Toshiba NB100

...really fond of my old Toshiba laptop. It’s big and it’s clunky, only has a 15 inch screen, but it’s familiar: loaded with lots of useful stuff and frankly too valuable to tote about where it might get lost stolen or broken. Furthermore the notion of accessing e-mail or the internet on a mobile phone device is just too fiddly and beyond my ageing eyesight. Yet, when out and about I still want to be in touch, able to access information, data and send ...
...familiarity and trust in the Toshiba brand attracted me to the mini marvel. I gleefully selected My Toshiba NB100 from Amazon, electronically submitted payment of £249.98 and waited for the postman to arrive. This he did some two days later in April 2009 bringing a simply boxed package containing a Toshiba NB100-12A 8.9-inch Netbook, Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD, Windows XP Home When you look on Amazon now you will see this model has ... more

I am really fond of my old Toshiba laptop. It’s big and it’s clunky, only has a 15 inch screen, but it’s familiar: loaded with lots of useful stuff and frankly too valuable to tote about where it might get lost stolen or broken. Furthermore the notion of accessing e-mail or the internet on a mobile phone device is just too fiddly and beyond my ageing eyesight. Yet, when out and about I still want to be in touch, able to access information, data and send meaningful ( not text speak or hieroglyphics) out to friends and relatives. Enter then the concept of a Netbook computer. You will have seen many examples in the high street shops and white goods outlets, and it even seems that some mobile phone contracts offer them as an incentive. (I rest my case then that there is no competition between the versatility and usefulness of such powerful miniscule computers compared to the compromises built into scaling such functionality so far down so that it fits on a phone). I am happy to carry my phone separately and just boot up my Netbook PC when the need dictates. With a plethora of choice for me familiarity and trust in the Toshiba brand attracted me to the mini marvel. I gleefully selected My Toshiba NB100 from Amazon, electronically submitted payment of £249.98 and waited for the postman to arrive. This he did some two days later in April 2009 bringing a simply boxed package containing a Toshiba NB100-12A 8.9-inch Netbook, Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD, Windows XP Home When you look on Amazon now you will see this model has already been superceded by a version with 160 GB HDD,…… but what the heck I am really quite pleased with mine.

Reasons For Believing

Once I had opened the box, plugged the power cord in and pushed the start button I was away; up and running. This little gizmo which is not much bigger than a paperback book, sports an 8.9 inch screen (meaning it’s actually bigger than many portable DVD players that do such yeoman service keeping the kids quiet in the back of the car) and with all the familiarity of Windows XP. Not for me the intricacies of mobile windows or Linux operating systems, my trusty XP makes it easy to transfer and load existing files and shortcuts. I quickly disposed of the ‘free’ Norton Antivirus software, loaded my own and happily set up Mozilla Firefox as my browser. I quickly discovered that the touch pad although sensitive and convenient really does not suit me, (any more than it does on it’s big Toshiba brother) so opted to plug in to one of the three USB ports a small retractable corded mouse. This made things much easier and I was soon flying about the screen setting all my personal preferences. It has the solid feel of a Tosh, the image on the screen is crystal clear, but yes. it is still quite small, and on a busy page can be quite awkward to read even with the help of my glasses. Opting for large fonts does not make things much better, you just have to scroll about more to read the whole contents of the page, so I opted for the standard settings. Battery life is claimed to be up to 3.5 hours, but I have never managed more than 2, before dire warnings of meltdown if you don’t plug, in are sounded. I suspect 3.5 hours is realistic if you just say work in Word, don’t change any other applications or pages, nor load the internet and type very very carefully. So 2 hours longevity as I crash round from programme to programme; to mail and web pages is probably the more realistic!

A Communication Tool

Reasons for wanting such a compact gadget were obviously to capture data and information but also to be able to use it’s inbuilt communication channels. Here this gadget excels. Wireless connectivity easily searches out the hotspot options around you and connecting is just as easy as being at home. Armed with a mail2web account, you can pick up your e-mails remotely and initiate or respond just as you would do from the comfort of home. There is even a tidgy integrated webcam for those amongst you who want to stream pics whilst you chat: although I must admit I have not got around to mastering it yet, and to be honest I am not sure that I will be bothering. The keyboard is small, compact even, but all the keys are discreet and I quickly got the hang of picking out most letters. If there is one complaint it’s that in scaling things down some of the keys have been moved from where I am used to finding them, in particular the ubiquitous ‘Delete’ key ……..which has somehow migrated to the bottom right of the keyboard, where I still have trouble finding it!

Curiously the device comes with a back up CD which is interesting since there is no inbuilt CD drive, so any recovery would have to be initiated form another PC, whereby you may as well have accessed the Toshiba website directly for the recovery data to load onto a flash drive. No doubt this will be a cost saving in future versions!

Sound quality and graphics are adequate for most general media files and the speed of the machine is not nearly as dire as I had anticipated. In fact it’s not really that much slower than either my desktop or the ancient laptop itself, so this should not be a factor to deter you. Instruction booklets are adequate, but the this is so simple and self explanatory, I have mot really needed to use them. The Toshiba website is superb and any imaginable question or support issue could be resolved with persistence.

Will it Catch On ?

For me I have to say the jury is still out as to the future of these mini netbooks. They are powerful and compact, much less fiddly than a web enabled phone, but still cannot really compete with the clarity and comfort of a 15 inch laptop. Much more portable so ideal for travellers I really have to question the claim it would be an ideal replacement for the larger screened version if you have the space. However withe its memory, speed and functionality just like the larger brethren for me it’s just so much easier than a smart phone.

Thanks for reading

Posted on Dooyoo and Ciao under the same author
 

...less