Toshiba Mini NB205-N330BN 10.1-Inch Sable Brown Netbook - 9 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter)

#1: Toshiba Mini NB205-N330BN 10.1-Inch Sable Brown Netbook - 9 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter) Reviews!

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

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Toshiba Mini NB205-N330BN 10.1-Inch Sable Brown 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

Great when it works - Tell It Like It Is - good ole USA
Arrived promptly. Worked fine out of the box. Comes with Windows 7 Starter. Some limitation of features, but this is probably not going to be your primary computer. It's a little larger than most other netbooks. After 6 weeks of infrequent use, the computer wouldn't do a thing. Thought it was a bad power supply. Went to the Toshiba web site and filled out a problem report. Had to pay for one way shipping to Toshiba in California. Cost about . Thought this was a rip off. Anyway, they replaced the keyboard, updated the BIOS, and had it back to me within a week. Very fast turnaround. I just wish it hadn't broken in the first place. The warranty is the standard 12 months. Hopefully it will do OK from here out.

If I had it to do over, I'd look really hard at the Sony VAIO line.