Here we have a brand new model of an old-fashioned, old school concept Tablet PC. From 2001 until recently, convertible laptops like the Portégé M780 were the definition of a tablet computer, but the arrival of the iPad and similar devices this year have changed that forever. There’s the old tablet and the new tablet and the two are entirely different. Why Toshiba has chosen to use the old style for a new product I’m not entirely sure, but it gives me the perfect chance to pay a visit to the past before the iPad arrives in Canada and takes our focus forward.

Design

The M780 is designed to be a sturdy, utilitarian laptop. It’s for typists who like to pound the keys, who need it to survive when dropped a lot, and don’t care if it looks stylish. Although small as laptops go, the screen is 12.1”, its body is bulky, both to toughen it up and to offer space for a full assortment of drives, ports, mechanical switches, and connections. This is designed to be a tool more than a toy, and so it has an expansion slot, 5-in-1 media card reader, fingerprint scanner, webcam, and ports for Ethernet LAN, eSATA, monitor out and other options today’s newer devices eliminate to stay slim. The idea is that the M780 is intended to be your main computer. Not a companion device, but a replacement for your desktop of old.

It becomes a tablet only when you twist the display around on a special, but very robust, hinge-joint. Facing the other way, you can then drop the display down over the keyboard where the touchscreen becomes your new controls, allowing you to use your finger to tap and select icons or use an included “Touchpen” stylus for handwriting, drawing, and more precise selections.

Unfortunately it’s a little too heavy to carry-and-use and you’ll need to make the transformation when you arrive at a table or desk. This isn’t something you can curl up with on a couch or walk around with to take inventory of a warehouse, but really a laptop that you can quickly switch to a handwriting mode when you need it to and then back. One of the intended uses is for forms, to make it easy to create a standard form with checkboxes for those working in clipboard industries, but the weight doesn’t make that an easy fit at all.

Touch

While little has changed in concept from Tablet PCs offered years ago, the arrival of Windows 7 brings a proper set of touch controls. Earlier versions of Windows relied heavily on the use of a stylus for a touch display, but now you can easily use your fingers to type on a virtual keyboard with wide-enough keys to accommodate them. Pen flicks allow you to incorporate gestures. One flick can copy, another to paste or delete and these are customizable. With your fingers you can now swipe the screen to move through photo galleries or scroll down websites and together it makes using some aspects of Windows easier.

The focus here isn’t on mobility anyway, but on note-taking and presenting ideas. For those whose job requires a great deal of mental work it helps to have a system where you can visualize ideas, problems, and concepts by jotting, drawing, or writing them out.

Microsoft has a suite of input panels that you can pull out from the side of the screen for quick handwriting recognition, for working out math equations, or drawing and scribbling. The idea is that when the need hits you can quickly bring down the screen to draw, then flip it back to return to typing or from there twist it around to show your work to your colleagues sitting across from you.This doesn’t get as much use out of the touchscreen as other devices like smartphones and the handwriting systems require a learning process and customization which for many people can prove to be too involving. These obstacles along with a significantly higher price tag, in this case $2,550, are the main reason why Tablet PCs have never taken off.

Performance

As with most laptops, the M780 is available in different configurations and my test model, PPM78C-007006, includes an Intel Core i5 2.4 GHZ processor with 4GB of ram, running a 64-bit version of Windows 7. That’s enough to make it quite the little workhorse and my performance tests involving batch-editing photographs and running multiple programs show a system that’s quite robust and fast. This is where I can see it being presented as a desktop replacement.

Its limited graphics and sound, Intel GMA and Realtek, mean that it’s merely average as a multimedia or gaming system. The added touch layer on the screen means it’s rather dull and muted compared to most laptop displays on the market, making it a poor choice for watching movies with.

Using my standard test of looping music with the power settings turned off and Wi-Fi turned on I found the battery life to be close to advertised, about four and a half hours. It’s a removable battery and easier than most to disconnect. Ultimately the M780 is designed to be used with a Docking System (sold separately for $200) and includes a built-in connection on the base for just this purpose. Having a dock makes it easier to connect the laptop to a larger display and peripherals in your office, but it also reduces the time you’ll spend on battery power.

Running the system for a period of time, I found it can get quite hot, another reason why it’s not really designed to sit on your lap or in other casual positions.

Software

Toshiba includes a number of their own proprietary applications including their Health Monitor which gives you visual read-outs of changing conditions such as internal temperature, fan speed, and battery efficiency. ConfigFree includes a radar display to reveal nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and a connectivity doctor to help you manage issues. While both of these applications are very useful, Toshiba has also included a rather annoying suite of trial offers and Widgets they call MyToshiba. While some PCs come with desktop shortcuts for such offers, Toshiba has built an entire utility suite to manage them (not remove them) and for a system with a price tag as high as this one, its unnecessary clutter.

The Old Grey Mare

While the M780 is exactly what Toshiba was aiming for; a small, robust work machine that comfortably incorporates the note-taking aspects of Windows 7’s touch and tablet features, I’m not sure the concept as a whole still serves its purpose. To become the desktop replacement it wants to be, you’ll need to invest in a larger monitor and docking station for your desk, costly expenses to add to an already high price. Why pay $2,550 for a system that doesn’t offer the full advantage of a touchscreen when companion devices like the iPad or HP’s upcoming Slate can do so much more for a fifth of the price? Tablet PCs have traditionally been a design appreciated by a small niche of workers, today it simply costs too much to do far less and I expect we’ll see this class of computer fade into the background even more so.