Touch tablets are not usually powerful laptops as they must keep a low profile and weight to actually be usable in typical scenarios like taking notes and drawing when standing up at a presentation. Things are about to change as Toshiba announced its Portege M780 classic shaped convertible tablet in a 12 inch form factor. The main power unit is the new generation Core i3 or i5 CPU that promises to increase performance a few dozen percentages over the previous Core 2 Duo architecture.

    Toshiba Portege M780: classic shape, great performance

    Toshiba Portege M780: classic shape, great performance

    Other specs of the Toshiba Portege M780 consist of a 12.1 inch 1280 x 800 pixels multitouch screen that supports all control gestures from Windows 7, on-board DVD burner (a rarity amongst 12 inch tablets), up to 8 GB RAM and a mechanic HDD or SSD (depending on your budget). The casing of Portege M780 is pretty ‘generous‘ at almost 40mm thickness, but that’s because it’s semi rugged and includes a spill-resistant keyboard. For eco freaks there’s the Eco Toshiba Utility software that reduces power consumption but I bet there’s nothing there you couldn’t achieve by yourself using the included power saving profiles in Windows 7. No word yet on pricing and availability.

    Source: Slashgear