Toshiba NB100 Netbook

My main aim was to find one of the smallest netooks I could and I compared about eight on display in two stores. While a couple had much more usable keyboards with full size keys, this made the machine wider. I also wanted to avoid screens with large surrounds and lower resolutions.

I think this was a good compromise on specification and size and price. It can currently be picked up in store at Staples for £272 and although not advertised in store, Toshiba are offering £30 cash-back on this machine if purchased in January 09 – making it come in at £242 inclusive.

The keyboard is small! almost too small and will take some getting used to. It’s mainly going to be used for browsing and transferring images from my SLR to the 120GB hard drive and uploading to flickr when out in the caravan over 3G. All this will mainly be done using a USB mini mouse with limited keyboard use.

There is a choice of three outer ‘shiny’ colours, but the inside is black and is nothing to get excited about design wise. It has a business feel and seems to be well constructed as you might expect from Toshiba. The battery protrudes from the back which is slightly odd, but the overall form factor is still smaller and the whole machine weighs in at under 1KG.

I’ve installed Google Chrome and it runs like lightning. Although it runs full Windows XP, I don’t think I’ll be installing too much extra apart from the flickr uploader and tweetdeck! It’s nice to think I could run movies from the hard drive or SD card with the power it packs and the screen really is bright and very crisp.

So far I’m really happy with my choice (it took a while to decide!) and will post an update after more usage. If anyone has any questions, please leave a comment below.