Tosiba NB 205-330

By Helmut Rauch (Fort Myers, FL)

This review is for: Toshiba NB205 mini N330BN

I got the Toshiba netbook two weeks ago. Needless to say, I spent some time at the facility for my tastes. This is my first Windows 7 PC. I found that Windows 7 has some limitations with background settings, etc. I also noticed that the nice Windows Mail program (from Vista) no longer was available. Now I'm using GMAIL. ANOTHER CON: The speakers sound anemic and I needed headphones to really enjoy music.

I especially liked the keyboard. I have the swivel in a very short time and was able to type e-mails and Word documents with almost the same speed as the full-size keyboard on my desktop. After about a day I had convinced myself that NB was 205 with 1 GB of memory is quite slow. So I ordered the 2 GB of extra storage from Amazon. After replacing the 1 GB with 2GB, I found that the speed and reaction time picked up remarkably. I scored even higher speed and reaction times, when I inserted a 4GB high speed SD card into the empty slot and activates the Speed Booster. (Available in Vista and W7) It uses the faster flash memory instead of paging to the slower hard disk. From now on this little netbook computer is only 6 GB and my HP desktop with Vista and a 2.4 MHz processor. I like his looks, small size, the keyboard, the speed. A whole package.

The display is sharp and clear. Battery life - excellent. I used the NB 205 for eight hours on the battery and never missed a beat. Wireless transmission seems to work fine.