Toshiba Satellite® R25-S3503 14.1" Tablet - PSR20U-00T009
- Networking Type: Bluetooth Integrated 10/100 Network Card Integrated Wireless LAN
- HDD Size: 100 GB
- Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP
- Processor: Core Duo 1.6 GHz
- Weight: 5.95 lb.
- Installed Memory: 1 GB (DDR2 SDRAM)
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No MacBook, but I can draw on it goddammit!
Pros
YOU CAN DRAW ON IT! Fingerprint reader. Tallscreen web surfing.
Cons
Screen scratches easily, bloatware, no Windows disc, misconfigured settings, no iTunes support, crappy handwriting recognition
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Not too shabby for what it is, but it's no gem. If you want something to draw on and don't mind an ugly computer, it may be your best option.
So I've had my r25 Tablet for about 2 months now. I'm a Mac guy, but I really needed something mobile that I could draw on, so I thought I'd try this out. It mirrors the MacBook almost perfectly (a bit bigger hard drive, more RAM, but same architecture). In fact, I believe that it supports EFI booting (though I haven't found any way to test that). Anyway, if you want a tablet Mac, this may be your best bet (though Apple doesn't yet sell a Mac upgrade for Intel machines).
As long as I'm comparing the two, the body of this machine is the thickness of a MacBook Pro. The tablet part adds about 3/4 inch thickness. So most MacBook fitted bags will carry this just fine (I use a MacCase sling and love it).
GRIPES
The computer itself feels a bit sluggish, esp. considering the Core Duo processor with 1GB of RAM. First new computer I've ever seen that doesn't have that New Car Smell spiffiness. Out of the box it came running about 90 processes. Toshiba refused to send me a Windows CD, so I got a hold of a Windows all-in-one DVD via warez and made my own Tablet PC 2005 install CD (using my legally licensed copy of Windows Tablet 2k5). That knocked out most of the bullsh-t, but then I had to reinstall a bunch of the hardware support (fingerprint scanner, touchpad driver (for middleclick support), power management, etc.). With Firefox, Sketchbook, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, and Yahoo! music player open right now I'm running 66 processes.
The screen has an anti-glare coating on it, which looks ugly as hell in the store (it makes the LCD grainy) but is probably a good idea for use in public. To be honest, I haven't done much drawing-in-the-park to test it. I've also noticed that it has been scratching pretty badly lately. I have little rainbow strokes on the screen that won't go away where the anti-glare has scratched off. This removes the graininess, but the scratches are so fine that they just look like rainbows. You can only notice it in certain lighting, but it's still annoying as hell. One solution I have found, but not yet tested, is to peel the anti-glare layer off the LCD and find a better screen protector, as described at http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15427. I very well may be trying this soon, but at $60 for an aftermarket screen coating, I'm not gonna mess with it just yet.
The tablet functionality is the only real selling point of this. Admittedly, it is slick to be able to draw right on the screen. The screen guts aren't shielded very well though, so you get distortion near the screen edges. This makes it nearly impossible to draw a straight line. In fact, occasionally the cursor will oscillate within half an inch of the bounds. Big annoyance! Also, the pen is spring-loaded in the computer. This means that it is a lot harder to get it to erase than with an external tablet. You get used to it eventually, but you have to press a lot harder to get an eraser stroke to register than you do with, say, a Graphire.
Those are my biggest gripes. Another frustration is that Toshiba has some kind of favorance of Microsoft. The play/pause etc buttons by the keyboard work only in Media Player. When I installed iTunes 7 they started working, but then I removed Toshiba Config and RemoteX (a utility I had already tried to correct this problem) and now they are broken again. I haven't gotten back around to test RemoteX and see if that will indeed fix it. Also, there is no support arm for the screen. I find that in cafe-type settings its quite nice to use the screen at about a 70 degree angle, much like an easel. It would be nice to be able to put some sort of support between the keyboard and screen lid so I wouldn't have to worry so much about supporting it with my left hand in this configuration. Also, I have some problems getting the screen to come out of sleep mode. Closing the lid puts it in Hibernate, and unhibernating wakes it up, so I rarely lose data over it, but it does waste time.
Final notes: There are some misconfigurations on this machine. For example, the screen rotation button doesn't work. I have developed a workaround, which you can read more about at http://www.theillustratedlife.com/index.php?s=tablet+pc.
PLUSES
I don't have to tell you how cool it is to be able to draw on the screen, but there are a few pleasant surprises I'd like to share.
The first is the fingerprint reader. I've heard of people buying these which I always thought was a joke. Who exactly are you afraid is looking at your vacation photos? Well, on a larf I set mine up, and I love it! It has become my replacement for passwords both at logon and in FireFox. It is also my application launcher, so with my third finger I can open Sketchbook, with my middle one Flash, etc.. It also creates a virtual Z: drive called My Safe, where you can store sensitive data. It does get dirty or just picky occasionally, so it can sometimes take a half a dozen swipes to get it to register. Also, it doesn't upgrade well with FireFox, so you have to disable/reenable the Password Bank after a FireFox update to get it working again.
Another fun surprise is Portrait mode. As an animator, I didn't expect to be doing much tallscreen drawing. That format is so esoteric that it would be hard to find an audience that could easily display your work. What I have found it nice for is web browsing. The web is still written for people will 800 pixel displays, so there is a lot of wasted space for people with decent eyesight and a computer bought in the last 5 years. In portrait mode, your screen is 990 pixels wide and 1440 tall. That means you can read more of a standard page with minimal scrolling. If you do need to scroll, there's a Grab-N-Drag extension that gives you a floating hand cursor. You can grab any negative space and literally drag the page to accommodate you. Quite slick! Windows XP has terrible handwriting recognition (especially has problems with 6s and As and you can't train it), so if you need to do a lot of typing it's not the fastest way to surf, but it is more than comfortable for browsing. Another extension to look at is easyGestures. It's nice with a mouse but indispensable with a pen. Take a look!
Hopefully I've covered a lot of the bases for someone wondering what this computer is like day-to-day. I haven't tested it, but I think I get about 2-3 hours battery. It has an SD card slot so it's easy to grab digital photos from your camera. If you smack the middle of the touchpad buttons it will middle click, which is a nice little secret.
Overall, I'm reasonably happy with it. There are a lot of nitpicks, but I can draw on my $1300 notebook. Can you?
As long as I'm comparing the two, the body of this machine is the thickness of a MacBook Pro. The tablet part adds about 3/4 inch thickness. So most MacBook fitted bags will carry this just fine (I use a MacCase sling and love it).
GRIPES
The computer itself feels a bit sluggish, esp. considering the Core Duo processor with 1GB of RAM. First new computer I've ever seen that doesn't have that New Car Smell spiffiness. Out of the box it came running about 90 processes. Toshiba refused to send me a Windows CD, so I got a hold of a Windows all-in-one DVD via warez and made my own Tablet PC 2005 install CD (using my legally licensed copy of Windows Tablet 2k5). That knocked out most of the bullsh-t, but then I had to reinstall a bunch of the hardware support (fingerprint scanner, touchpad driver (for middleclick support), power management, etc.). With Firefox, Sketchbook, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, and Yahoo! music player open right now I'm running 66 processes.
The screen has an anti-glare coating on it, which looks ugly as hell in the store (it makes the LCD grainy) but is probably a good idea for use in public. To be honest, I haven't done much drawing-in-the-park to test it. I've also noticed that it has been scratching pretty badly lately. I have little rainbow strokes on the screen that won't go away where the anti-glare has scratched off. This removes the graininess, but the scratches are so fine that they just look like rainbows. You can only notice it in certain lighting, but it's still annoying as hell. One solution I have found, but not yet tested, is to peel the anti-glare layer off the LCD and find a better screen protector, as described at http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15427. I very well may be trying this soon, but at $60 for an aftermarket screen coating, I'm not gonna mess with it just yet.
The tablet functionality is the only real selling point of this. Admittedly, it is slick to be able to draw right on the screen. The screen guts aren't shielded very well though, so you get distortion near the screen edges. This makes it nearly impossible to draw a straight line. In fact, occasionally the cursor will oscillate within half an inch of the bounds. Big annoyance! Also, the pen is spring-loaded in the computer. This means that it is a lot harder to get it to erase than with an external tablet. You get used to it eventually, but you have to press a lot harder to get an eraser stroke to register than you do with, say, a Graphire.
Those are my biggest gripes. Another frustration is that Toshiba has some kind of favorance of Microsoft. The play/pause etc buttons by the keyboard work only in Media Player. When I installed iTunes 7 they started working, but then I removed Toshiba Config and RemoteX (a utility I had already tried to correct this problem) and now they are broken again. I haven't gotten back around to test RemoteX and see if that will indeed fix it. Also, there is no support arm for the screen. I find that in cafe-type settings its quite nice to use the screen at about a 70 degree angle, much like an easel. It would be nice to be able to put some sort of support between the keyboard and screen lid so I wouldn't have to worry so much about supporting it with my left hand in this configuration. Also, I have some problems getting the screen to come out of sleep mode. Closing the lid puts it in Hibernate, and unhibernating wakes it up, so I rarely lose data over it, but it does waste time.
Final notes: There are some misconfigurations on this machine. For example, the screen rotation button doesn't work. I have developed a workaround, which you can read more about at http://www.theillustratedlife.com/index.php?s=tablet+pc.
PLUSES
I don't have to tell you how cool it is to be able to draw on the screen, but there are a few pleasant surprises I'd like to share.
The first is the fingerprint reader. I've heard of people buying these which I always thought was a joke. Who exactly are you afraid is looking at your vacation photos? Well, on a larf I set mine up, and I love it! It has become my replacement for passwords both at logon and in FireFox. It is also my application launcher, so with my third finger I can open Sketchbook, with my middle one Flash, etc.. It also creates a virtual Z: drive called My Safe, where you can store sensitive data. It does get dirty or just picky occasionally, so it can sometimes take a half a dozen swipes to get it to register. Also, it doesn't upgrade well with FireFox, so you have to disable/reenable the Password Bank after a FireFox update to get it working again.
Another fun surprise is Portrait mode. As an animator, I didn't expect to be doing much tallscreen drawing. That format is so esoteric that it would be hard to find an audience that could easily display your work. What I have found it nice for is web browsing. The web is still written for people will 800 pixel displays, so there is a lot of wasted space for people with decent eyesight and a computer bought in the last 5 years. In portrait mode, your screen is 990 pixels wide and 1440 tall. That means you can read more of a standard page with minimal scrolling. If you do need to scroll, there's a Grab-N-Drag extension that gives you a floating hand cursor. You can grab any negative space and literally drag the page to accommodate you. Quite slick! Windows XP has terrible handwriting recognition (especially has problems with 6s and As and you can't train it), so if you need to do a lot of typing it's not the fastest way to surf, but it is more than comfortable for browsing. Another extension to look at is easyGestures. It's nice with a mouse but indispensable with a pen. Take a look!
Hopefully I've covered a lot of the bases for someone wondering what this computer is like day-to-day. I haven't tested it, but I think I get about 2-3 hours battery. It has an SD card slot so it's easy to grab digital photos from your camera. If you smack the middle of the touchpad buttons it will middle click, which is a nice little secret.
Overall, I'm reasonably happy with it. There are a lot of nitpicks, but I can draw on my $1300 notebook. Can you?
