There are netbooks that have a curvy, kid-friendly look. Others are sleek and shiny - every one aimed at adults. Then there are blocky, serious looking ones, carved with no concession to consumer levity and fluff because the manufacturer reckons that's what businesspeople want. Toshiba NB100 Toshiba's NB100: boxy, 'serious' …

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Friday 16th January 2009 14:50 GMT uhuznaa

Tilting back...

The NB100 has one major feature that is lacking elsewhere: You can tilt the display back flat, a full 180 degrees. The Eee's are a bit more limited here (but it's enough in most cases).

Look at the Dell Mini 9 for a really bad example. You can't get the display back far enough to actually look at it when sitting upright in a cramped space like an airplane or a train and having it on your lap. Unusable in many cases except having it sitting on a desk.

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Friday 16th January 2009 14:50 GMT Patrick

Had one got rid

I had the XP version for about 1 week and took it back to the shop. The screen has a problem on it. the very lightest touch around any part of the bezel would cause the screen to ripple as if you was pressing the screen direct. on all the other branded netbooks I found they did not have this problem, toshiba have not left a small gap between the bezel and screen like the ee pc etc have.

So everytime I touched it to open and close it, It made the screen ripple.

I got toshiba as I have always liked there brand, but this netbook is slow and takes an age even to load something simple like a ebay seach.

All of the toshiba models i have tested have the same screen problem. I was always told you should never apply pressure to any lcd screen.

anyways took if back and got a acer pc and then went and got myself a secondhand Dell d400 now from local shop. little bit bigger but loads more power and its got external dvd rom too. for £180

apart from the screen issues and the atom but rubbish it was a very nice welmade netbook.

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Friday 16th January 2009 14:52 GMT Ian McNee

Linux used to subsidise Windoze *AGAIN*

I've had my hands on one of these and and as Tony says it's a solid little machine. However Toshiba have pulled the same trick as some other netbook makers and offered a lower spec machine on it's Linux offering and no significant saving. Indeed if you're quick you even get £30 cashback on the Windoze model!

What gives? Surely M$ aren't supplying OEM licenses of XP for virtually nothing because they're running scared of the popularity of Linux on netbooks! Ballmer and co. would never adopt such monopolistic, anti-competetive practices!

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Friday 16th January 2009 14:52 GMT Torben Mogensen

Yawn

Another 1024x600 screen netbook. Call me when the resolution gets higher, without the price also taking a serious hike (like with the new Sony). Or when you can get one with this resolution for less than 150 quid.

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Friday 16th January 2009 16:19 GMT Anonymous Coward

Torben, here's one for exactly £150

Asda is now selling the Acer Aspire One A150, Linux, blue, for £150 (reduced from £198) and it's a national offer. I bought one this morning. Most of them (including mine) also have 160GB disks in them, rather than the 120GB advertised.

Seeing that the differences in spec between the Windows and Linux models of the Toshiba are trivial in terms of money (witness "free disk upgrade" on the Acer), I can only conclude that they are there at Microsoft's insistence to make a direct comparison impossible, thereby hiding the Windows Tax.

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Friday 16th January 2009 16:48 GMT Anonymous Coward

Hmm....

...so I get the Windows one, refuse the EULA, install Linux distro of choice and get my refund; ending up with a decent spec Linux netbook. Nice.

But why hamstring the Linux netbook in the first place? I wonder how much MS bunged Tosh to NOT release the Linux one on equal hardware and thus show how lardy Windows is.

As for the £30 for the lower spec Linux one...pfft....not worth it; see above.

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Friday 16th January 2009 16:48 GMT paul

@Torben

Totally agree - screen resolution is very important - more so than most other factors.

I got myself an HP 2133 netbook with 1280x800 for £200 running suse linux (now it runs ubuntu v well) - the vista edition was £400 (ebuyer)

NC10 screen is 1024x600 unless Im mistaken.

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Friday 16th January 2009 16:48 GMT Gareth

How big?

Thanks for the review, and could we get a real world picture of these devices on your desk or something? Every pic in the review was *just* the machine. The only way to get some sense of scale is to look at the video port & try to extrapolate..

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Friday 16th January 2009 17:11 GMT Anonymous Coward

Refusing the EULA?

Oh yeah, great in theory - almost impossible in practice. Wonderful if you manage it (like the handful who have), but if you're doing it to save £30 then don't bother - several years off your life expectancy for the stress is worth more than that.

Of course M$ could be hiding the cost of the Windows Tax not to show how large it is but to show how SMALL it is, which would strengthen accusations about unfair subsidies to maintain a monopoly position.

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Friday 16th January 2009 17:31 GMT Mark Fraser

Ubuntu version

I've had the Ubuntu version of this laptop for about a month now and really like it. Not that keen on Evolution as it doesn't seem to be as configurable as KMail which I could install, but don't fancy installing a load of KDE dependencies.

It would've been nice for Tosh to have kept the same specs for the two different machines, but you can't have everything. Did try emailing to ask if they would refund for the unused XP licence, but never got a reply.

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Friday 16th January 2009 19:42 GMT J

@Ubuntu version

Yup, same here. Evolution sucks compared to KMail. Evolution's quite buggy too, specially the calendar part (which is the one I use; I use Thunderbird for email). I have been using Evolution for almost a year now, and am almost giving in to installing all the KDE dependencies to have Korganizer instead...

Back on topic, Re: the machine... Hey, I remember other manufacturers offering a BETTER spec machine with Linux than with Windows, for the same price (I think)! So what's going on here? I smell a rat (see icon)...

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Sunday 18th January 2009 05:48 GMT b

er, it's crap?!

traditional HD, only 600 verticle res, 1gb of ram and a single atom?

BAH!

i thought you said this was "serious"?

next..:\

cheers,

bill

p.s. stuff and nonsense: http://www.eupeople.net/forum

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Monday 19th January 2009 10:41 GMT mario

fail

get the aspire one and load linux on it. a friend of mine had a toshiba laptop and while the specs looked good, i just didn't like their windows only crap.

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Monday 19th January 2009 21:00 GMT Andy

nothing special

This is a far cry from the spectacular Libretto U100, have all the Toshiba engineers that made that great sub-notebook 3 years ago left Toshiba?

I still prefer my U100 (running Mandriva Linux) to any of the current crop of netbooks, even the 1.2GHz, 2MB cache Pentium M inside it, is noticeably faster than any Atom.

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Friday 23rd January 2009 17:35 GMT Max_Normal

I Love my brick!!!

I have had one of these since their release and have had none of the problems Patrick has mentioned. The screen is beautifully bright and much sharper than most other netbooks I have seen. I have not seen any rippling. With my wireless connection, page loads are pretty instant, so I suggest that he take task with his ISP or his wireless setup.

I think that although there is not much to tell between netbooks, the build quality, screen and HDD capacity are a cut above.

Mine also runs World of Goo, Quake 3 arena, AVP2, Half-Life, Adobe Indesign (tiny tiny DTP!!) , Photoshop and Microsoft office quickly and smoothly. It comes with me when i travel and it sits on my coffee table at home when I need it. I love it.

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Friday 30th January 2009 13:41 GMT Nigel R

1024x600 lovely jubbly

1024x600 native resolution on a 9 to 10"" screen - lovely, just right for email and web browsing where seeing icons and text properly are the issues. Could it even be by design?

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