Toshiba Mini NB205-N330BL 10.1-Inch Royal Blue Netbook - 9 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter)

#1: Toshiba Mini NB205-N330BL 10.1-Inch Royal Blue Netbook - 9 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter) Reviews!

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This is now previous generation model. I got it for well under 0. I still highly recommend it.

BTW, I upgraded mine to 2gig.

Pros
* Excellent lcd color and brightness
* Best in class netbook keyboard. Similar to apple's chiclet keyboard. Nice feel and keydepth for the smaller than standard key. Really like arrowpad layout.
* Feels quite durable
* I actually like how 6-battery sticks out the back, acts as a handle to hold on to when using the computer, standing up draped over your forearm.
* Neato HDD shake protection with 3D sensor. When you shake it the hard drive moves the arm to safe area. You can watch hdd applet shows the hard drive arm and orientation as you rotate the netbook.
* Good wifi range. I get noticeably better wifi signal detection on this than my other laptops.
* Big touchpad (note in cons, bottom touchpad unusable)
* Lighted power button below screen acts as keyboard light (which could also be a con, I like it)
* I like startup/shutdown time, less than half minute -- first time it may be slower, as windows 7 configures the system. 5 second sleep/wake time.
* Includes bluetooth, which is no longer included in current gen

Cons
* Tiny single speaker. Out of the box, it's only ok for windows beep noises. You can make it usable loud by turning on "loudness equalization" from control panel>Sound settings>Realtek HD driver
* touchpad is not usable at the bottom 3/4 inch. It looks and feel likes touchpad, but your scrolling and pointer will just stop before touching the buttons. A shame, that the touchpad isn't as big as it looks.
* no multitouch touch pad that current gen touchpads support. But AFAIK, Windows 7 starter does not support multitouch anyway.
* typical bloatware. chuck it.
* no screen rotation. I could not find a way to activate hardware screen rotation to use it vertically like a ebook reader. I tried registry hack, freeware hardware rotation util, googling, nothing. I wonder if linux intel drivers are capable of rotation? Anyway, as a satisfactory work around I use foxit pdf reader and fbreader ebook (epub) reader, both of which have software screen rotation and full screen feature that makes this an ebook reader (nb: can't read drm books).
* No wifi N. But when would you really want to use N speed on a netbook? Not like you are going to be hard core gaming or streaming HD videos to it.
* How do I create and restore system backup without DVD? I'm hoping I can do it from a usb stick.

Misc
* Windows 7 Starter is fine by me. The main complaint seems to be about lack of wallpaper customization. Big whoop. When I'm working on my laptop I'm not looking at my wallpaper. I put the picture gadget to put in the center of the desktop. If you want to use it as a digital photo frame, use the photo screensaver. Done.
* Non HD videos only. All my 720x480 DVD and TV shows run fine. Once you get to 720 line videos (which won't fit on a 600 line screen anyway), the CPU is chocking. Goes without saying, serious gaming is a no go.
* Battery life around 6.5 hours, I'm a heavy user, using lots of multimedia, loaded 10 programs. I upgraded 2gig, bright screen.
* Charge from 5% to 100% in 4 hours.
* Suspend mode uses 1 watt. Normal use is 10 to 15 watts. Except when I transport it, I usually keep mine on suspend mode instead of shutting down.
* For videos I downloaded the CCCP codec/video pack

Note
* Upgrade your webcam software from panasonic support site. It's much better.
* Upgrade HDD driver from Panasonic support site, the machine shuts down faster

Toshiba Mini NB205-N330BL 10.1-Inch Royal Blue Netbook - 9 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter) Features

• 1.66GHz Intel N280 Atom Processor
• 1GB DDR2 533MHz Memory
• 250GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive, Integrated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
• 10.1" LED Backlit Display, 1024x600 native resolution (WSVGA)
• Microsoft Windows 7 Starter (32 bit), *9 Hours of Battery Life

Customer Reviews

The sound does not work - Gerald Isaacson - Somerset, NJ USA
I bought this netbook for travel. Got the extra memory and separate optical drive as well. I set up the rescue disks, loaded Office, and went off on a six week trip to Asia. The first time I used the netbook, I noticed that there was a problem with the sound. The internal microphone was always "on" and sending room and even keyboard sounds to the puny speaker, creating feedback and noise. The only way to stop it was to turn off the speaker. Plugging in a headset to use Skype revealed another problem. The audio software noticed that an external mic and headphone were attached. But no sound from the mic got into the computer. I bought another headset, thinking there was a problem with the microphone on my original headset. Same problem. The Toshiba on-line forums were no help. Many people complained of the problem but there were no solutions. I reinstalled the audio drivers. Same problem. I called Toshiba and the technician had me restore the original operating system. After that 3 hour ordeal, the original problems were still there. Now Toshiba wants me to return the defective unit to them, at my expense, so they can try to repair it. While I was drawn to this unit because of its lightness and long battery life, in reality it has turned out to be a big letdown. Toshiba shipped me a defective netbook but I have to pay to return it to them. This was my second Toshiba laptop. It will be my last.