I hate the color red, I really do I mean it’s a girl color. But I do like red cars and because of Toshiba I like red notebooks. Red can be manly! (It’s also available in a black color but the red looks better).
Before I get into the nitty gritty of the review, I just want to thank Toshiba for not filling the system with useless software. Yes there are pre-installed apps but nothing that will harm or ruin your experience. With the economy the way it is a lot of other OEMS have added more useless software to their systems. It’s nice to see that Toshiba is not one of them. They also have some of the best propriety software on their systems.
Now onto the review, the M500 is a beautiful system even though red its probably one of the nicest looking systems I have used this ear. It sort of reminds me of the Special Edition Copper HP that was sold at Best buy a few years ago.
The M500 is powered by an Intel core i3 or i5 or AMD dual core procesor (you get to choose), can support up to 4GB of memory, up to 520 GB HDD, built in webcam and of course wireless.
Toshiba loaned me the AMD system and man what a powerful little notebook. I didn’t use it as my day to day notebook, but when I did use it while traveling it handled all my needs easily.
I use Microsoft Office with a passion, and the M500 handled office like a pro, it handled Photoshop like a pro although when it came to loading huge PSD files and I mean huge PSD files it did slow a bit until the PSD was opened but then again my desktop does the same.
I also gamed on the m500, and on a recent flight from New Yorks JFK to LAX my seat mate commented that I was playing WoW on the Alliance using a red notebook, he called it an oxymoron. Sort of is Alliance = Blue, Hoard = Red for those of you who didn’t know. I like being on the alliance and rarely if ever do I play my hoard toon.
When using the M500 on a plane it is in my opinion the best time to test its battery life. So as soon as the plane hit 10,000 feet and that triple beep was heard in the cabin letting us know we were at 10,000 feet and approved electronic devices can now be used. I whipped out the M500 powered it up and connected to the internet. I went 3 hours 52 minutes before I got the warning that the system would soon hibernate and another 5 minutes before it actually shut down on me. Luckily I was in first and was able to plug the system in for the remaining 20 minutes of the flight. So I got 3 hours 57 minutes of battery life. Just so you know I briefly web cammed on skype, I browsed the web a lot checked my email and sent out a few emails. Pretty god battery life if you ask me.
By the way the webcam that is built into the m500 is great, picture quality is the best I have seen on any notebook with a built in camera.
Built into the M500 is a 3 in 1 memory card reader which came in handy since I take a lot of pictures and its way quicker to stick in a memory card then find the cameras USB cable and connect it to the system. The memory card reader also came in handy when I stuck in my 16 GB SD card full of MP3s.
Man does the m500 have an amazing speaker system, I use to think that HP had the best speakers on their notebooks, but the m500 made me eat my words. The sound quality is definitely the best on any notebook I have used in recent years. I guess the fact that they are harman/kardon helps!
But what good is great sound if you don’t have great video quality. Luckily the video quality on the M500 is crisp, although I would have preferred better graphics the integrated Intel graphics do a pretty good job with the 14” HD display so I was happy with it.
As I mentioned above the M500 is available in red and black, however calls the colors Fusion Finish in Red Onyx and Fusion Finish in Black Onyx. I prefer the red, as it looks the best.
Overall the M500 is an amazing little machine, and I recommend it to everyone I liked it so much I may just buy one. How I wish I didn’t have to return the one I currently have back to Toshiba.
The Starting price of the m500 is $699 depending on the model. For more information visit http://www.toshibadirect.com
We award the M500 our Gold 5 Star Editor’s Choice award for the month of April!
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