Toshiba NB 205

by Jennifer
(NY)

The Toshiba NB205 netbook is pretty solid for a machine so small. As a college student, it is important for me to have a fast, long lasting, portable laptop.

With its 10 inch screen, and at only 3 lbs, it's pretty easy for me to carry my netbook along with a few textbooks without breaking my back. As for speed and battery life, It really helps that the 1GB memory it comes with can be easily swapped out for 2GB, and that the 6-cell battery can last for a good 5 or more hours, depending on the power setting used.

The hard drive is decent, with around 160GB of space, which is more than enough for documents, and large enough to fit my iTunes library.
The 10" screen is adequate for the sake of portability, but if you need to display something in high resolution, it can get irritating trying to zoom in and scroll in every direction just to view a large image. The keyboard is spaced out a bit strangely, but it's not too much of a problem.

The keys are also raised, which I enjoy personally because it gives a nice feel when typing. If you're a fan of keyboards that press down and give a nice click with each key, this keyboard is for you. The webcam and microphone built into the screen is functional, but a 7/10 at best. The speakers are one thing I highly dislike about the Toshiba NB205.

I didn't expect there to be booming speakers on a tiny netbook, but the built in speakers are awful. The speaker is located on the bottom of the laptop, which means that sound will automatically get muffled a bit. To make it worse, the speakers at high volume simply isn't loud enough. It's almost impossible to show a group of people a video on your netbook without external speakers.

The other thing I dislike about the NB205 is the touchpad. Unlike many new laptops today, the NB205 does not seem to have a visible scrolling component. I've tried using the side of the touchpad to scroll, and tried the macbook two-finger method, but nothing seemed to work.

The touchpad can also get unresponsive at times, as well as hot. Because of these problems, I use my USB mouse as much as possible. The netbook also does not come with a CD/DVD drive, but it isn't too much of an issue for me since I don't need it anyway.

This netbook isn't for somebody who needs a media powerhouse. I've had this netbook for a little over a year, and I can say that it's great for the value. I can honestly say that I recommend this to anyone who needs a good, fast, and long lasting netbook with a screen that isn't way to small. I would definitely buy a Toshiba product again.