Toshiba’s new release has come with five configurations: the £300 NB200-10G, the £325 NB200-11L, and the £350 NB200-11H, NB200-10Z (reviewed here) and NB200-110. In the following we try to see if it lifts itself up to the expectations of such a price.Considering firstly the design we can describe it as being much better looking than its predecessor NB100 with its slim line, only 25mm thickness with a copper-colored finish on the lid, the inside being stylish in presenting a silver keyboard and wrist rest. The keys of the keyboard are calculator-style, but either way they feel quite responsive while typing as well, since they are distanced in a reasonable way enough to convey a comfort in typing. The screen presents a 1024 x 600 pixel resolution with the graphics and text looking very crispy. Its brightness renders the images and videos a vividness hardly to believe for a screen that has a reflection-prone glossy coating.
We find the connection for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, a VGA port for hooking it up to a flat-screen TV or a monitor, three USB ports, located one on the left side that can be set through software in order to stay powered on while the netbook is asleep or turned off. This feature is an excellent one, since it allows you to charge devices the same way you do for MP3 players or mobile phones. NB 200 10Z is running Windows XP, being equipped with 1GB of RAM and a hard drive of 160GB storage. Through its sensor that can detect a falling of your netbook , the drive ensures a protection of your data parking the drive heads.
As to its performance, the device uses Intel Atom N280 processor that moves a little bit faster than the Atom N270 CPU which is considered the staple of several best-performing netbooks. While using NB200 one can notice its way to handle different tasks such as displaying a video taken from BBC’s iPlayer service. On the benchmark tests, the 3D performance didn’t end up well scoring only 92 in 3DMark 06, which is not that bad, but it could have been better considering the achievement that has to be reached in the latest 3D shooters.
Battery life is not poor at all, the NB200 10Z was running for a time that lasted 5 hrs and 12 minutes in the Classic test of intensive Battery Eater. If one uses it on regular basis, the life of the battery can last longer considering that Toshiba delivered a control panel with a totally comprehensive management of power ability. As a closing result for the Toshiba’s netbook NB200 10Z test, we can say that with so much competition out there on the market, it is quite a challenge for manufacturers to come up with something to stand out in the front line, but altogether it has proved to be netbook that is worth being recommended
