Toshiba Mini NB255-N245 10.1-Inch Black Onyx Netbook (8 Hour Battery Life)

5 Responses to “Toshiba Mini NB255-N245 10.1-Inch Black Onyx Netbook (8 Hour Battery Life)”

Sam Says:
24. July 2010 at 6:12 am
Review by Sam for Toshiba Mini NB255-N245 10.1-Inch Black Onyx Netbook (8 Hour Battery Life)
Rating:
I’ve never really used a PC for more than a few minutes at a time at a friend’s house. I’ve been a Mac guy since 1992 when I began college and first got into graphic design. I have always hated Windows and I have always thought non-Macs felt like cheap junk, the interface always seemed difficult and clunky whether it was Windows 95 or XP. I have only tested Vista and 7 in the stores until I finally bought the bullet and just decided to get this little netbook… because, let’s face it, Apple dropped the ball with that iPad crap.

Well, I’ve only had this thing for 3 days and it didn’t take long to get used to. Some helpful people online told me which freeware to get to remove the extraneous crap Best Buy had installed on the machine and apparently I’m good to go with a couple free Antivirus programs. I probably won’t be downloading any .exe or .zip files from warez, porn or music stealing sites on this thing just because I wouldn’t really want to risk it; I’ll do that on my mac. Not that I do that sort of thing.

I’m not sure what this is really good for. I have a text editor now so I can do some HTML/CSS/PHP in a pinch, but I’m not sure I’ll ever really need to. Believe it or not, I pretty much got it just to test websites on the fly with IE8… since I do web design for a living, it just becomes inconvenient to always rely on browsershots, when I can check back and forth with my little buddy and see what’s fugged up in Intercrap Exploder. It works for that just fine. The portability is an added bonus! And the price is right!

For people who want to write their novel in Starbucks or people who waste money on this sort of crap purely to surf the net, this would be a great choice! I’ll be taking this on long trips for instant access to Google maps if I need it. For others like me who are not iPhone/Blackberry crazy, this is also useful for that kind of thing.

Youtube, Facebook, and pretty much any website I’ve tried (including some rather large ones I designed myself) look excellent on this thing. Fit on the screen well and not so small that it’s hard to read. This is a great little thing to watch videos on when you’re stuck somewhere without a tv, too… unlike an iPhone, which is painfully small to watch anything on for more than 3 minutes.

Keyboard is quality. Not junky feeling like most other PCs I’ve touched. Compared to the Acer, Dell and HP netbooks I’ve played with in the store, this thing feels like a Rolls Royce or something. Nice, solid little machine.

On a broadband wifi, it’s as fast as you could ever want or need.

Toshibas don’t come with a lot of bloatware, either. I only had to delete the Best Buy marketplace software and Norton Utilities.

Great battery life, great monitor brightness, color and clarity, Windows 7 is awesome!

All in all, a great purchase. Very satisfied.
C. Lee Says:
24. July 2010 at 6:32 am
Review by C. Lee for Toshiba Mini NB255-N245 10.1-Inch Black Onyx Netbook (8 Hour Battery Life)
Rating:
Let’s get real here. Netbooks ARE NOT replacements for those of you folks who should be shopping for a NOTEBOOK. Having owned at least 4 Toshiba notebooks in the past and currently on my first Sony notebook, I’d expect those machines to do the heavy lifting… serious Photoshopping, DV editing, CAD modelling, rendering, moderate gaming, etc. It’d be irresponsible to ding netbooks on how inadequate they are at these tasks. With this in mind, the Toshiba NB305-N440 fills a very helpful role for those of you who already have a full-fledged notebook or desktop chugging away in the background.

The Toshiba netbook’s 3lb weight and size makes it incredibly portable, handleable, and stowable. Grab it single-handedly at the palmrest, grab it at the hinges, or scoop it up from underneath; it’s construction feels sturdy and solid where you don’t have to worry about something falling off from this kind of abuse. For you existing notebook users, ever feel like you’re devoting 80% of your backpack to carrying around that bohemoth… or how about trying to use a 15″ screen on the dining tray in the cattle-section of an economy flight? ESPECIALLY when you’re just using it to compose a few paragraphs for a meeting, class, or email rant? The NB305 netbook remedies this exactly. The 10.1″ screen can be comfortably angled away from you even when the passenger in front decides to stay reclined throughout the flight. Size and weight. Advantage? Netbook.

Unlike other netbooks, Toshiba’s NB305 has a design that accomodates a 6-cell battery as standard. No outrageous goofy protrusion as in HP and Sony’s extra-cost offering. With the lid closed, the whole package remains as svelte and stowable as lesser competitors with their 3-cell designs. And BECAUSE the Toshiba NB305 has a 6-cell Li-Ion as standard, real-world usage equates to a 5-7 hour run-time with the brightness set at max while pounding away at tasks that make the hard drive thrash around. Coming from a decade of using 2-hour notebooks, its amazing to be away from an AC outlet for that long.

How about useability for a 1.66ghz machine? With the Microsoft-imposed configuration of 1gig RAM, I had my doubts about Windows 7 Starter edition. It turns out the NB305-N440 boots into the desktop in a reasonable amount of time and simple websurfing, emailing chores are handled without issue. Sites that make use of Flash like Hulu, Youtube, and a myriad of other flash-navigation stuff is very surfable on this netbook. The VGA webcam offers adequate resolution and has a wide enough capture angle to make this netbook suitable for video Skyping. Where it falls short is the speaker volume. This is pandemic of all netbooks. When in the boundaries of your personal space, the dinky speakers are barely audible enough for a conversation in all but the emptiest of coffee shops. Those of you hoping to give one of these to grandma as a dedicated Skype device should hope grandma doesn’t mind wearing headphones. No issues with the netbook’s mic as the other party will hear you fine. Did this netbook slow down? Eventually. By the time I had Skype fired up, two tabs in IE8 loaded on sizeable pages and a THIRD tab buffering a show on Hulu, the 1gig ram had to swap stuff into the hard drive. Bumping up to 2gigs DDR3 RAM would help, but you’ll have to yank out the existing one.

At first unboxing, the Toshiba NB305-N440′s brightness is set midway; passable, but not something I’d want to scowl at for more than an hour. Crank up the brightness settings and the Toshiba’s efficient LED backlit screen shows itself to be very crisp, very readable, quite bright. The next several hours was spent installing personal stuff, Win7 updates (224megs), and removing the thankfully small amount of Toshiba bloatware. All that time the bright screen was legible and comfy on the eyes. Even after Windows Update did everything it wanted, the netbook still booted up in the same 40-ish second span. That’s kinda impressive considering they’re still using a non-SSD traditional hard drive. Part of this can be attributed to the reduced amount of OS baggage in Windows 7 Starter edition. On that note, there was hardly anything I missed in this OS-lite. Can’t change the wallpaper? No big deal. The only plausible nit here is that Win7 Starter lacks multiple user accounts… so those hoping to lock things down and hand it to their tots might have to upgrade beyond “Starter Edition”.

The heat vent on the left side emitted therms about the equivalent of holding your hand up near a fluorescent desklamp. It’s there, but in no way bothersome.

While Senor Jobs positions his iPad to be a “consumption” device, there are those of us who wish to stay productive and the reason for a netbook’s existence is to sport that keyboard. The Toshiba NB305 netbooks don’t disappoint here. Touch-typists will appreciate chicklet keys that feel as nicely spaced as all the other keyboards they’ve worked on. Toshiba saved space by narrowing the traditionally long caps-lock, shift, and enter keys. The touchpad is nice too… full-size just like most big-boy notebooks. Possibly the biggest of ANY netbook. Dedicated left and right buttons are in the appropriate expected spot.

The last and most prominent nit is that the NB305 lacks built-in Bluetooth. Bluetooth would allow the Toshiba netbook to simultaneously control a mouse, feed a wireless headset, and transfer files between your smartphone. Being internal, it wouldn’t eat up a USB slot. Alas, neither the preconfigured units or ToshibaDirect offers internal Bluetooth in their netbooks. (Oddly, the Bluetooth SOFTWARE stack is already installed) The only recourse is their low-profile USB Bluetooth 2.1 dongle. Speaking of USB, one of the three slots on this netbook offers power even when the machine is off. This means only having to carry a USB charge cable for your phone instead of a larger dedicated wallwart when travelling lite.

This leaves the last de rigueur issue, High Definition. It’s seems the rage to pair up HD with netbooks nowadays. I’m one of the biggest HD snobs out there, but after using a netbook for several hours, forcing HD into a netbook form factor is just pointless… moreso when it only serves to kill the battery life with its high CPU/GPU requirement and the high-capacity battery requirement itself. Being able to stay productive for a 6-hour stretch on a Toshiba netbook trumps the notion of hunching over a 10″ screen squinting at a “high definition” file for two hours. If I’m missing a show, I’m willing to “settle” for a 480P stream from Hulu on a Toshiba NB305-N440 rather than give up two thirds the amount of battery life in some of these HD netbooks. Need a portable high-definition playback machine? Get a full-fledged notebook; full-HD widescreen, larger/louder speakers, blu-ray drive. I suggest this from first-hand experience.

Need to be productive while staying highly mobile? This Toshiba NB305-N440 is appropriate for THAT task. I can’t really ding it for lack of internal Bluetooth now that Toshiba offers their low-profile dongle. Yes it takes up a precious USB port, but it’ll make up for it by its versatility in handling a (Bluetooth) mouse, headset, smartphone, pen tablet, etc. The streamlined 6-cell battery and other forward-thinking features like LED backlight, USB charging, diminuitive AC adapter, and draft-N WiFi makes this a well-focused netbook. In its pricepoint, the NB305-N440 netbook offers a great degree of functionality out-of-the-box, exudes a good amount of sturdiness, comes with a 3 year warranty, and is born from a company that’s been into mobile computing for nearly two decades now.
Abekawamochi Says:
24. July 2010 at 6:57 am
Review by Abekawamochi for Toshiba Mini NB255-N245 10.1-Inch Black Onyx Netbook (8 Hour Battery Life)
Rating:
This is on NB255-N245.

I am returning mine, which I have never done.

Given her good reputation, I don’t want think this product represents the Toshiba quality and assume I got a lemon. This is the reason I gave 2 stars instead of 1.

The problems I have are;

1. Fn key suddenly stops working and I have to reboot the unit each time.

It looks that F8 + Fn, on/off of WiFi, often triggers this but not always.

2. Short battery life. With power saver mode on and other saving measures such as half-dimmed screen, no external device attached and frequently turned-off WiFi, I get only about 5 hours at max.

The claimed is “up to 8.3″ hours.

– I am using this mostly for internet and word processing, no heavy stuff.

3. Although not always, Skype doesn’t work properly.

– I can hear but not be heard. The “check setting” message of Skype says my computer is too slow to make a call.

Away from my specific problems, this is my take on this netbook.

My expectation on netbook are:

1. Long battery life, at the least 6 hours with reasonable work load.

2. Capability to handle web surfing, MS Word and Skype.

3. Small size and light weight since I travel a lot.

4. Low price.

I chose this Toshiba due to the following facts:

1. Lower price tag: ~ $300.

2. New products: Thought accumulated experience makes a better product…

2. New CPU, N455: I know practically same as N450 but doesn’t hurt.

3. Wireless-N.

4. Great brand name.

No complaints about the speed of the CPU, Windows 7 starter, small screen, 1G RAM and the lack of recovery disc, which are granted in the first place.

Pro’s:

1. Keyboard is full size and feels big.

2. Probably, USB Sleep and Charge, although I never used it since I cannot afford to divert any power from the unit.

3. Price.

4. All the nice things generally applicable to netbook such as small, light, ….

Con’s:

1. Battery life.

– Mine is not satisfactory but, to be fair, I saw a review at Netegg claiming 9 – 10 hours(!!).

2. Hard to read icons on the hotkeys.

– They are small and in dark gray on black keys. It is hard for me but maybe not for other people. You can enlarge one of the pictures and check it.

3. Protruding battery pack.

– I knew it and thought it a trivial. But after carrying the unit everyday, I found it is very annoying and it also makes the unit bigger than other netbooks. When thinking of the extra stress applied to the two connecting points and the fact this is a battery, it is a bit concerning for me.

Although this doesn’t bother me, maybe applicable to some people.

4. Built is very cheap and feels very cheap.

Basically a mass of cheap black plastic. If you are a kind of person who puts a cover on your Blackberry or iPhone, this is not for you, definitely. I kind of like this “in-your-face” attitude, refreshing.

Although I never planned to expand to 2G, one of the reviews here says it is not upgradable.

If this is the case, I see very few reason why people buy this netbook at the price tag of about $300 or even 250.
L. Santos Says:
24. July 2010 at 7:21 am
Review by L. Santos for Toshiba Mini NB255-N245 10.1-Inch Black Onyx Netbook (8 Hour Battery Life)
Rating:
I bought a Toshiba laptop and to my surprise the touchpad did not work properly from day one. After hours on the phone explaining the problem and doing a thousand procedures I had to ship it to Toshiba. The problem is that they lost my computer and they don’t do anything to solve the problem. I have called them more than 30 times already and they have been unwilling to help me. I will never buy a Toshiba again and I suggest you do the same.
Weagle Says:
24. July 2010 at 7:53 am
Review by Weagle for Toshiba Mini NB255-N245 10.1-Inch Black Onyx Netbook (8 Hour Battery Life)
Rating:
Count me in as one who is disappointed.

I did my research and bought the laptop and recommended memory for the upgrade on the same day (about a week ago now – NB305440BL) and attempted the install, got frustrated at the 2nd install attempt, and finally returned the memory.

Got on the Toshiba website and found that this laptop does NOT support DDR3 as advertised. They anticipate being able to support it in late September 2010.

Not a great way to start out with a new product. This is my first Toshiba product since my portable cassette player in 1988. I’ve always had Sony VAIOs (in fact my laptop is still a VAIO), but thought the battery life of this product would be worth a try. I originally was going to set mine up, then buy a white one for my wife…but I’ve decided to get her a Sony VAIO P Series. At least I know that Sony stands behind their products and releases specs that are to be believed.

I find it hard to believe Toshiba didn’t finish their homework when designing this, writing out the specs, printing the manuals, building the webpages, etc.

Other than that, the laptop has poor sound quality (which is documented with the other NB305s), and comes with Windows 7 Starter. If you aren’t familiar with Starter, it is crippled in the hopes you will spend $79 to upgrade to restore features you had in Windows 3.0 (like changing your background).

Overall: Disappointed.