Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Toshiba Mini NB205-N210 10.1-Inch Black Netbook - 9 Hour Battery Life Order Now


I've owned this little guy for about 2 months now, I've tested several net-books prior and can honesty state that this is the best net-book on the market.

Several people have complained about it not accepting wireless connections, my advice: READ THE MANUAL. It tells you how to do it if for some reason your net-book is not set up to do it already, it's as simply as pressing two keys simultaneously.

Also, how fast a web-page loads is not a function of your computer, rather it is a function of your internet connection, if you only achieve transfer rates of 56kbps, it's because you're on a 56K connection, so ignore those reviewers.

The island style keyboard is excellent, but be advised, if you type properly, it will take some getting used to. If you use this laptop and another laptop with a traditional style keyboard, you will most likely experience an unpleasant amount of typo's on the traditional keyboard.

The only read drawback of this net-book is the track-pad. The track-pad is unresponsive quite often for several seconds and lags and skips on occasion, but this isn't a real killer, especially if you have even the smallest semblance of patience.


Bottom Line:

Pros:

-less that 2 pounds.
-beautiful screen, excellent colors.
-keyboard is great.
-has Memory Sync, works well with external hard-drives.
-long battery life, not 9 hours unless on power-saver mode. more like 6.5 - 7.
-some good software comes pre-loaded on it.
-keyboard shortcuts are well positioned.
-full sized keyboard.
-track-pad is twice as big as other net-books.
-absolutely perfect for online activities. *Word of warning, if you are the kind of person that saves hundreds of pictures and music files, buy a USB flash drive or an external hard-drive and store them on there, I advise people to do this with all their computers (net-books or otherwise) because it keeps their machines running fast.
-backup disc creator comes pre-loaded on it from toshiba. I recommend you make one as soon as you buy any new PC.
-Toshiba support is excellent. I have never owned a faulty Toshiba product.
-comes with a HDD shock protector, so you don't shake your laptop too much and ruin the hard-drive.
-connects to the internet flawlessly, in a matter of seconds.
-extremely portable.
-contains a port for SD memory card, no need to connect your camera through USB.
-indicator lights on front are a nice touch.
-very sleek, appealing design.




Cons:

-only 3 USB ports, buying a USB hub is recommended.
-the speakers are terrible, must buy external speakers if you want to hear anything.
-comes loaded with trial version of Norton anti-virus, which is a terrible anti-virus and firewall provider, I recommend uninstalling it after purchase.
-no CD drive, which is common on net-books, an external drive works better anyways, and you can purchase blu-ray external drives for around 80$.
-the track-pad is a little annoying at times, as mentioned above.
-the fan is not user controlled on any PC, this isn't really a problem with the net-book, all PC's have this problem, they should follow Mac's example..
-not a lot of Random Access Memory (RAM), don't even consider playing games on here, although I have had success by using my external hard-drive to store the game files and play them while plugged in (I did this with Peggle Nights, a small game that takes up very little space).
-gets hot after about 4 hours of use, which is still phenomenal.


Recommended equipment if you do buy a netbook (or laptop for that matter):

-An external hard-drive should be purchased with any new computer, whether it be a laptop, net-book, or desktop. An external hard-drive allows you to save video, music, pictures, etc. to an external location and preserves disk space, making your computer run as fast as it did upon purchase. I recommend hard-drives produced by Western-Digital or Toshiba, they are both very well made and reasonably priced, if you are an obsessive compulsive saver (the type that saves pictures, music, etc. for single use and never deletes them) I recommend at least a 500GB external hard-drive. I personally use a 1.5 TB external, and store DVD movies on it for extended road-trips. External hard-drives can run anywhere from 50$ for a cheapy to 500$ for a very large large hard-drive (2TB+) with software loaded on it, my 1.5 TB western digital hard-drive cost about 95$, and a Toshiba 500 GB is around 70$, well worth the storage and extended PC life, and they can be used on multiple computers.

-An external dvd drive and writer, this is a must have. Allows you to read CD's and DVD's and burn them. I recommend buying one of the following brands: LG, Sony, Toshiba. Sony offers them with Blu-ray playback and burning, which is not very useful unless you have a blu-ray player, or want to store large amounts of data. Things to look for when buying an external dvd player: make sure it is DVD+R, DVD-R, and DVD-RW compatible, otherwise you will have to choose your media wisely. Lightscribe is a neat little program cropping up lately, which allows you to etch words into the tops of CD's and DVD's, such as the name of the CD or your name. This feature is neat, but be aware that it requires special discs, DO NOT USE LIGHTSCRIBE ON NON-LIGHTSCRIBE DISCS.

-A flash-drive or "thumb-drive." Ever want to transfer a large file from ne computer to another, and E-mail just won't cut it? Enter, flash drive. These little guys are perfect for small-portable storage.

-Line-Out or USB external laptop speakers. In the case of this netbook, external speakers are a must. I recommend Logitech V20 speakers for laptops (excluding those running windows vista). Which reminds me, the NB205 comes with Windows XP home, which I think is a good thing, as Vista is not nearly as user friendly.

-USB hub. Allows you to connect multiple usb devices to a single port. Be warned, these do not work with High-Speed USB cables, such as those used with external hard-drives and external DVD drives, except in some rare cases.


Hope this review helped.
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