In comparing my Tecra M4 to Michael's M4, there are two immediate differences.

20050616-EricandMichaelsTabletPCs.jpg

First, the International version of the M4 has fewer vendor stickers on the front - less visual blight. (I know, it does not affect performance, but why take a good looking (and expensive) Tablet and make it look like it came from Toys-R-Us?) Second, Michael seems to have missed out on Toshiba's selection of "free" SpamWare that  is preloaded on the US version of the Tecra M4. What this means, is that Michael got the better value: Less clutter on the desktop; fewer apps to uninstall at initial power-up; and, get this, his machine appears to be more stable as a result. Overall, this contributes to a more productive experience. Toshiba, are you getting this? You've got a great machine, but for a happier customer experience (at least for me) you've got to ditch the SpamWare.

Discussion/Comments (4):

M4 Productivity - it is possible out of the box

I'm very very disappointed with how Toshiba US is handling this issue.

My M4 is full of Spam and crap I never wanted. They even preloaded a full version of Office trial even thought when I so that on my email order confirmation I wrote thenm and said I did not wanted that.

I bought this laptop because of a technology advantage of having a full laptop system with tablet capabilities. By the time I need to upgrade other manufactures will have better tablets. Then I'll be happy to never buy a Toshiba product again. This is also because their sales and support experience has been the poorest I've ever had.

Posted at 07/13/2005 7:50:33 by gustavo


M4 Productivity - it is possible out of the box

I agree with the stability part. I just got an M4 and it is really unstable when trying to do anything terribly taxing. I plan to wipe the whole thing and start from scratch with XP Tablet Edition CDs and a handful of the utilities that come with it. Plus, it lets me reclaim the space stored on the "recovery" drive.

Posted at 07/17/2005 1:21:10 by Robert McLaws


M4 Productivity - it is possible out of the box

Is there a restore CD for the international version?

You know.. one I could use to ghost my PC and not have to deal with manually erasing all the crap that's placed onto the US version of the M4?

Posted at 08/23/2005 19:17:48 by Eugene Franco


M4 Productivity - it is possible out of the box

Horrible - 5yrs after and Toshiba still have not learned their lesson. A friend recenly borrowed me his new Satellite notebook and it also came with an 'fine selection' of free spam- and trialware. I ended up installing Vista from one of my (unused) MS-CDs...

Posted at 03/16/2010 4:43:08 by Michael Baas



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