Toshiba NB305-600 Review
- June 25th, 2011
- Write comment
Toshiba has updated the very popular NB305 line of netbooks with the Toshiba NB305-600. The Toshiba NB305-600 measures 7.57 inches, 10.47 inches, 1.43 inches, weighs a dainty 2.6 pounds, and is decked out with a stylish textured aluminum cover.
The Toshiba NB305-600 is powered by a 1.5 GHz Intel Atom N550 dual core processor and comes standard with 1 GB of DD3 RAM (user upgradeable to 2 GB of RAM) and a 250 GB hard drive (standard size in this price category). The N550 CPU handles multi-tasking far better than single core processors. That is because each of the two cores can process two threads simultaneously, thanks to hyper-threading technology. This means that this netbook can easily run multiple programs all at the same time. The performance of the Toshiba NB305 greatly improves if you upgrade the RAM to 2 GB.
The Toshiba NB305-600 has a 10.1 inch WSVGA (1024 X 600) TruBright LED backlit screen. While the screen resolution is fairly common of netbooks in this price range, we are still a little disappointed that Toshiba opted to include a lower resolution LCD in this netbook. Viewing websites on the Toshiba NB305-600 WSVGA screen will require more scrolling. I like to keep my finger on the scroll bar. After you spend some time surfing the web with this netbook, this becomes second nature and navigating the web on a 1024 X 600 resolution screen isn’t too pain staking.
On the graphics processing side of the equation, the Toshiba NB305-600 is equipped with an integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150, which dynamically shares up to 250 MB of RAM taken from the system RAM. While this video card is up to everyday tasks, such as surfing the web and even streaming 720P video, it is not recommended for graphically demanding games. Look for netbooks equipped with ION, ION2, of Fusion graphics cards, if you are a gamer.
Other features of the Toshiba NB305-600 include three 2.0 USB ports, a microphone input port, a headphone output port, a mono speaker, a webcam and microphone built into the LCD bezel, a VGA output port, an SD memory card reader, Fast Ethernet (10/00) port, and Wireless-N Wi-Fi.
The Toshiba NB305-600 has one of the best keyboards in the netbook class. Toshiba describes the keyboard as having a “raised tile” design. Most of the keys are full sized and the keys have plenty of separation between them, which makes typing much easier.
Like most netbook manufacturers, Toshiba tends to load lots of unnecessary and often times unwanted software (“bloat-ware”) onto their netbooks. These applications can slow down boot times and the performance (by stealing CPU cycles) of the netbook. The Toshiba NB305-600 is no exception. The Toshiba NB305-600 comes with a whopping 19 pre-installed applications. Some of these applications include, Microsoft Live Essentials and Office 2010 Starter Edition, Wild Tangent game trials, and a 30 day trial of Norton Internet Security. The pre-installed applications have varying usefulness. Some you may want to toss and others keep (and maybe even purchase the full version). If you don’t want them, they can be easily removed.
The Toshiba NB305-600 comes pre-installed with Windows 7 Home Starter, which is quite common of Intel Atom N550 netbooks in this price range. Windows 7 Home Starter lacks certain features found in Home Premium (like the ability to change the desktop image), but the core features are identical. You can easily upgrade to the Home Premium version of Windows 7 if you decide you can’t live without the added features.
Despite some of the Toshiba NB305-600′s short comings, it is still an incredibly popular netbook. If you are looking for a dual core CPU netbook in this price range, the Toshiba NB305-600 is a tough contender to beat.
