Toshiba Mini NB205-N210 10.1-inch Netbook Laptop PC

Aug 28 2009 - Toshiba's NB205 netbooks provide some of the best battery life in the market which is great for those looking to run it all day long. It also features a sizable and very useful trackpad in a market segment that has many poorly designed models. These aspects are tempered though by some excessively long boot times due to a large amount of preloaded applications. The NB205-N210 also doesn't feature the isolated keyboard as the more premium NB205-N300 series models. It is still decent but not quite as nice.

Aug 28 2009 - Toshiba's Mini NB205 comes in a variety of different versions. The NB205-N210 is the least expensive at $350 but it lacks the isolated keyboard that makes the premium versions much more desirable. This standard design keyboard is still suitable and well laid out, just not as nice. The trackpad is essentially that same and is very spacious compared to many in the netbook market.

What the Toshiba Mini NB205 does really well is running time. With its six cell battery, it is able to achieve a very surprising six hours of running time in my video playback tests. This gives it one of the best overall running times in the netbook market. The downside is the battery design has it jutting out the back of the systems behind the display.

The 10.1-inch display with LED backlighting is typical of the netbook market and does a decent job. The problem with the display actually has to do with the large bezel that resides around the screen. It makes the screen feel excessively small or that Toshiba should have installed a larger screen on the NB205 to make use of the wasted space.

Overall, performance for the Mini NB205-N210 is good for the netbook market. The Intel Atom N280 gives it a slight edge over the majority of models using the N270. This is especially surprising given the overall battery life that the system has. The general performance of the NB205-N210 is marred though with a very long boot time. The excessive number of trialware applications that come preloaded on the system cause it to take roughly 50% longer than average to boot up. Removal of them is key to improving the overall performance of the system.

For its price, the Mini NB205-N210 is certainly a very good machine for those that need long battery life, but for just $50 more, the keyboard on the NB205-N300 series is a compelling upgrade.