Thinking of buying Toshiba Tecra M4

The specs are awesome for a Tablet PC. if thats what you are looking for. If you want just a notebook, then there are plenty of other options for similar specs and within your budget. (Dell)

Looks like a verty nice lappy. seems to the a tabletized M3, and so far I haven't seen any reviews on it. Tioshiba doesn't offer cupons like dell does, the closest I've seen on the forums is a free shipping deal about 4 mo's ago.

Replacing the HDD shouldn't be a problem. From the other tecra's I've seen, the usually make the HDD user accessibly and easily removable. I'm almost positive that HDD uprades do not affect the warranty in the tecras, and as far as I know there are no stickers covering the HDD panel, at least none that I could see in any of the pics other tecra buyers have posted, nor have I heard anybody complain about this.

Ram is also usually pretty easy to do. In some cases there's a little pannnel covering bot sticks, in others the panels covering one stick & the other is a bit harder to get at, but definatly user doable, from what I've read.

As far as the warranty, I'd say YES! Go for it! $120 for two years of piece of mind is a small price to pay. And if you can, get the system guard as well that will protect you from several accidents that frequently seem to occur.

Keep in mind that this is the first tablet tecra. Since Toshiba's been making portege tablets for a while and not too long a go started a satelite tablet, they do have experience in the tablets. However, I'd still be a bit concerned about potential design flaws in any first of any series in any manufacturer and that extra warranty will give you some security.

hope that helps a bit

here's the toshiba says about the accidental coverage:

The CPU's are not that easily changable, I mean if you're good a tinkering with things you could probably do it (and as far as I understand they are not soldered in), but it's no where near as easy as changing the HDD or ram, and I'm willing to wager that it'd void the warranty. Usualy it involves pulling apart most of the lappy to get at the CPU.

What will you be using the lappy for?

im not sure that you really need a tablet....although they are great, and useful i think that a good lappy would suit you very well. like a tecra s2 or the a4...those i think would be good ones. gaming and tablets are not things that really go well together.

if it is for university unless you really need a tablet, get a regular laptop, they are much cheaper for the system in general.

gaming = It does it quite well.

University = Yes

If you are looking to really use technology to better your learning experience, tablet is the way to go. There are a few universities in Ontario Canada that are doing exceptionally well with tablet implementation in the school environment. Think about how you "traditionally" take notes in a unversity lecture.... you often need to do diagrams, charts, graphs, etc... tablet allows you to do it in one place.

The great thing about the A4 is that it is still a notebook...

If you NEED a tablet, I think the M4 is the only one out there with the GPU you can play games on.

If you want to shave off the price a bit, go with a PM 1.8 GHz processor -- you probably won't notice the difference between it the 2.0 and will save $150

Get the regular DVD/CDW that'll save you another $150. Then if you need a DVD burner, you can pick one up down the line in a USB/firewire housing for like $100 or less.

When I do this I get a total price of $1924. Add on the $120 for the warranty extension and the grand total is $2,043.20. Add on the tax and you should still be at your limit.

But, I agree with fidget, unless you need the tablet you should take a look at the S2 and A4. If you looking for something to play games on the NVIDIA 6600's in these two tecras are more powerful than the downclocked 6600 TE's in the M3 and M4 and you will easily be able to pick one up, totally trick it out and stay within the price you mentioned.

Now when you say you need this for school work, do you need it now or before next fall. If not until fall, you could always wait a couple of months and watch as prices drop as newer technology comes out, and keep your eyes open for reviews of this lappy to see what others say about it (being a brand new model there still aren't many out there yet).