Toshiba mini NB205 Review

by Jerry Jackson

Toshiba's first consumer-oriented netbook in the United States, the Toshiba mini NB205, promises to be one of the hottest netbooks for 2009. Like most of the low-cost companion PCs available in stores, the mini NB205 helps you stay connected with a simple laptop that easily fits in a purse or backpack. This netbook certainly offers a lot with a nearly full-sized keyboard and touchpad and all-day battery life, but is it the best $400 netbook on the market? Let's take a closer look.

Toshiba mini NB205 (NB205-N310/BN) Specifications:

• OS: Microsoft Windows XP Home SP3
• 10.1" WSVGA (1024 x 600) LED-backlit display
• CPU: Intel Atom N280 (1.66GHz, 533MHz FSB)
• Graphics: Intel GMA 950
• LAN onboard 10/100 Mbps Ethernet controller
• Wireless: 802.11b/g and Bluetooth V2.1
• Memory 1GB (DDR2 533MHz)
• Storage: 160GB hard drive (5400rpm) and SD/SDHC media card reader
• Webcam: 0.3 Megapixel
• Dimensions 10.4 x 8.3 x 1.0/1.27 inches (W x D x H)
• Weight 2.93lbs with 6-cell battery
• Battery: 6-cell Lithium-Ion
• Warranty: 1-Year Parts and Labor, 1-Year Battery
• Price as configured: $399.99 USD

Build and Design
The Toshiba mini NB205 is the first netbook (low-price, low-performance, ultraportable laptop) from Toshiba, but the design is certainly one of the most attractive we've seen in the netbook category. Toshiba offers the NB205 in multiple colors, but the silver and "Sable Brown" color combination in our review unit looks quite nice. The screen lid is made of thin textured plastic with the Toshiba logo front and center in silver metalic plastic. Toshiba engineers made the interesting choice of placing the power button in the middle of the screen hinge where it is exposed even when the netbook is closed. At first I was concerned this might not be the best position since it means the power button could be accidentally triggered inside a backpack or laptop case, but the button is disabled if the screen lid is closed.

Build quality was less than impressive despite the attractive exterior of the NB205. The thin plastics used in the construction of the chassis are prone to flex and the plastics make annoying "creaking" noises if you squeeze the netbook between your fingers. The full-size keyboard looks fantastic, but as soon as you apply typing pressure with your fingers you begin to feel the keyboard flex and bounce as you type. Unfortunately, the only area of the mini NB205 that feels nice and firm is the tension on the screen hinges.

The bottom of the netbook chassis shows an abundance of air vents to help with cooling (more on that later) and a pair of easy access panels for the RAM and hard drive. We're happy to see more and more netbooks with easy access to the internals for upgrading the memory or storage, and Toshiba makes it very simple to complete these upgrades after removing three screws.

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Screen and Speakers
The Toshiba NB205 uses a nice and bright 10.1-inch widescreen LED-backlit display panel with a 1024 x 600 native resolution. I wish Toshiba offered the mini NB205 with a higher resolution screen such as the ones available from Dell, HP, and Sony, but considering the $400 price point we can't complain too much. Vertical viewing angles are average, with obvious color inversion when viewing from below and some over-exposed colors when viewed from above. Horizontal viewing angles are very good with colors only starting to shift at extreme wide viewing angles.

The built-in speaker performance on the mini NB205 is acceptable for listening to system sounds or very short online video clips, but overall the speaker quality is sub-par for a netbook. The built-in speaker is located on bottom front edge and can't produce enough distortion-free volume to push sound up toward the user. If you want to use this netbook as a mobile entertainment portal then you need to invest in some good headphones. On the bright side, the audio output from the headphone jack is good when paired with earphones or a good set of external speakers.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The NB205 uses a new full-size keyboard that is quite massive for a 10-inch netbook. At first glance the NB205 looks to have one of the best keyboards on any of the current-generation netbooks. Unfortunately, that opinion quickly changes once you start typing. Although the keys are nice and large with excellent spacing to prevent typos, the keyboard falls victim to the same thin and flexible plastics used in the construction of the chassis. If you apply anything more than light typing pressure you will feel the keyboard "bouncing" under your fingertips as the plastic keyboard frame bends under the weight of your hands. If Toshiba engineers places a support frame under the keyboard this problem could easily be fixed.

On a much happier note, the mini NB205 features the single best touchpad we've used on any netbook to date. The touchpad measures roughly 3.2 inches wide by 1.8 inches tall with standard-sized touchpad buttons that go all the way to the front edge of the netbook. In short, Toshiba made perfect use of the available space and gives users a "real" touchpad rather than the half-sized touchpads used on most netbooks. The touchpad itself is an ALPS model with excellent sensitivity and only minor lag. The scroll zones required a bit of adjustment in our review unit, but once we increased the scroll speed everything seemed fine.

Input and Output Ports
The port selection on the Toshiba mini NB205 is pretty basic for a netbook. The NB205 includes three USB 2.0 ports, VGA out, Ethernet, microphone and headphone jacks, and a SD/SDHC media card slot. One extra little feature is that one of the three USB ports is a "Sleep and Charge" port. This allows you to charge a cell phone or MP3 player using the USB port even if the netbook is turned off. The only potential problem with this feature is that if you're running on battery power and forget to unplug an iPod you might end up with a dead netbook battery ... if you change the default settings.

Here is a quick tour around the NB205:

Front view: SD card slot, touchpad buttons and indicator lights.

Rear view: No ports ... just the hinges and battery.

Left side view: VGA out, heat vent, microphone and headphone jacks, Ethernet, and USB "Sleep and Charge" port.

Right side view: Two USB 2.0 ports, power jack, and security lock slot.

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Performance and Benchmarks
The Toshiba mini NB205 offers similar performance to most netbooks, but that shouldn't be a surprise to most of our readers. The performance section of a netbook review is generally very boring compared to a full-featured notebook because most netbook have virtually identical specs. All Intel Atom-based netbooks have nearly identical performance in terms of actual real-world use. Overall performance with the Intel Atom platform is very reasonable for daily activities like Web browsing, email, using Microsoft Office, listening to music, and watching DVD-quality movies. If you're in a bind you can even use photo editing software like Photoshop or GIMP for basic image editing.

The one and only performance-related issue that we encountered during our testing of the NB205 was related to bloatware. Toshiba decided to include some "helpful" applications for the webcam, battery monitoring, wireless controls and Norton antivirus ... all of which strain the netbook's limited resources and make the NB205 slower than it should be. While most netbooks finish booting into Windows XP (including launching all startup applications) in less than 45 seconds, the NB205 takes more than 70 seconds to finish loading all the bloatware during Windows startup.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Sony VAIO TZ (Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz)	76.240 seconds
HP Pavilion dv2 (AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 @ 1.60GHz)	103.521 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	114.749 seconds
Toshiba mini NB205 (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	115.891 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	116.030 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	116.421 seconds
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	123.281 seconds
Dell Latitude 2100 (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	124.062 seconds
Acer Aspire One (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	125.812 seconds
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (2009) (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	126.406 seconds
ASUS Eee PC T91 (Intel Atom Z520 @ 1.33GHz)	141.031 seconds
Samsung NC20 (VIA Nano ULV U2250 @ 1.30GHz)	173.968 seconds

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Sony VAIO TZ (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	2,446 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv2 (1.60GHz AMD Athlon Neo, ATI Radeon HD 3410 512MB)	2,191 PCMarks
ASUS N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,851 PCMarks
Toshiba Portege R500 (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	1,839 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,637 PCMarks
Dell Latitude 2100 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,588 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,564 PCMarks
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,555 PCMarks
Toshiba mini NB205 (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,538 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,535 PCMarks
Samsung NC20 (1.30GHz VIA Nano ULV U2250, VIA Chrome9 HC3)	1,441 PCMarks
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,437 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC T91 (1.33GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,292 PCMarks

The use of Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics is probably the only major limitation for netbooks. This integrated graphics processor (IGP) is powerful enough to handle displaying a PowerPoint presentation on a projector or watching DVD quality movies, but if 1080p video playback or video editing is your primary concern then you'll want to look elsewhere. We selected a family-friendly movie trailer and downloaded three different versions in 480p, 720p, and 1080p resolutions. We used the CCCP Codec Pack for decoding and Media Player Classic Homecinema (version 1.1.796.0) for playing all of the video files.

Video Playback Performance:

Video Resolution	CPU Usage	Playback Comments
480p	25%-35% (hyperthreading)	Plays flawlessly
720p	45%-50% (hyperthreading)	Plays flawlessly
1080p	55%-70% (hyperthreading)	Plays with severe stutter, dropped frames and audio out of sync

HDTune for the hard drive performance:

Heat and Noise
External temperatures on the NB205 are what I consider to be "lap friendly" over most of the netbook's surface. The areas near the GPU, RAM, hard drive, and Wi-Fi card showed up as obvious heat spikes, but nothing that was too hot to handle. Temperature readings taken from the outside of the plastic chassis remained mostly in the 80s and 90s.

Below are images indicating the temperature readings (listed in degrees Fahrenheit) taken inside our office where the ambient temperature was 74 degrees Fahrenheit.

The cooling fan inside the mini NB205 is louder than we like to hear from a netbook. Whenever the CPU is under stress (such as when watching a YouTube video) the cooling fan kicks on and sounds like a weak hair dryer. It's loud enough to be moderately annoying in a quiet classroom or office. Considering the abundant air vents built into the NB205, I'm a little surprised the cooling fan has to work so hard.

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Battery
The 6-cell lithium-ion battery included with the NB205 has a 5800 mAh rating and delivers excellent battery life for a netbook. Toshiba promises 9 hours of battery life, but we never managed to get quite that much out of a fully charged battery. In our test with the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and XP set to the laptop/portable power profile the system stayed on for 7 hours and 38 minutes of constant use. This isn't as high as some of the latest ASUS Eee PC netbooks, but the Toshiba NB205 should have more than enough juice to get you through a full day of web browsing and email.

Conclusion
The new Toshiba mini NB205 is an attractive netbook that offers a fantastic touchpad, large keyboard, and easy access for upgrades. The battery life of the NB205 is among the best in class and should get you through a full day at school or the office. At a price of just $400 this might be a popular netbook for the back-to-school season.

Still, despite these nice features, it's hard to overlook the flex and sound of weak plastics, the extremely flexible keyboard, and the weak speakers. Most netbooks have surprisingly firm keyboards, so we're more than a little disappointed that the keyboard on the NB205 practically "bounces" while you type on it. Most netbooks don't have particularly great speakers, but listening to music or online videos wasn't fun on the NB205. If you're looking for a good netbook for $400 or less the Toshiba mini NB205 deserves a close look, but there are many alternatives to consider in this price range.

Pros:

• Easy access for upgrades
• Large touchpad
• Good battery life

Cons:

• Weak plastic construction
• Severe keyboard flex
• Unimpressive speakers

Related Articles:

• Toshiba Announces mini NB205 netbook

 

I have experienced some Toshibas in the past mainly found on Satellites' lineup. At first, I dont think this series exhibits keyboard flex / 'bounce' as it indeed looks very fantastic. I went to the nearest brick and mortar store to look at it. I might say at first sight, elegant tiled key and made me try start typing. By just pressing the space bar key, I was very disappointed, it really bounces. Precisely, in my opinion it's kinda 'half-bounce' on almost all keys pressed.
I have read some reviewers said the NB205 has best of its class keyboard, but I think it's very wise to go to the store and try by yourself so that you could feel what I mean 'half-bouncing'.
For me, the HP Mini still offers the best keyboard on netbooks family.

 

I have a R10 and it has major keyboard flex

But about the netbook I really dont see anything revolutionary.

 

I have the NB205, and I find the keyboard to be just fine, bouncy-ness and all. But I did spend 20 minutes banging on the keys at best buy and getting a feel for them.

Regarding some of the bloatware, any suggestions on disabling or removing some of it? I already nuked Norton and installed FreeAVG...I'm sadly kind of a newbie to XP, my main computer is a mac. I will say the Toshiba is significantly faster than I expected, and matches my aging macbook (or exceeds it) at rendering webpages quickly.

 

I too have the NB205 and I don't have any issues with the keyboard - the keys are a little small but that is to be expected. The battery on mine has just a slight amount of play on one side - other than that I am very happy with it. One last thing - I thought I had a defective battery or mobo - but a kind poster on Toshiba board pointed out that the USB Sleep-and-Charge will drain the battery if left on.

 

As far as I know, the only differences between the 349 dollar NB205 and the 399 dollar one are the color and the keyboard. The cheaper one features a standard keyboard vs. the chiclet version in this review.

 

I actually like the keyboard. I feel it's easy to type on. After typing on this, it felt so awkward typing on a desktop keyboard or a larger notebook keyboard.

I didn't pay attention to the flex. I hope it's not a big problem for me.

I will agree that it is rather loud and the bottom gets very hot.

As for the speakers, maybe I can't tell the difference, but most of the time, the speakers are fine on 50%. Maybe watching a movie will be different. I'll be using headphones anyways.

 

I also own a Toshiba nb205 and after reading the review i pressed on the keyboard and there IS a lot of flex. That aside, i think it's fine because it's not very noticeable unless you really pay attention to it. I also really like the keyboard and after typing on it (i'm typing on it now), it's really hard to go back to other keyboards.

 

What does this Toshiba bring to the table that an eee PC 1000HA doesn't (with a chiclet keyboard) -- at a substantially lower price?

Put me in the 'not impressed' column. No new ground has been broken in the now very competitive netbook genre, and machines costing up to $75 less offer the same or better features.

 

mutliple pages for a review = fail. why NBR, why?

 

Nothing special....and its got a ridiculously THICK screen bezel..what where they thinking?

 

I own one. And half the faults the review included I didn't even notice until I read it. I use to own a 1005ha-p and I prefer the toshiba much more. Thos review seemed a little bias

 

Dang...cute little thing; nearly as cute as my 1000HE.

 

I tried one of these in a Best Buy about a week before this review came out and I was also surprised by the keyboard flex and the general flimsiness of the netbook's build.

A pity ... b/c it certainly looks very nice!

Still ... I am more than happy with my EeePC 1000HA (chiclet keyboard) ... it really is a wonderful machine.

 

My sentiments exactly.

I've been looking hard for a replacement for my HE. At this point, I'm not seeing anything out there that's worth the trouble of changing machines.

 

I agree the review seemed biased against the nb205. I owned both the 1000HE and the NB205 and the keyboard on the NB205 is light-years ahead of the 1000HE. You can actually type normal on the NB205 (like you don't have to adjust every time you switch between the two) because it is full size. The keyboard does have flex if you put TONS of pressure on it (more than you ever normally would), but if you put a regular amount of pressure, you'll never find that the keyboard flexes. I also don't find the keyboard any more "bouncy" than any other keyboard.

Also... I agree, what's up with the 5 pages of each review? I liked it much better when it was all on one page.

Sorry for the poor attitude... I just don't think that the review represented the NB205's strengths fairly.

P.S. I think the speaker is actually a lot worse than the reviewer described....

 

That is exactly what I have to say about the keyboard! As far as the bias of the review goes, we've clearly got here a sad case. Any other netbook review you read on this site more or less goes like this "...the keyboard feels cramped, but it will be more than enough for everyday surfing" or "the touchpad is small, but that's what you should expect from a netbook". Generally reviewers tend to 'defend' the product, and that is OK. But, that's not the case with the NB205 review. Example "...the sleep-and-charges is good, but..." and then reviewer brings up some truly stupid example of how it is bad (something about charging draining up your netbook's battery, Jeez – oh, really…I thought it could charge my ipod and retain its power ..stupid!).
As for my remarks to the review and hints for potential customers:
- the system is relatively COLD - if you compare it to most of other netbooks - it's freezin'.
- the system is fanless (I don't know what the reviewer was smokin' during the test).
- the keyboard and the touchpad - like the above quoted post reads - it's light years away from anything asus makes.
- the display is of excellent visual quality compared to other netbooks (strangely, there's nothing about that in the review, only some stupid remarks about angles, silly).
- the sleep-and-charge is no gimmick, you’ll appreciate it. The hd protection feature that protects your hd when you drop your netbook, or start to swing it, is also very nice).
- the build quality is excellent - as far as the “creaking noises” it makes when squeezed hard, well, thinkpads do it to, and you can make damn sure all the asuses and hps as well.
That's it from me - I'm outta here - if you want an unbiased review, look elsewhere.

 

I couldn't see where the review states if the display is glossy or matte.

Regarding the Sleep and Charge, on my Dell E6400 I need to to remove /replace anything in that port after turning the computer off in order to restart the charging. I was puzzled to begin with, but this removes the risk of some connected device unintentionally depleting the battery.

John

 

I guess they forgot. It's glossy.

Why?

I saw the display, while it was ok it did not look like anything special to me. Professional reviews seem to confirm this:
http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Toshiba-NB-200-113-Netbook.17835.0.html
Infos
Maximal: 192.3 cd/m²
Durchschnitt: 180.9 cd/m²
Ausleuchtung: 87 %
Schwarzwert: 1.0 cd/m²
Kontrast: 192:1

Conclusion: Average brightness and OK contrast. Netbooks like Samsung NC10 and Asus 1000HE have much higher contrast.

 

You do realize that you don't have to view the review in separate pages, don't you?

You can always just read the review in the thread... you know... the one you're posting in.

 

No its not. There is a fan, its just really quiet.

 

I've been using the European/Asian equivalent of this netbook, the NB200, for 4 weeks while travelling SE Asia and have found it excellent. The screen is plenty bright and emits little glare, adequate for outdoor usage (not, of course, in direct sunlight). The keyboard is fantastic and I don't notice any flex. The trackpad is large with excellent sensitivity once settings were adjusted. As for build quality, feels plenty solid and has held up fine - probably not as much as my Thinkpad (T61), but I don't plan on stepping on it. The fan is generally silent, except when the CPU is working hard, at which times the fan is clearly audible, but that rarely occurs for me - tabbed web-browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, viewing photos. I sometimes experience lag, which I suspect results when XP is busy behind the scenes. Haven't really played with software yet apart from loading Ubuntu from an SD card, which loaded fine, though will require some minor tinkering to enable the wireless. My only complaint is the underpowered speaker, usable only in a quiet room. Wish the screen were matte, but it hasn't been an issue as of yet. Overall I'm very satisfied with this machine, which is my first netbook and seems to fill my ultra-portable needs. I probably would've picked up a Thinkpad X200 were I back in Canada, but as the prices of Thinkpads in this part of the world are exorbitant and I won't be back for about a year, I think this should fill the gap for the time being. I compared several other models (a few Asus, HPs, Samsungs, Lenovos and Acers) but found the NB200 came out on top with superior keyboard, trackpad and screen.

 

i purchased nb200 based on the review by laptopmag.com it even won the Editor's choice. But based on my experience, build quality was bit disappointing, gap between bezels, noisy fan, bottom gets extremely hot. i ended up returning mine due to *defective*. Regarding keyboard, i did not like it. It had weird flex which is hard to describe. (but that is just my preference).