba's Radar utility
The pricing is neither aggressive nor off the map, and while the M10 delivered a decent enough performance and feature set, we think we'd rather spend the £900-odd that the M10-10I costs on a business laptop with equally up-to-date internals but a rather more modern look. And better battery life.
Verdict
We can't fault the Tecra M10's performance, but with a relatively feeble battery pack and a look that's more Nineties than Noughties, this notebook failed to excite. Just the sort of thing to give to staffers who might otherwise get ideas above their workstation. ®
More Notebook Reviews...
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Toshiba Tecra M10 14in notebook
COMMENTS
Bleah
Sounds pretty much exactly like the *extremely average* M5 I have at present, except with somewhat updated componentry.
What gets me is that for its feature set (average), it weighs a ton, and the battery life is crap. And even with the relatively heavy chassis, the build quality isn't that great. I keep having to replace or tighten the screws underneath, and it's a bloody creaky thing (not as bad as some, but given the weight, you'd expect better). I like the keyboard, but that's about it.
@ AC 11.07
What the hell do you do to the things?!
I've bought approx 60 Tecras of various sizes and model numbers over the last two years and I can't complain about the build quality or reliability at all. Had to RMA two or three for things like a cracked screen, but that's understandable when the user manages to shut their laptop bag in a revolving door/leave it on the roof of their car and drive off etc, don't you love salesmen eh?. Oh and I had a hard drive go bad on another one which was sorted very quickly, can't complain about a mechanical defect on the part of the HDD manufacturer really.
Contrast this to the HPs that the last incumbent of my job went for - myriad problems with screens going fuzzy, fans failing, trackpad buttons and keyboards becoming unusable, hinges going, motherboards dying, network cards 'burning out' (wtf? This is what HP told me)... I know which I'd rather go for.
And for all the people that are going to jump down my throat, we replace laptops on a 2 year cycle so the HPs were of roughly the same age as the Toshibas, it's not that we'd had them for twice as long. They were comparably priced business oriented laptops.
I'd usually hesitate to use anecdotal evidence in support of my claims that x brand is better than y brand, but I've been responsible for supporting 80 odd laptops (only a few of those sodding HPs to get rid of now) so I have a pretty clear idea of which brand caused me more grief.
I guess in your case AC, you must be one of these people that seems to be very heavy on whatever pieces of technology they get given - such users can never explain why they get through twice as many laptops, Bluetooth headsets, mobile phones etc as everyone else, but they must be doing something to the bloody things!
So Many Uses
I have an XPS Gen 1 that looks a lot like that and it's still around after 8 years of my misuse. It's also a step, shield, pry bar, heater, and head rest.
Toshiba fab sucks
I've had 3 Toshs (two M3s and an M9)
Awful build quality and substandard materials....
The trackpad wore through the decorative surface in 4 months use on all 3 - the first m9 had 3 replacement mobos and the battery life sucks despite claims to the contrary.
Only reason I have them is the company I work for insists on these models. Pah!
The M9 now sits idle because it's too flakey to use and I really can't be bothered going through the pain of having the engineers attempt to fix them. On the odd occasion the M9 actually decides to start up, the heat that thing pushes out can be frightening - especially if you happen put your hands over the fan outlet when lifting it.
It's perfect!
That's it. I want one. No scratch that. I REALLY want one. And so will just about every other person in my division! This machine is just about my dream machine! I have had a gander at the specks and this "I" model is it.
I for one really appreciate the style and form that it has. Just thinking about the labs I visit and all those serial ports, this is a serious answer to all those people who don't pull "9 to 5 in an office" and rarely know more than a couple of hours before hand what they will be facing in the working day/week ahead!
