Toshiba M40-JM3 with NVIDIA FX Go 6600 - Page 5

I'm now eyeing the ASUS z71v also. Its got everything the Toshiba M40 does but has way better battery life and a higher resolution screen. It looks pretty promising.

As for battery life, I ran the M40 hoping/expecting it to get very decent battery life but I was sadly mistaken. I ran it under max battery config, which means it never speeds the CPU up past 800Mhz, had the go 6600 set to max battery (underclocks it) and the screen at 1/2 brightness and did my listening to music/surfing the internet and typing some stuff. I got slightly more than 2 hours of battery life. That's not all that great in my opinion and was one of the reasons I sent mine back.

Does this Toshiba have the ability to swap out the optical drive for an additional battery? Can I swap out the hard drive and stick a Seagate 100GB 7200 RPM 2.5" hard drive in it?

Yeah as long as it's a 2.5" drive, it shouldn't be a problem. Although there's something here that says you void your warranty if you don't install a toshiba HDD...

hard drive problem

THERE are much differentces bettween 60 BG HDD 4200RMP and 80GB 5400 RMP? because i gonna use this lap for playing counter strike. i don't think i need more HDD to store data

Hey Tech_Girl, what kind of problems did you read about? I would be curious to know. Most of the notebooks nowadays has pretty good wireless connectivity. Signal strength is better than some of the older PCI cards found on desktops.

not on the m40 line, it is not set up to allow a secondary battery in place of the optical drive. As for the hard drive, you can physically do it but it will void your warranty, and that would not be good. The only way to not void the warranty is to use a toshiba hard drive so you are stuck with 5400rpm or 4200rpm as far as i know. If you contact toshiba they should be able to give you the details on what the options are exactly for canadian models.


Yes there is a big difference except the 5400rpm is the better of the drives, so really with the 80gb you are getting more speed and more capacity, you can't go wrong with that especially when playing counterstrike. The 4200rpm is slow from games, i would definately recomend getting the 80gb 5400rpm as factory standard. It would be nice to have a 7200rpm option but it is just not available from toshiba, so stick with the 5400rpm and you will do just fine.

hey fellas, could someone please help me pick a laptop? I've been looking for a desktop replacement (internet, editing music, playing DVDs a few games). I had my eyes on the A70-00V, but it's a little pricey. I've also read some problems with crashing and such with the A70 models. does anyone have some recommendations for me? I'm not really worried about battery life, but the longer the better. I like the sounds of the A40 but the hard drive has me a little worried, a little slow for the price? would the graphics card benefit watching movies?

Hey, I can't really help you a whole lot. All I can say is if I were you, I wouldn't buy an A70. I had one and after about a month it started randomly freezing. There is a recall type thing for the A70s on Toshiba's website now though.

hey i bought this m40 1.6ghz today and my first impression on this notebook was
"wtf where is my start key?" damn i really need the key i use all the hot keys with starting key. how can i make my Fn key to work as start key?

i assume that you mean the m40 when you say the A40, what kind of games were you thinking about playing, and how into them are you planning on getting? Also what is your price range since knowing that would make it alot better to be able to suggest the right lappy for you and your application.

Generally speaking, the m40 is a great machine for your requirements, it has pretty good battery life, and a great graphics card. The only thing this graphics card can't outright handle is some of the latest games (like doom 3) with the settings maxed out, but those are taxing on even the fastest desktop systems so....the hdd is reasonable at 5400rpm for the higher end model, but the lower end one could stand with a boost, 4200rpm is just not fast enouh for most games. the ultimate would be a 7200rpm but that is not an option without voiding warranties and installing one yourself. Really the m40 is a great machine especially for that price but i can offer some more suggestions if i know the range you are looking in.

hey thanks for the reply fidget, I am not going to REALLY get into games, maybe play a few flight sims or I hear battlefield multiplayer is good too. and I'm def. not worried about getting the best graphics possible. originally I wanted to use my laptop for gaming, but I'm not getting rid of my current PC, so I'm not going to spend all the extra for that. and also I can't afford a alienware or dell XPS2, heh. my budget is $2000 Canadian or slightly above after taxes (15% tax). I'm pretty much aiming for a desktop replacement. I also would like to edit and play music (5.1 surround?), go on wireless internet, download, play DVDs, pretty normal stuff.
All I want pretty much is a fast laptop that I wont need to replace for a very long time, or ever, (but we'll see about that later). I'll get to the point, I would like:
-fast processor
-decent graphics (not shared) that will allow me to play hmmm, counter strike lets say
-good view screen for DVDs
-60 G HD min.
-battery consumption is not a big deal, longer the beter tho
-5.1 sound output, if possible, not a huge deal
-Hyper threading? what do you think

If I missed anything you think I may have forgoten let me know. Also a friend of mine who knows a lot more about computers then me, said I should not get a celeron notebook. but why? I don't know , heat build up maybe?

thanks again,
Kris

$2000 canadian eh...i think i would go for an m40 with that price range, personally i would do some saving and get the extra $300 or so for the top end m40. with a 15% tax i know your not in alberta like me (yikes), but i think the extra is worth it especially for what you are going to be doing.

My reasoning is that the extra hard drive capacity in the higher end model is good, along with that you are wanting to play some games on it. This is a factor since the 4200rpm drive in the lower end m40 is really not great for games. The minimum i would recomend for gaming is 5400rpm but with 7200 being tops. However toshiba does not offer a 7200 rpm drive option so i would get the better 5400rpm drive.

The other factor in my suggestion is the the processor, the 1.6ghz in the lower end is a great processor and certainly very powerful. However the 1.6ghz is also in the lower end of the new line, whereas the 1.8ghz is more middle of the pack. This means that the lifespan before it becomes really out of date. I definately think that the higher end model should do the best for you. The centrino processor in this model gives you the same power as the higher end desktops with hyperthreading, and really you will have more than enough power with the m40 for your needs.

The screen is excellent, very good for dvd's and nice and clear/bright. The graphics as i said are really good. As for the sound, it is good from the onboard speakers, but (this goes for any laptop) i would recomend an external card such as the creative audigy 2nx for your 5.1 surround sound needs.

As for other options, there are a few in the class you are thinking, the toshiba p30, and the dell 9200 come to mind immediately as contenders. The p30 has a nice screen desktop processor with hyperthreading, and a good but not the best graphics card. The dell 9200 has the same graphics card but a centrino processor (lower end older model centrino than the m40) and a decent screen depending on the model you get. The p30 is a good machine, it is bigger and it is heavier and it is hotter but it is a good machine, and i will not knock it too much. The dell 9200 is a good machine, runs cooler than the p30, is lighter, but still heavy with the big screen, however there are alot of complaints that the wuxga screen is crap and the graphics are not as good as on other machines with the same card. The m40 has the best graphics card that you can get within your price range.

Those are the other machines since i can't be telling you to get and Alienware or the XPS2 (those are really awsome machines) and i think in your price range i would still get the m40, but the other machines are good choices as well.

Do not get a celeron because it is just an under powered p4 they quite simply suck for games and most other tasks, they are good for those who want to just go to a few websites and that is about it,

Very detailed and politically correct assement Fidget. Nicely done.

wow, thanks fidget that's awesome, the higher end M40 is a pretty f'n sweet machine except at $2700 after taxes, I just can't bring myself to dish out that much money. nice informative post, btw

oh and bowmah, hows the new laptop treating you?

I heard from another forum (i cant remember which) that the m40 can easily see 2hrs+ if you're watching a dvd and use the quickplay startup mode or whatever it's called. The absolute barebones dvd player that you can boot into and watch a dvd rather than having to go into xp and load up a player that probably uses way more mem and battery life

It's been fantastic. It's a tank, the battery life is not great but I use it as a desktop replacer and am near outlets around the house. Finished making my first DVD movie. Edited about 10 gigs of video file and compressed it to a 650 meg DVD. The screen is just amazing to me when I compare it to the Sony and HP's out there.

toshiba makes some of the best retail lappy's out there...the only thing better is a totally tricked out boutique machine but those are not really mainstream.....

I don't fully understand what you're saying, but my belief is that you should generally go with the low end of a specific processor architecture. The reason is that you get all the performance benefits (e.g., 2mb cache), except the speed. More often than not, the bottleneck in a computer is not the processor speed, but something else. And you pay such a premium for the higher end processors, when you could spend that money way more efficiently on, say, another stick of 512mb of ram.

I should also mention that I say this (and abide by it) despite using computer programs (MatLab, Spice) that rely heavily on processing power.

I'm curious if people agree with this.

i generally agree with it, but i prefer to use the mid level of any specific processor architecture. i follow these lines since i figure a good mid-high range precessor is the best way to go, hence my saying that a 1.8ghz processor is the way to go. i think that the benifit to price ratio is the best for that specific processor as compared to the 1.6 ghz model, since it still offers all the power that you will be needing now with a decent amount of time before it become really out of date. plus when looking at price to power as compared to a 2.13ghz centrino right now, you are getting the most bang for your buck. te reason i suggested "the higher end model" is that in the m40 line the processor is the 1.8ghz. Generally i make the choice to incrimentally upgrade my systems, namely the bigger the processor the more ram, the better the hdd....and that sort of thing. i don't get a skimpy processor and then max out the ram, nor do i get a superfast processor and very little ram, its really all about the balance.


(oh and happy 350th post to me...)

NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX Go 6600, is there such card?