Hands on: Toshiba NB100 netbook review

Toshiba came to the TechRadar offices today to show off its new range of business laptops.

In its horde of goodies, we also found the NB100, Toshiba's first-ever netbook, which we told you about back in September.

First impressions of the ultra-portable machine is its size. Forgoing the 10-inch screen size that a number of manufacturers seem to favour, Toshiba has given its machine a leaner 8.9-inch widescreen display.

Ubuntu 8.04

On the model we tested, Ubuntu 8.04 was running and the OS looked crisp and clear through the 1024x600 TruBrite Display. Colours were vibrant, and lopping off an inch didn't seem to hamper usability.

Looks-wise, the NB100 is shaped in a similar vein to Toshiba's bigger-sized laptop range. The 'cosmic black' shell is the only colour available if you choose Ubuntu as your OS. Two other colours, silver and gold, are available for Widows XP users.

The tracking pad on the machine was diminutive to say the least. Positioned centrally towards the bottom of the keypad, the left- and right-side buttons of the pad were so thin that we almost had to use our nail to tap them.

Tiny keyboard

The keyboard itself is smaller than on other netbooks we tried. There does seem to be rather a lot of wasted space round the edges, which will hopefully be used to make the keys bigger in future models.

Connection-wise, there's three USB ports and an Ethernet port. To hook up to the net, you have to make do with Wi-Fi. Toshiba assured us that a 3G version will be out "by the end of the year."

As it is a netbook, there's no optical drive. Luckily, Open Office comes pre-installed on the machine. Opening up a word-processing doc on the machine was quick, while Ubuntu's user interface was more than intuitive, so should cause newbies to the OS no problems whatsoever.

Storage space

Hard-drive space was impressive, with up to 120GB available, and 512MB of RAM meant that the machine never slowed during our time with it, but opening up more than one program may well cause problems.

While Toshiba has stepped into the busy netbook market late, the NB100 is an impressive addition. Users of Toshiba laptops will feel right at home with the machine.

Battery life was promised at just under four hours, which if true is impressive. We've been burned before when it comes to actual battery life on netbooks, however; with some machines barely scraping the hour mark.

Our biggest gripe is that the keyboard is very small, so the podgy fingered will struggle. But as the emphasis is very much on education, this will be an ideal first computer for kids and a competent second computer for on-the-go types.

Prices for the NB100 are as follows: the Linux model is £259; the XP version is available with 1GB of RAM for £299. Look out for a complete review of the NB100 soon.