The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds
  • print
  • alert

Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider

We also ran our usual battery life test: an SD-quality H.264 movie played and looped until the machine shuts down. At the standard 1.6GHz CPU speed, we got three hours and 20 minutes' playback out of the NB100's battery, which puts it ahead of all the other netbooks we've tested other than the Asus Eee 901 and Eee 1000 with their bigger batteries.

Battery Life Results

Toshiba NB100 - Battery Life

Time in minutes
Longer bars are better

Playback wasn't good in underclocked mode, with the previously smooth-running video pausing or breaking up if we did anything else on the machine. However, the underclocked mode should boost runtime a fair bit - we didn't have enough time with the device to test it, alas.

You should also note that these are stress tests - ordinary browsing and email netbook activity won't drain the battery quite so quickly, and you can expect to get five or more hours' typical usage out the NB100. That may not be Eee standard, but it's still very good for a netbook.

So why not just buy an Eee, then? There's no key reason not to, we think. We prefer the NB100's display to that of the Eee PC 901, the machine it most closely resembles, and the Toshiba has more storage capacity: 120GB to 12GB. But the two machines' keyboards are equally wee, and the Eee has 802.11n Wi-Fi, a longer runtime and it's cheaper.

Toshiba NB100

Not exactly colourful

So if you need a decent keyboard, you can buy a better netbook than the NB100. Ditto if you want the best battery life, a machine that looks cute, or one that's as cheap as chips. That makes the NB100 a tough sell.

Verdict

It's not the sexiest netbook out there, quite the reverse, but the NB100 is no slouch when running at standard speed and delivers a good battery life too. It's by no means a bad machine. We just wish Toshiba had come up with something a little less dull. ®

More Netbook Reviews...


Eee PC S101

Dell Mini 9

Apricot Picobook

Advent 4213

What you need to know about cloud backup

75%

Toshiba NB100

Toshiba's office-serious design doesn't impress, but the battery life does.
Price: £286 (Windows XP,120GB HDD) £252 (Ubuntu Linux, 80GB HDD) RRP
Latest Comments

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?

0
0

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.

0
0

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.

0
0

More from The Register

Microsoft lures buy-curious vixens, corduroys with a cheap fondle
Surface slab sales latest: Will no one rid Ballmer of these turbulent tabs?
First look: iOS 7 for iPad
No, Apple hasn't released it yet, but that doesn't stop intrepid devs
Samsung Galaxy Note 8: Proof the pen is mightier?
Sammy’s iPad Mini killer has a stylus to stab other rivals too
 breaking news
Curtain drops on Apple Store ahead of WWDC: What lies behind?
Steve Jobs watching from on high. No pressure, lads
 breaking news
Cold, dead hands of Steve Jobs slip from iPhones: The Cult of Ive is upon us
Billionaire biz baron's death clears way for uber-shiny iOS 7
Airbus imagines suitcases that find themselves
Point your mobe at your smalls to track their every move
Surprise! Intel smartphone trounces ARM in power trials
Tests show equal performance while sipping significantly less juice
Samsung plans LTE Advanced version of Galaxy S4
1Gbps download capability could stiffen drooping S4 sales forecasts
Ex-HTC execs launch UK-based smartphone maker Kazam
Startup threatens to 'disrupt status quo' this year