Toshiba Mini NB205-N325BL
Toshiba’s introductory Netbook does not break any new ground, merely provides improved battery life and a faster central processing unit than many in the same price range.
While we have never been especially enamored of the Toshiba NB205′s clumsy battery and awful audio, this $399 retail package is still a better deal than alike retail Netbooks we have reviewed at the same price from Asus and HP.
With a familiar set of parts, including an Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB of RAM, Windows 7 Starter, and a 160GB 5,400rpm HDD, the NB205 hits all the Netbook marks, yet you are able to find similar parts for as much as $100 less if you shop around.
Having said that, the textured design is a standout, and the large touch pad and mouse buttons are among the best we have used on a Netbook.
When we 1st critiqued the launch edition of the NB205, we were impressed with its fingerprint-resistant textured lid and multiple color options, which were a nice break from the shiny black systems we have seen from Asus, HP, and others. Although not the slightest Netbook we have seen, the chassis has a boxlike, flat design with rounded corners, which makes for a nicely advanced look.
The NB205 goes for a advanced keyboard, with wide separated tile keys. That makes each key a bit smaller, but the distance from letter to letter is actually close to what you’d find in a mainstream laptop keyboard. Some users claim to love this layout, and we eventually got used to it, but we favor the low-profile wide, flat keys found on most other current Netbooks. In the NB205′s case, some important keys get cut down a little too much, including the Tab key, and the tilde key is awkwardly shoved into the left of the spacebar, throwing off our touch typing.
Much better is the new and innovative touch pad. It is a bit more than 3 inches wide, which is the biggest we’ve seen on a 10-inch Netbook. The oversized mouse buttons are also very useful, making for much easier screen navigation–there’s nothing more frustrating than trying to navigate a tiny screen with a tiny touch pad. More Netbook-makers should adopt this as their new standard.
One unsatisfying feature was the system’s audio, or lack thereof. The single speaker, located on the underside of the system, was nearly useless; even with the volume cranked all the way up, we could barely make out the audio from podcasts, music, or Web video without resorting to headphones.
The 10.1-inch wide-screen display offers a 1,024×600 native resolution, which is standard for Netbooks, although higher-resolution options are readily available in Netbooks that start at the same $399 you’ll pay for the NB205.
Toshiba equips nearly all its laptops with sleep-and-charge technology, including one of the three USB ports on the NB205. That lets you to power or charge USB devices from that port, even if the laptop is sleeping, hibernating, or off. Bluetooth is not included, nor is the newer 802.11n flavor of Wi-Fi–we’d anticipate to see at least one of those in a $399 Netbook.
Netbooks tend to live within a rather narrow performance margin, and the somewhat faster N280 version of Intel’s Atom processor found in the NB205 did not have much of an impact compared with the N270 Netbooks in our Holiday 2009 Retail Laptop Roundup. That said, almost any Intel Atom N-series system provides enough computing power for the basic tasks for which they are designed–namely Web surfing, processing office documents, and some basic multimedia playback–as long as expectations are kept modest.
But keep in mind that the next generation of Atom chips is around the corner, and even some current or very imminent models include the dual-core Atom and Nvidia’s Ion graphics chip, therefore the standards of acceptable Netbook performance may be about to change.
Check more about this product here: Toshiba Mini NB205-N325BL
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Hello,
I have had my Toshiba NB205-N325BL ever since the first week of Jasnuary of this year, which is 2010, and I have to sayn that i just adore this little netbook guy. It just has that desired look that i had been looking for a netbook to have. It looks sleek, and has a Business Professional yet Homestyle look that i just adore. All of the other netbooks that are out right now just look like too much of a toy, and they feel flimsy and cheaply made and designed. But my Toshibsa NB205-n325BL doesn’t. It looks and feels sturdy and solid. The keyboard is just amazingly fun to work with and use. The keyboardis also just about one of ther best keyboards I have seen in a netbook. It just feels solid when i type with it. The webcak and mic are also superb, as well as the connection. What i was a bit, and just minorly though, ssddened about was that After I bought it and got it home, I found out that it only had one single speaker for audio. I don’t like that at all and was about to take it back when my wife said “Honey, don’t you just either use external speakers or a headset with all of your laptops asnyway, no matter how good the built-in speakers are?” She really made sense, as I knew she was right. That negative was solved, but then anoither one arose when i saw that it didn’t hsve built-in Bluetooth inside of it either. Again I was debating on taking it back, but then I looked up others, and no bluetooth installed is abasic issue for other netbooks. You can get it added to some of them, but not too many. Still though, I am a bells n whistles kind of guy with my gadgets, especially with my cell phones and my computers, so again, I was getting ready to just take it back, and again my wife says “Honey, when, if at all, do you ever use the bluetooth that you have on all of your other laptops? Rarely if ever, right? I mean, I know you love it, and it is just waht you were looking for, so don’t feel bothered about these two things because your pros well outweigh your cons with it, right?” Again she was absolutely right. And so i decided to keep it. Next thing i wanted to try was the actual battery life. I didn’t really believe that my new netbook could possibly sport a claimed actual 8 hour battery life, so i charged it fully, and then the next day I tested it. We were on a trip, with a lot of driving back home headed for us, so I got my new netbook out, turned it on. We have a wireless mobile broadband card, so even driving down the road I was able to go online. I ran my Toshiba NB205-N325BL as much as I possibly could from 9:30 AM in the morning until 7:30 PM that night. IIt stayed charged up that whole time, and even when I finally turned it off at 7:45, the battery still showed a 1/3 charge left (Maybe it was 1/4 charge). My new Toshiba netbook had stayed charged up for 10 hrs and 15 mins and even with still some left. I could not believe it!! I was amazed and appalled, but i was extremely very happy and well satisfied.
Now don’t get too frustrated with me here, as I am almost done with this review. I tried the battery charge test several more times, and it still gives me the same, which pleases me so!! Then when i was settled on keeping it, i went right out and bought myself a 2Gb RAM because it only came with 1GB, which was causing it to run rather slowly. But even with the 2Gb RAM inside, it still looked as though it was running slowly. And so i cleaned up the hard drive from all the temp files from downloading and all, and then i defragged the drive, I also made a couple more basic and default tweaks, and then it was up to running at a very fast, top speed. Next tweak was about the mousde. i noticed there were frustrating times that the mouse woiuld freeze and also move intermittently, and that alsdo, the webpage would be unstable. A few default tweaks to that, and it knocked that out quite a bit. It still changes the webpages at times, but nothing like it was. I think that Toshiba didn’t have the settings for this netbook to always be at default when it is started. But that is a very easy and minor tweak that you can do yourself, and it will stay that way the next time you boot up, it will be set at all the default settings. Anyway, with that last little bit said, i am very happy still with my Toshiba NB205=N325BL. I highly recommend it. It is just lots of fun to use. I think the next netbook I plan to get will be another Toshiba, but it will be the Toshiba NB305-N410BL, unless by that time they have a newer model out. now, go on out there and get that Toshiba netbook, Man; Get it! Get It!! GET IT!!!!!! LOL The End (Can you actually believe it is the end of my review now??)