Toshiba Tecra M9-S5516X
Notebook Reviews > Toshiba Tecra > M9-S5516X

The Toshiba Tecra M9-S5516X is a business laptop that competes with other 14.1" business notebooks but doesn't stand out to attract our hearts. Perhaps Toshiba is more inclined towards a low-price strategy for this particular model.

If you look at the offers from popular laptop brands, Tecra M9-S5516X is one of the cheapest offers for a 14.1" business notebook that has robust security features like Trusted Platform Module.

It's currently priced at $1349, and at this price, it comes equipped with an Intel Penryn processor clocked at 2.1GHz, a mere 1GB of RAM and 160GB of hard drive storage capacity, the graphic card is integrated one and the notebook has a dual layer DVD writer. The specs are comparatively plain for a business notebook.

Tecra M9-S5516X has a box like shape with slightly rounded edges that gives it a business look. Even though it has some rugged features like a spill-resistant keyboard and a hard drive that has a shock sensing and absorbing mechanism for data protection, the built still gets some negative marks for keyboard and palm rest flex.

The keyboard for Tecra M9 is quite standard and delivers a comfortable typing experience. As mentioned above, it's resistant to coffee or drink spills and also has a pointing stick in addition to the default touchpad.

One of the issues with Tecra M9 is its screen. Like many other business notebooks, the screen here has a matte finish. Getting the right results with matte finishing seems harder than the plain nits and contrast ratio arithmetic required for glossy displays.

The problem is that Tecra M9's screen easily washes out in a well-lit environment that many offices and conference rooms have. Toshiba should have chosen a matte LCD with more brightness levels. In addition, the viewing angles are also more limited than what other notebook displays exhibit. By the way, the screen is 14.1" in size and has a WXGA resolution (1280 x 800).

Toshiba Tecra M9 has ports and expansion arrays on all sides of the laptop. It covers the essentials with 3 USB ports, a Firewire, PC Card slot, modem , LAN and VGA-out. It lacks the newer ExpressCard slot as well as a multiple format multimedia card reader. Though it makes an effort to replace the latter with a more basic SD card reader. Note that there are business laptops that even lack this SD reader, such as Dell's Latitude D630.

Tecra M9-S5516X's performance is somewhat limited owing to the installation of only 1GB RAM and an integrated graphics card. However, it is based on an Intel Penryn performace and the hardware profile is fine for everyday business tasks. Incase you are looking for more performance oriented machine, you can perhaps checkout the upgraded model M9-S5518X with more RAM and dedicated graphics.

Tecra M9 doesn't have an integrated webcam and the speakers are just average for a business laptop. Trusted Platform Module and a Fingerprint reader suffice the security requirements for the businessman.

It's slightly disappointing to see a business laptop without the option of mobile broadband but at least 802.11n WiFi is present. Bluetooth is also available.

Tecra M9 weighs just a little more than 5 pounds which is not that great for a 14.1" machine. Dell Latitude D630 is much lighter and then there is Fujitsu LifeBook S6510 breaking all records with a mere 4.0 pounds weight, again for a 14.1" laptop.

An average battery life of around 2 hours and lots of bloatware on the machine sums up the review for Toshiba Tecra M9-S5516X.