The M35's NVIDIA Go5200 GPU provides decent 2D visual quality. While many enthusiasts often give the 2D quality crown to ATI, I've never noticed any significant differences. In conjunction with the M35's 15.4" 1280x800 WXGA display, the overall video display is excellent. The resolution is just right for this sized screen. It is not too high to make text really small, and is not too low to make text ugly. On LCD displays, running in any resolution below native resolution sacrifices major visual quality because the GPU or LCD has to stretch the image. The M35's native 1280x800 resolution is just right, scoring a major plus in the video display department. I found the M35's default brightness and contrast to be suitable to my preferences, but you do have the option to adjust brightness from the keyboard. NVIDIA's display drivers also allow you to adjust the display.
The M35 uses SigmaTel C-Major audio. This is an internal PCI sound card. C-Major audio codecs are built on the Intel AC'97 specification. There is not much more detail on the M35's particular sound card, except it outputs 16-bit sound. C-Major's website says their codecs have a sound to noise ratio of 103 dB and provide 18-bit and 20-bit DACs. To test the sound cards CPU utilization, I ran the Commanche4 benchmark at 640x480x16 with and without audio enabled.
| Audio enabled | 32.82 avg fps |
| Audio disabled | 32.93 avg fps |
From these results it is safe to say the M35's SigmaTel audio has an extremely low CPU utilization, under 0.5%. I tested the audio quality by connecting Logitech Z-2200 speakers to the headphone jack. Sound was the same as my desktop IS7's onboard Realtek audio. With desktops these days, there is no real reason to go against onboard sound for the regular MP3 or CD audio, divx or DVD movie, or casual gaming. The same goes for the M35's SigmaTel audio. I also tested the M35's microphone port; sure it enough it worked flawlessly without any static whatsoever.
The M35's optical drive is a Matshita UJDA750 DVD/CD-RW. This optical drive seems to be a pretty popular choice as I've seen it in multiple laptops. With a 24x CD read and write speed, 10x CD rewrite speed, and 8x DVD read speed, the UJDA750 is an average notebook DVD/CD-RW. I tested its CD burning, CD reading, and DVD reading performance with Nero's CD-DVD Speed utility.
The Mashita UJDA750 slowly progresses to its max burn speed of 24x. It starts at 6.5x then goes up in steps until reaching 24x at 66 minutes (a CD is 80 minutes). Because of this slow progression, the average burn speed is 17x. For comparison, my desktop's generic 52x burner starts at 24x, maxes out at 44x, and averages 36x. The moral of the story? Don't trust CD burning speeds.
Similar to CD burning, the UJDA750 progresses from 11x read to close to 24x read. I presume the drive reads from the center of the CD to the outer edge which is why data transfer speeds up as the test runs. CPU usage of 9% at 8x read is greater than average desktops, and considering the M35's processor, CD reading on this notebook will feel more sluggish than on a desktop.
The DVD transfer test reported an average 2.91x read. While it did reach 4x speed, this is nowhere near the drive's rated 8x DVD read speed. Despite this poor DVD read performance, the M35 still plays DVD movies with no hiccups.
Moving on to noise and heat, the M35 is not a loud notebook. The 1.5GHz mobile processor and Go5200 GPU heat up pretty well under full utilization and the M35's cooling system is just enough to keep it stable. From what I can tell, the M35 uses a heatpipe attached to the CPU that draws heat away to a copper heatsink that is then cooled by a small fan that exhausts air on the left side of the notebook. The result, however, is still a VERY hot notebook. The base heats up so much that Toshiba put this sticker on the bottom:
Hot base may cause burn, avoid prolonged contact with bare skin. Throughout my testing I did notice the M35 got very hot, but through my experience with other notebooks, they generally all do. Windows XP automatically throttles CPU speed depending on what tasks are being performed, and it is very noticeable when the M35 is running at its maximum 1.5GHz because the cooling fan speeds up. At 1.5GHz, the M35 is no longer silent, but is still not louder than a regular desktop. The Mashita DVD/CD-RW is not very loud either when being utilized. The M35, when making the most noise it possibly can, is still quieter than my desktop.
Our last topic of discussion is battery life. The M35 uses a 6-cell, 4400mAh, recharable, removable Lithium Ion battery. Toshiba estimates its life to be 3 hours and 46 minutes. Toshiba also offers an extended battery that lasts 7 hours and 41 minutes. These numbers come from MobileMark tests run by Toshiba. MobileMark runs common applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Netscape, McAfee VirusScan, WinZip, Flash, and Photoshop. Because the M35 uses an Intel mobile processor that throttles speed, not all of these applications that MobileMark tests will be running at the M35's full speed - this is normal. Considering the power requirements of the 15.4" WXGA display, if the M35 can really last 3:46 hours on battery then that is very impressive. Recharging the battery when the notebook is off and on takes 2.75 and 5 hours respectively.
I used PCMark2002's battery test for our own battery testing. What the PCMark2002 battery test does is continuously run CPU, memory, and hard drive tests without delay between tests. The M35 lasted 1 hour and 52 minutes. While this isn't the 3 hours and 46 minutes that MobileMark reports, keep in mind that the PCMark test is continuously stressing the computer not giving the M35 a chance throttle its CPU speed down.
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