The Toshiba M105s3004 is a thin and light notebook PC with lots of storage  capacity and memory. It has many of the features multimedia users depend on while traveling. But disappointing video performance and a persistent glare on the display might make you think twice before starting any heavy-duty computing tasks.
Look and Feel
If you have to carry a computer around, you will appreciate the thin and light form of this Toshiba portable. Its widescreen LCD provides extra room for an uncluttered keyboard design.
The unit measures 13.5 x 9.53 x 1.5 inches and weighs 5.42 pounds, making it smaller and lighter than other models in the 14- and 17-inch-screen category.
Features
We were pleased to see that Toshiba decided to buck the growing trend of hiding reinstallation files on the hard drive. Instead, Toshiba includes all the system and restoration files on a separate DVD.
This not only is a great convenience, but it also saves space on the hard drive. Sparing the hassle of burning backup copies is much-appreciated.
Another nice feature is the Express Media Player, which provides instant access to DVDs and CDs without having to go through a full system boot. Most portable computers do not offer this feature. But on computers running the Windows XP Media Center operating system -- like this one -- it makes sense.
We think the choice of optical drives is a bit lightweight. While the DVD/CD combination drive has dual-layer technology for saving up to 8 GB of data per blank disc, the drive records in DVD mode at half the speed (4x for DVD-RW, 8x for DVD-R) of other units.
The Type I/II PC Card Slot accepts the thick, older PC Card hard drives. The TypeI/II compatibility enables continued use of this hardware as a backup or alternative storage device, which should appeal to consumers upgrading from earlier equipment.
Other data-access features include a multicard reader that accepts SD, Memory Stick, MultiMedia, Memory Stick Pro, and xD cards. There are also four USB 2.0 ports, one Firewire port, and an S-Video out connector.
Performance
A 1.66-GHz Intel Core Duo processor is great for multitasking; you will not experience any lag while using a word processor when the DVD writer is burning data, for instance. (continued...)
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