The netbook market is saturated, with nearly every laptop maker offering its own troupe of ultra-portable machines. Toshiba's 10.1-inch NB305 is one of the better examples. It's available now for around £320.
Sleek, svelte, sturdy
The first thing to note about the NB305 is that it's sleeker than its predecessor, the NB200, thanks to a smaller motherboard and Intel's diminutive Atom N450 processor. The six-cell battery doesn't stick out from the back like a sore thumb, so it doesn't ruin the effect of the machine's svelte dimensions.
The 10.1-inch chassis weighs only 1.3kg and sports one of the best keyboards we've seen on a netbook. It runs almost all the way from the left edge of the machine to the right. There's space between the keys, and we managed to type without accidentally hitting the wrong buttons, which makes a pleasing change from the norm.
The NB305 is generally beautifully designed. The silver casing looks great combined with the grooved, metallic-brown lid. This netbook is sure to get noticed by envious road warriors when you take it out and about.
The NB305 is also pleasingly sturdy -- nothing feels like it will snap off in your hand. In fact, the NB305 feels like it would survive a nuclear war, and, surprisingly, it doesn't seem to pay the price for this in terms of increased weight and size.
The only thing we don't like about this machine's design is the presence of nine embedded function lights on the front edge. It feels like overkill.
Specs addict
The NB305 offers typical netbook specs and features, including Intel's next-gen, 1.66GHz Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of memory (you can upgrade this to 2GB), and a 250GB SATA hard drive. It also packs a modest Intel GMA 3150 graphics card, and the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Starter.
The NB305's 1,024x600-pixel screen falls short of offering a HD Ready resolution. It's still decent though, as it's not too reflective and colours look good.
No performance surprises
The NB305's performance is pretty much par for the netbook course. It achieved a PCMark05 benchmark score of 1,272 and a predictably rubbish 3DMark06 score of 156. That means it's suitable for basic tasks like checking emails, surfing the Web and editing documents, but playing the latest 3D games is out of the question.
Toshiba says the NB305's battery will last for around 11 hours before it needs recharging. In Battery Eater's Classic test, which runs the CPU at full tilt until the battery dies, the NB305 lasted for around 5 hours and 51 minutes. That's an impressive figure, and you can expect it to last even longer under normal usage conditions.
Conclusion
The NB305 is a worthy addition to Toshiba's netbook range. Its performance won't shatter your brain into a thousand pieces, but this machine is robust and comfortable to use, while also offering good battery life. Factor in the chic design, and it's a decent all-round package.
Edited by Charles Kloet
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User reviews4
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Lockwood0503 15 June 2012
Good: Hardware for it's time was good and the battery life is great. Looks good too.
Bad: The good is outweighed by the laggy performance of Windows 7 Starter. Also had problems with the sound playback, typing lag not to mention it's loaded with Toshiba bloat ware.
Comment: While the machine itself is better than my first netbook, it falls short in performance with Windows 7 Starter. Being unable to customise my background was something I thought I wouldn't mind as long as it's performance isn't hindered too much. Lets start with a few things:
General Performance:
This machine can run games such as Aion and the rumours of Starter limiting the number of open programs isn't true. However you should expect 0-5 fps for Aion and the inflexible OS makes it annoying to work with.
As a Toshiba machine, it comes with the bloat-ware that is usually helpful. Unfortunately not a fan of their 'flashcards' for the Fn allocations, most of the time they don't even appear so when you want to turn off/on that wireless it may be due to lady luck. However the problem is resolved with a system restart... every so often.
General Image:
Like the keyboard design, if only the thing actually kept up. Also like how its a different look from most netbooks available.
Audio:
My phone plays audio better than this. Albeit not as high a quality but at the same time at least I won't get an unexplained skip (this was done with Windows Media Player, Grooveshark is worse - depending on network conditions).
Display:
The display is ok, kind of was taken aback with the other issues. If you want to read pdfs, the 10" really does make note of being small on a plane with some kid kicking your seat for 20 odd hours.
Battery Life:
Pretty awesome battery life, after sacrificing so much potential productivity... but you'll have about 7-8+ hours with it. But kinda does come down to the fact that its not looking to be used very intensively and requires the power saver settings.
Overall:
I bought it since I didn't want to take my irreplaceable pcs on travel, but is very portable and does ... good for general internet browsing.
upulpriyan 13 March 2012
Bad: CAN'T PLAY GAMES, AS A EXAMPLE, NFS 6, IGI 1
Comment: CAN i play games in my mini tohiba nb 305. if can, what i do for it. I'm installed all drivers correctly.
i want to play nfs 6, igi 1 and age of empair 2,
but its not working, but smallast game are working,
Matt Staunton 13 February 2011
Good: performance and battery life
Bad: keys stick
Comment: best balance for me the keys sometimes stick and letters get left out but other than that its the best.
See all 4 user reviews