Toshiba Mini NB205 (PLL20U-00201D) Netbook
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- Weight: 2.9 lb.
- Mobile Technology: Wi-Fi Certified
- Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
- Processor: Core Solo 1.66 GHz
- Laptop Type: Ultraportable Laptop Netbook
- Installed Memory: 1 GB (DDR2 SDRAM)
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The closest a Netbook has come to a Laptop that I've seen
Pros
Battery Life, Build Quality, Keyboard and Touchpad. Stable w/Ubuntu
Cons
About $50 more expensive than competition
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Build quality, keyboard, touchpad, battery life and plenty of features make the Toshiba a top tier netbook worth the extra money and Laptop competitive.
There is a real application for a netbook in many peoples' lives. They're small, portable, powerful enough for most computing needs and offer connectivity to the web quickly and easily. Most come laden with a slew of features and the Toshiba NB205 netbook is no exception.
Just The Facts(from Toshiba's website)
PROCESSORIntel® Atom™ Processor N280
OPERATING SYSTEM Windows® XP Home Edition (SP3)
MEMORY1GB DDR2 533MHz
HARD DRIVE160GB HDD (5400rpm)EXTRAS
USB Sleep-and-Charge
Webcam with Face Recognition
Long-life six-cell battery
Bluetooth®
The unit, when closed, is 1.27" thick x 10.4" wide x 7.6" deep. It has a 10.1" screen.
What does all that really mean
When you take the specs into consideration, what does it all really mean? Well, it means the Toshiba netbook offers a lot of features and functions.
The Atom N280 processor is the latest of the dual core Atom family that powers most netbooks these days. It uses two 1.66ghz processors to power the machine. That means word processing and general computing functions are no problem. In fact, watching videos and listening to music is also very smooth on the NB205. No skipping or freezing takes place.
The 1gb of RAM is also sufficient for most tasks. Web browsing with heavy Flash animations or video files may get choppy at times. The Toshiba can be upgraded to 2gb of RAM and that will help this cause.
The NB205 comes with a rather large 160gb HD. That's plenty of room for music, photos and video storage all at your finger tips. The one annoyance I found is that Toshiba has a proprietary HD protection software that wards against shocks and drops. Nice is theory, but the practical application is a bit bothersome. For instance, I can watch a video on a plane from a USB stick without a problem. As soon as I watch a video from the HD the slightest bump or motion sends the antishock program into motion and causes the video to lock up and skip to the point it is unwatchable.
Toshiba shipped this unit with a wired 10/100 Ethernet connection and wireless 802.11 b/g built in. Both work well and I have experienced very good WiFi reception using wireless in a variety of areas.
The built in Web cam works very well. The built in Mic, not so much. The audio output is dismal from the built in mic. The webcam does a nice job of taking photos and I was surprised at how well it keeps up with movement when taking video. The three USB slots are pretty standard. All three are on the sides of the unit, but one comes with the added bonus of being a sleep and charge connection. This means as the NB205 is in sleep mode, any device plugged into the Sllep-and Charge slot will remain charging. Pretty nifty for iPods, blackberies and the like.
Other features include an SD card slot, VGA output, Mic input, Headphone/Audio out, built in Intel graphics and Bluetooth. All nice features for a device like this.
Points of Distinction
The 6 cell battery is one of the features that swayed me to Toshiba vs the competition. The 6 cell battery has an incredible 9 hour battery life and I can attest that it goes every minute of that. The long battery life for such a portable device is crucial in my opinion. Nine hours beats a three cell battery by five hours or more. That is a very important distinction.
The keyboard and placement of keys was another turning point for me. The keyboard is laid out very cleanly and the keys are spaced apart. It makes typing much easier and gives the NB205 more of a laptop feel than a netbook feel. Tapping the keys yields a solid feel and the keys themselves are not very plastic feeling. In fact, my Toshiba NB205 keyboard has a better feel than both my Dell and HP laptops.
The final point of distinction for me personally was the touchpad. The NB205 has a full size touchpad with two large buttons at the bottom. Most competitive netbooks have a small touchpad with very small buttons on the side or at the bottom. The NB205 touchpad is larger and nicer than that of my Dell Latitude laptop. It even offers a scrolling function and touch to click feature. Very impressive and leaps and bounds beyond other netbooks.
Other things to consider
The screen clarity and build quality of the Toshiba far exceeds what I expected from a netbook. This is not a typical appliance that feels fragile. Solid plastics and great construction put this ahead of the rest. The hinge for the screen is very tight and holds the screen in place at any angle.
The Windows XP Home OS is fine. I had no problems with it for the few weeks I had it installed. I moved to a Linux based OS and installed the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. After a few tweaks that can be found on the Ubuntu forums I have been trouble free running Ubuntu for more than two months now. Very stable and the Netbook Remix interface is wonderful for this size screen.
Just The Facts(from Toshiba's website)
PROCESSORIntel® Atom™ Processor N280
OPERATING SYSTEM Windows® XP Home Edition (SP3)
MEMORY1GB DDR2 533MHz
HARD DRIVE160GB HDD (5400rpm)EXTRAS
USB Sleep-and-Charge
Webcam with Face Recognition
Long-life six-cell battery
Bluetooth®
The unit, when closed, is 1.27" thick x 10.4" wide x 7.6" deep. It has a 10.1" screen.
What does all that really mean
When you take the specs into consideration, what does it all really mean? Well, it means the Toshiba netbook offers a lot of features and functions.
The Atom N280 processor is the latest of the dual core Atom family that powers most netbooks these days. It uses two 1.66ghz processors to power the machine. That means word processing and general computing functions are no problem. In fact, watching videos and listening to music is also very smooth on the NB205. No skipping or freezing takes place.
The 1gb of RAM is also sufficient for most tasks. Web browsing with heavy Flash animations or video files may get choppy at times. The Toshiba can be upgraded to 2gb of RAM and that will help this cause.
The NB205 comes with a rather large 160gb HD. That's plenty of room for music, photos and video storage all at your finger tips. The one annoyance I found is that Toshiba has a proprietary HD protection software that wards against shocks and drops. Nice is theory, but the practical application is a bit bothersome. For instance, I can watch a video on a plane from a USB stick without a problem. As soon as I watch a video from the HD the slightest bump or motion sends the antishock program into motion and causes the video to lock up and skip to the point it is unwatchable.
Toshiba shipped this unit with a wired 10/100 Ethernet connection and wireless 802.11 b/g built in. Both work well and I have experienced very good WiFi reception using wireless in a variety of areas.
The built in Web cam works very well. The built in Mic, not so much. The audio output is dismal from the built in mic. The webcam does a nice job of taking photos and I was surprised at how well it keeps up with movement when taking video. The three USB slots are pretty standard. All three are on the sides of the unit, but one comes with the added bonus of being a sleep and charge connection. This means as the NB205 is in sleep mode, any device plugged into the Sllep-and Charge slot will remain charging. Pretty nifty for iPods, blackberies and the like.
Other features include an SD card slot, VGA output, Mic input, Headphone/Audio out, built in Intel graphics and Bluetooth. All nice features for a device like this.
Points of Distinction
The 6 cell battery is one of the features that swayed me to Toshiba vs the competition. The 6 cell battery has an incredible 9 hour battery life and I can attest that it goes every minute of that. The long battery life for such a portable device is crucial in my opinion. Nine hours beats a three cell battery by five hours or more. That is a very important distinction.
The keyboard and placement of keys was another turning point for me. The keyboard is laid out very cleanly and the keys are spaced apart. It makes typing much easier and gives the NB205 more of a laptop feel than a netbook feel. Tapping the keys yields a solid feel and the keys themselves are not very plastic feeling. In fact, my Toshiba NB205 keyboard has a better feel than both my Dell and HP laptops.
The final point of distinction for me personally was the touchpad. The NB205 has a full size touchpad with two large buttons at the bottom. Most competitive netbooks have a small touchpad with very small buttons on the side or at the bottom. The NB205 touchpad is larger and nicer than that of my Dell Latitude laptop. It even offers a scrolling function and touch to click feature. Very impressive and leaps and bounds beyond other netbooks.
Other things to consider
The screen clarity and build quality of the Toshiba far exceeds what I expected from a netbook. This is not a typical appliance that feels fragile. Solid plastics and great construction put this ahead of the rest. The hinge for the screen is very tight and holds the screen in place at any angle.
The Windows XP Home OS is fine. I had no problems with it for the few weeks I had it installed. I moved to a Linux based OS and installed the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. After a few tweaks that can be found on the Ubuntu forums I have been trouble free running Ubuntu for more than two months now. Very stable and the Netbook Remix interface is wonderful for this size screen.
