Review Toshiba Satellite M100-165 Notebook
Small, still powerful. Toshiba M100 is a prime example of a 14 inch notebook. We were especially interested in it, because it is equipped with a very potent ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 video card.
Case
Following review is provided by notebookcheck.pl, our Polish editor team.
The Satellite M100 is a small notebook. Like the Satellite A100s or L100s it has a silver, beveled case and a black keyboard. Above the keyboard it provides some large, useful, elegant looking, but loud hotkeys, the power switch and Harman Kardon speakers. The display cover is charcoal-gray.
M100 is made of plastic. The display cover yields under pressure. The panel above the keyboard, near the left speaker is not accurately built and the battery wobbles. So, the total workmanship is only fair to average.
The big hinges work alright, there is no wobbling after adjusting the screen's position. That is particularly important, because you'll need to adjust the position quite often depending on the way you sit in front of the screen, because of pretty narrow viewing angles.
A big strength of the Satellite M100 is its modest dimensions. This notebook is no midget, but, because of its weight, a lot mobiler than its bigger competitors.
For a laptop of this size the provided number and kind of interfaces is by all means satisfactory. Because of the rather small dimensions of the notebook, their order is unfortunately not optimal. Only one of four USB ports is at the back, the second one is in the middle of the left side, and two more USB ports are near the front of the right side.
- Front Side: Microphone, Headphones
- Left Side: D-Sub, USB, S-Video, PCMCIA, FireWire, Card Reader
- Right Side: 2x USB, DVD drive, Kensington Lock
- Back Side: Power Connector, LAN, Modem, 2x USB 2.0, VGA
Input Devices
The 14'' Satellite M100 is equipped with the same keyboard than the bigger Tecra A7. So, it also has the same weaknesses, e.g. rather small keys which might lead to typing mistakes, like pressing more than one key at once. During quicker typing, the possibility of typing mistakes increases especially at left-hand part of the keyboard. However, a strength of the keyboard is that it hardly yields. The keys are definitely soft, and their travel is rather long, so typing is comfortable, however, unfortunately a little too loud.
The touchpad of the Satellite M100 measures 6.2x3.5cm. The height is a whole centimeter smaller than that of the Tecra A7's touchpad, which is also rather small - typical old Toshiba layout. Still, the pad's surface has good gliding properties and with a little practice you'll be able to manage simple operations without an external mouse.
- Touchpad
- Keyboard
Display
- Color Diagram
The Satellite M100 is equipped with a 14,1" WXGA panel with 1280x800. For a Toshiba notebook it is quite bright with 159.7 cd/m². The illumination is satisfying at 82%. However, the brightness significantly diminishes at the bottom and the top of the screen.
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Informations
Maximum: 159.7 cd/m² Average: 142.4 cd/m² Black: 0.7 cd/m² Contrast: 228:1 |
The black value is 0.7 cd/m², the maximum contrast of 228:1 is alright.
- Operation Outdoor
The viewing angles are poor, especially vertically. It darkens when looking from bottom upwards and whitens when looking from top downwards.
Performance
The Toshiba M100-165 is equipped with a Core Duo T2300 (1.66GHz) CPU. Although there are numerous more powerful dual core processors available, its performance is sufficient for working efficiently with office applications.
Graphics are done by a MR X1400 video card. This video card performs equally than a GeForce Go 7400, whose performance is alright. It allows to play older games and some newer ones with reduced resolution and details, and is yet a little more powerful than an integrated GMA 950.
The provided 80GB Toshiba hard disc drive is average.
Further information about the video card can be found here or in our comparison of mobile video cards. Detailed information about the Core Duo CPU can be found here.
Please also look at our benchmark list of mobile processors or at our benchmark list of mobile video cards, in order to compare this notebook to other configurations.
- Benchmark Comparison 3DMark
- Benchmark Comparison PCMark
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HDR/SM3.0 Score: 458 points CPU Score: 1377 points |
| 3DMark06 in comparison | ||
| Review Sony Vaio VGN-TX2XP/B (min) | 49 | |
| ... | ||
| Review Samsung Q45 Notebook | 1066 | |
| Review Acer Aspire 5672AWLMi | 1221 | |
| Review Toshiba Satellite M100-165 Notebook | 1228 | |
| Review Lenovo Thinkpad R61 Notebook | 1281 | |
| Review HP Pavilion dv6598eg Notebook | 1331 | |
| ... | ||
| Review Alienware Area-51 m9750 Notebook (max) | 7472 | |
 |
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| PCMark05 in comparison | ||
| Review Samsung Q30 (min) | 861 | |
| ... | ||
| Review Dell Latitude D820 Notebook | 3173 | |
| Review Apple MacBook 13" Core 2 Duo Notebook | 3199 | |
| Review Toshiba Satellite M100-165 Notebook | 3285 | |
| Review Lenovo Thinkpad X61T Notebook / Tablet-PC | 3356 | |
| Review IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad Z61m Notebook | 3379 | |
| ... | ||
| Review Asus G1S Notebook (max) | 5568 | |
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Quake 3 Arena The average results of the timedemo demo1 were 331.9 frames per second (fps) |
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F.E.A.R. |
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Emissions
If the load is low, the M100 is just like a typical Toshiba, very quiet. However, with growing load and especially with high 3D demands, the fan starts running. So, during playing games, the fan runs all the time, quite audibly exhausting the hot air. However, it really rarely works at full speed.
Loudness
| Idle |
   34,2 / 34,5 / 34,6 dBHDD |
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34,6 dBDVD |
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36,7 dBLoad |
| 36,1 / 39,5 dB |
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| 30 dB | silent 40 dB | audible 50 dB | loud Key: min: , med: , max: | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Temperature
Although the case is rather small, no heat accumulated inside which was transmitted to the laptop's surfaces. Even after enjoying demanding graphical applications for a long time, we measured only a maximum temperature of 36.5 degrees Celsius at the top side of the case. Whereas on the bottom side the temperature went slightly above 40 degrees.
Temperatures on the top
Ball of hand max.: 35,3°C Top max.: 36,5°C Average: 31,5°C
Hotspot:Room Temperature: 22,5°C
Temperatures on the bottom
Bottom max.: 40,1°C Average: 32,7°C Hotspot:
Speakers
The Toshiba M100 is equipped with Harman Kardon speakers. Besides of a low maximum volume, they're quite apt.
to topBattery Runtime
Alike many other Toshiba Satellite notebooks and the Tecra A7 the M100 is also equipped with a standard 4000mAh battery. Because the M100 comes with energy demanding components, it is not possible to work unplugged for a longer time. So, the Satellite M100's mobility is considerably limited in an unpleasant way.
Battery runtime
Idle, min. brightness, no WLAN: 124 minutes
Full-load, max brightness, WLAN: 55 minutes
Internet surfing, adapted brightness, WLAN: minutes
DVD, max brightness, no WLAN: 81 minutes
Current consumption
| Idle | 24,1 / 27,3 / 29,1 Watt |
| Load |
47 / 56,6 Watt |
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Key: min: , med: , max: | |
Verdict
Slender, deft, and powerful, the Toshiba Satellite M100-165 provides an interesting way out of the dilemma of powerful components embedded in a rather slim case. First of all the ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 GPU has its own dedicated memory. So, those who like playing video games time and again, would certainly prefer the M100 to a notebook with integrated GPU. But, the drawback is a shorter battery runtime. And the M100's battery runtime turned out to be really short. So, if you demand a very mobile notebook, you should rather choose another one.
Many thanks to our partners of Notebookcheck Polen for this review.
- Toshiba Satellite M100-165
