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Toshiba Satellite NB100 Netbook - Exclusive Hands-on
| Author | Andy Vandervell |
| Published | 15th Oct 2008 |
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TrustedReviews NewslettersLooking around the machine, Toshiba has put the Ethernet, power and VGA ports on the back of the machine. This isn't something we've seen on any netbooks as yet and they're definitely welcome additions, since if you do want to use the machine sitting at a desk, you don't have wires sprouting in all sorts of directions.
Inside there are a few nice touches. For instance, all the status lights are grouped directly below the touchpad. This we found to be rather intuitive, since they're instantly in your peripheral vision. As for the touchpad itself, for such a small machine it's very nicely proportioned and Toshiba has chosen to make the left click button slightly larger than the right one. Again this is a nice touch given you use the left click for more often than the right.
We're not, however, so confident about the keyboard. It has a distinctly Eee PC-like look and feel and since plenty of people have been less than enamoured with those, the NB100 could be an acquired taste. In fact, at first glance it's difficult to distinguish the two since both shares a very similar basic layout. Its right Shift key is, for instance, small and placed to the right of cursor keys while the Enter key is similarly rather small as well. And, though subjectively the keys might be slightly larger than those on the Eee PC 901, Toshiba hasn't gone the Dell route of removing certain rows of keys to allow for significantly taller keys.
Another feature of import is the screen. It is, of course, a 1,024 x 600 affair but it also has a glossy high-contrast finish, rather than the anti-glare ones we've become accustomed to seeing. This is always going to divide opinion, as it has done on the new Macbooks that were announced yesterday. For us we did find this worked pretty well on the Dell Inspiron Mini 9, but we also live in a country that's cloudy a large majority of the time so your mileage will vary.
As is often the case now, the Satellite NB100 will come in both Linux and Windows XP flavours - as reflected in the presence of a Windows key. We're happy to report, too, that the Linux versions will utilise the excellent Ubuntu Netbook Remix. This, we feel, is by far and away the best adaptation of Linux for netbooks and unlike Windows XP is very well optimised for the 1,024 x 600 screen resolution. If you're thinking of dipping your toe into Linux for the first time it's probably the best platform and environment to do it in, so Toshiba has made the right move in using it here.
Power will be provided, as standard, by a four-cell battery of as yet unknown capacity. Given the design of the machine, with the battery sticking slightly out of the back, it should be pretty easy to integrate larger extended batteries. Unfortunately, given the machine will use regular hard drives, battery life might not be quite as long as the Inspiron Mini 9, but on the plus side the NB100 is also passively cooled, so has no fan. This will mean a near silent machine, the only potential noise coming from the hard drives.
Pricing, as ever, is going to be vital in the success of Toshiba's netbook, but as noted earlier it's mooted to be very competitive indeed. Thus, if you want a no frills netbook at a no frills price, the Satellite NB100 could be a very good option. We'll be able to confirm this later this month when we get our hands on a retail sample. Until then, you can enjoy more product shots on the following page.
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Dark of Day said on 15th October 2008
Laurence said on 14th March 2009
Toshiba NB100 Review Netbook
Question?
Netbooks are incapable of running full Operating Systems right? And require a cut down/lite OS like Ubuntu or XP.
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Is anyone else feeling as over the netbook buzz as I am?
..or noticed how silly grown men look using them?