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"Superb device for staying connected while on the road" on by PassatDoc
Pros: 1. Lightweight, compact
2. Looong battery life, I get 9-10 hours per charge
3. Transition to Windows 7 was fairly painless, though I miss XP
4. Plays mp3 and mp4 video files with ease
5. Performs quite well when RAM upgraded to 2GBCons: 1. HD display would have been nice
2. Speakers are worthless, but wonderful audio with headphones or ear buds
3. With only one RAM slot, it was wasteful to pull out the 1 GB RAM memory and swap a 2GB card. Why not provide 2 GB and charge $15 extra?Summary: I bought this netbook to stay in touch while on the road. However, it's so light and easy to use that I now find myself using it on the sofa or the patio table, which I never did with my older and heavier Lenovo T40. The T40's battery barely gave two hours on a full charge, which severely limited its portability. The Toshiba netbook's new processor is more energy efficient and I get ten hours of operation average between charges.
I bought a CD drive in order to load software that doesn't offer a download option. I already had a large collection of movies in mp4 format (conversions of DVDs I already own, originally converted for iPod use), so the lack of a CD/DVD drive is not a deal-breaker for me. Wireless card is "N" speed and works great with a high speed router.
The performance was greatly enhanced by swapping the supplied 1GB RAM for a 2 GB card. Put another way, the performance was less than stellar out of the box. There is only one RAM slot, so an upgrade means that you set aside the brand new, original 1GB card, which is somewhat wasteful. Given the $10-20 cost differential between a 1GB and 2GB RAM card, it would have made more sense to supply the netbook with 2 GB in the first place and charge an extra $10-15. If there were two slots, one could simply buy a second card, but with only one slot, why not give the product excellent performance right out of the box? -
"I Love this Little Machine!" on by emmerc
Pros: The battery is just awesome, one whole day of work with a single charge is the first reason for me to buy this machine. The hard drive with its 250GB and its impact sensor makes it perfect as it is quite roomy and safe. The wireless, the three USB!
Cons: Windows 7 is a bad joke not an OS! I went right away to Windows XP Home SP3 and the machine runs every program so smoothly. I would like it to have bluetooth built in. Maybe I should have bought the one with 3G built in.
Summary: I have had this machine for about one week and let me go back to the battery life, I have gotten at least 8 or nine hours so far. I was told to drain it a couple of times before it reaches its optimum level but it is awesome.
I need to correct my commentaries on Windows 7, as the one installed in this machine is Windows 7 Starter, which has a number of limitations as no access to desktop theme or wallpaper modifications, network work group creation and additionally I felt it quite heavy and slow so I replaced it in this machine with Windows XP Home SP3 which maybe is an old OS but is fully functional and light enough as to be used in this machine that seems more like a full laptop in small format rather than a netbook. Windows XP Home runs very smoothly in this machine and allows me to work without taking care of the OS as it should be. If I would like some eye candy, then I would install Ubuntu 9.10 with compiz fusion and I would have a real extravaganza of visual effects while keeping all the functionality of the machine and with a lot of resources still available to run all my applications even in a netbook as I did with my previous Asus eee Pc 900.
The weight, its 2.60 pounds makes it perfect for the road. Now I leave my behemoth of 7.1 pounds at home as Desk Top Replacement (Toshiba P305-S8832!) and now I take this little one to the library, classroom, Starbucks and so on.
Speaking about the road, having a roomy 250GB Hard Drive with 3D sensor is perfect I did transfer all my documents from my DTR and some music, videos, installed ALL my software as a mirror of my DTR and still I have a lot of HDD room for more data. This is perfect in this machine. I installed Libronix 3.0, MS Office 2003, Bible Works 6 and 7 on it and all of them run very well.
The wireless detects every possible wireless signal from all around and pick them up even those that are really weak signals and stick to the one I have chosen even if it fades away, the machine will look for it, select it and connect to it right away. I can't ask for more.
The screen display provides me with a nice clear and sharp image so working with MS Word, in the Internet browser or any other program is not problem.
I had a bad experience with Windows 7 so I created the restore media DVDs right away and did a fresh installation of a fully legal Windows XP Home SP3, which is working very well now; even with the SATA AHCI enabled. I got all the drivers in the Toshiba site, this was quite convenient. The only trick was with the AHCI and then I went to the Intel site, searched the driver, unpacked it and did a forced upgrade of the driver in the device manager, restarted the machine, went to the BIOS, enabled the AHCI and it was ready! Also I updated the BIOS right away. Maybe I will increase the ram to its 2GB maximum just because I can and not because it is needed. And I will get a 3G usb modem so I might have internet access where there is not a wireless signal nor a wired network available.
So now the machine is working very well and I am using it as much as I use my main machine (P305-S8832). This is my third Toshiba in a row, to the first one (Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100) I squeezed six and a half years of service (still working at full throttle!), the second one (P305-S8832) is my main working machine at home since one and a half years ago and now this NB305-N410BL is for me to use it wherever I go. I am writing a PhD Dissertation, so I have to take a machine to the library quite often. I teach a class once once in a while far from home so I need something small and powerful enough as to move all my teaching stuff while preserving its functionality and my communication capabilities.
I highly recommend this machine for the warrior of the road.
Updated on Apr 5, 2010
Updated on Apr 27, 2010Battery life!!!
Let me tell you that this machine is not just meant to browse the web, read e-mail and some soft duties. I installed WinXp Home SP3 on it.
I am using this machine to write my PhD dissertation and I keep MS Office 2003 open with four to five windows, BibleWorks 6 and 7, Libronix 3.0g, firefox (three or more tabs), Thunderbird and some others as winamp and this machine works not only up to the job but the battery gives me at least eight hours of continuous service at this rhythm. This is awesome! If you need a machine to do some serious office work away from home or the office, this is the right machine! Do not look for more. In addition, when you plug this machine to power, it consumes less than the power pack provides so it allows you to really charge the battery while you work. Did I say eight hours of heavy office work? :-)
Updated on Dec 20, 2011Hi friends, recently I replace the HDD with a 500gb 7200rpm HD, upgraded the memory to 2GB DDR2800 and the OS to Windows 7 Home Premium and that machine is working pretty well. After more than one and a half year of service this little machine is still the machine I use for the road. Plenty room in its hard drive, plenty battery time and small size and weight! It is just perfect!
Updated on Apr 30, 2012No problem ryorklive, the affair with WinXP is a kind of nostalgia. I still own two licenses of WinXP SP3. having said that, you may see in my Dec 20, 2011 update that it was running on Win7 Home premium and as today, it runs on Windows 7 Professional. Two years after purchase, the machine works flawlessly and provides from 6 to 8 hours of battery life. It is still perfect for the classroom and the road. Sure I miss 3G and HDMI on it but for heavy work I have a 17.1 inches laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium) and a heavy Desktop (Windows 7 Pro) with two 19 inches monitors, big HD, plenty memory and a pretty good video card. -
"Great nebbook, bette battey life than ASUS 1005PE" on by mike_e_01
Pros: Bright screen, comfortable keyboard, very good mouse pad.
Cons: Speakers are way too quiet.
Summary: I am writing this review for one reason, to correct a mistake made by most reviewers about the battery life of this netbook. In comparison test, the Asus 1005PE outlasted the Toshiba by 2 hours or so on video playback tests. In these reviews, the mistake made was to not account for the fact that the Toshiba has a MUCH brighter LCD than the Asus, and setting the brightenss to the same percentage of full is not a fair comparison. The Toshiba at 70% is brighter than the ASUS at full.
I have both netbooks--the Asus belongs to my wife--and have tested them head to head at the same perceived brigthness and sound level (had to turn the Asus down for the sound, it has much better speakers) and the battery life is a bit better on the Toshiba, though by a little bit (10,20 minutes). This was my expectation, as it has a 10.8v 5300mAh battery to the Asus' 10.8v 4800mAh. The Asus is a bit more efficient, because it had almost the same life with a weaker battery. -
"Great netbook. Does everything I want it to!" on by bkohler
Pros: Comfortable keyboard.
Great battery life.
Bright screen.
Fast processor for a netbook.
Windows 7 starter works great
Wireless n.Cons: Speakers are quiet, but this is true for just about all netbooks. At least the sound is louder than the HP Mini.
Summary: Great out of the box netbook. I was able to connect right away. Streams Hula, netflix and youtube just fine. Also, this is very light weight and great for tossing in a backpack or carrying around. I almost want to use this more than my regular laptop. I can't think of anything really negative to say about thus. I'm very satisfied with this purchase.
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"Portable and great battery life but speaker sucks..." on by ahmad_22
Pros: Good keyboard,Bright display, Large touch Pad, stylish , USB-charge-sleep-mode...
Cons: Speakers are not loud enough,
Summary: Toshiba NB305 is the best Netbook i have seen in the market in its price range. The main reason why i bought this is the larch touch pad... i haven't seen any other Netbook having this large touch pad.
The battery life at Balance is around 6 hours and thats enough for spending a day in collage without having to look for a empty power plug for recharging it.
The performance is satisfying. I upgraded the RAM to 2 GB so the software runs smother. I dual booted it with Ubuntu Netbook remix, the boot time is less than windows 7 starter.
The keyboard is really good and it doesn't make you tired of typing, However there is one other Netbook that has better keyboard.
It is Stylish and cool.
The only disappointing thing about this Netbook is the speakers.Speakers are not loud enough. I can't voice chat without headsets. Honestly all the time i should carry my headset with me...
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