2. Tecra A8, Continued

Some notebook manufacturers have been putting fewer ports on the backs of their notebooks and more on the side, but Toshiba is bucking that trend. For a closer look at what the A8 has on its back edge, see the next two photos.

On the left is the built in modem port, while at far right you can find the external RGB monitor port. In between are where S-Video and serial ports might have been placed, but they weren't on the model we tested.

The rest of the A8's rear panel includes (from left to right): the power jack, 3 USB 2.0 ports, the 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN port and the IEEE-1394 (FireWire) port.

If you don't think the A8 has enough ports on its own, it has a docking station port so you can add more ports and make your notebook more like a desktop.

From the front, the Tecra A8 appears slim and neat. Let's take a closer look, to see what connections are available from this perspective.

Right on the front of the A8 you'll find the microphone input jack, headphone jack, volume thumbwheel and wireless on/off switch. In tight situations, having the headphone jack in the front (as opposed to the side or back) could be a bit awkward. Similarly, the wireless on/off control is not in the best of locations; it could potentially be switched on or off inadvertently when in close confines. Above the jacks and switch is a set of system indicator lights covering everything from AC power on-off to wireless on-off.

The left side of the A8 is the card slot side. In the next photo we take a closer look.

On the top is the SD card slot - that's SD only, mind you, no 6-in-1 multi-format card reader here. On the bottom is the PCMCIA Type II PC Card Slot.