Editors’ Note: Portions of this review were taken from our earlier review of the Toshiba mini NB205 (N210).
There’s really not much Toshiba could have done to improve upon its class-leading netbook. But the mini NB205-N330BL (priced at $419) manages to distance itself from its predecessor by sporting a larger 250GB hard drive and Microsoft’s new Windows 7 Starter Edition operating system. The limitations of this OS may frustrate some, but the NB205 still rises above the sea of netbook competition with a beautiful chassis, spacious keyboard and touchpad, and nearly 9 hours of battery life.
Excellent Design
With most netbooks sporting the same guts (except for the HP Mini 311, which features Nvidia’s Ion platform for added graphics punch), design becomes a major differentiator, and Toshiba doesn’t disappoint. Our model featured a Royal Blue lid that’s adorned with raised horizontal lines, giving the PC a textured surface that’s interesting to touch. Combined with an elegant, shiny blue hinge (with a glowing power button at its center) and a silver finish on the deck, the NB205 has an executive-chic look.
At 10.4 x 8.3 x 1.2 inches, the NB205 is quite compact. It’s a hair smaller than the 11.4 x 8.0 x 1.2-inch HP Mini 311 (which houses an 11.6-inch display). The six-cell battery juts out from the back of the system, but because this netbook weighs just 3 pounds, we didn’t mind too much.
Basic Keyboard, Solid Touchpad
The area underneath the attractive lid of the NB205 continues to impress. Like the original model, the metal island keyboard on our system is still one of the best we’ve seen, and rivals that of the HP Mini 2140. The keyboard is sturdy and comfortable, and features Shift keys of respectable size. There are only two possible drawbacks, depending on your keyboard use: The Function keys are really small (making them somewhat difficult to accurately press when speed typing), and the gray icons for shortcuts on those same function keys can be hard to see in the light against its silver background.
Similarly, the touchpad on the new NB205 is one of the best we’ve used on a netbook. The 3.1 x 1.6-inch pad is still the largest we’ve seen in the 10-inch class, and its smooth finish makes it easy to navigate the desktop. Its two dedicated right and left mouse buttons are a bit stiff, but also fairly large.
Display and Audio
The NB205’s 10.1-inch, 1024 x 600-pixel LED-backlit display was bright and glossy, but it kicked back quite a few reflections when viewing content with dark backgrounds. An episode of Cougar Town streamed from Hulu featured colorful, fairly sharp visuals, but the horizontal viewing angles weren’t as wide as we would’ve liked; moving left or right of center, once again, causes the screen to toss reflection back to you.
We were somewhat distracted by the almost 1-inch thick bezel that surrounds the display—it seems like there’s enough room to fit an even larger screen. As you have to live with 10 inches, Toshiba thankfully includes a zooming utility that enlarges text and icons within certain programs—including Internet Explorer and Adobe Reader 9—by pressing Fn + space bar.
An integrated speaker, hidden below the front edge of the system, were a bit weak compared to other netbooks we’ve tested. When playing Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” over Slacker.com, we had to crank up the volume to hear the lyrics, and even then it didn’t have the chops to fill a small conference room.
Ports and Webcam
The Toshiba mini NB205 has the standard set of ports we’ve come to expect from netbooks: two USB 2.0 ports and a lock slot adorn the right side; a VGA, headphone, mic, Ethernet, and third USB 2.0 port are mounted on the left. That third USB port is enabled with Toshiba’s Sleep and Charge technology, which provides power to connected devices (such as smart phones) when the system is off. A 3-in-1 memory card reader sits along the front lip.
Above the display is a 0.3-megapixel webcam, which provided extremely clear images in a Meebo video chat. Friends said that images of us were somewhat muted, but didn’t complain of motion blur when we quickly moved about. When we waved to our friend with whom we frequently test webcams, he had no saw no problems with the lighting. Toshiba also includes their Web Camera Application, which pops up when you mouse over the left side of the screen; this utility can record video and snap still shots (in resolutions ranging from 160 x 120 to 640 x 480), and let us add visual effects that border the image (such as raindrops or stars).
