Like most manufacturers in the netbook space, Toshiba has gone and refreshed its knockout netbook with Intel's Atom Pine Trail platform and slightly altered the design. But has the competition caught up to the AED1599 Mini NB305? Does the Mini NB305 still hold a place in the hearts of most netbook lovers in the Middle East?
From the onset of unpacking this netbook from its packing, I liked the design that Toshiba put into producing this gem. Compared to other netbook ranges that have appealed to me from Acer and Asus, the NB305 feels tougher and it's just better looking in my opinion.
Sure, it may not be as elegant as the recently unveiled Nokia Booklet 3G, but its matte plastic lid adorned with diagonal raised lines and its silverish rounded hinge gives it some standout appeal. The six-cell battery has been remoulded on this model, so it doesn't horizontally bulge out of the back, like it did on the Mini NB205. The entire 1.4-inch thick chassis isn't as thin as the inch thin Aspire One 532h, but at 1.17kgs it's still fairly light.
Under the lid, the NB305 still has one of the best netbook keyboards out there. The layout works extremely well, and the silver keys are coated in something that makes them feel soft on the fingertips. There's a version of the NB305 that has a flush matte keyboard.
One thing I really appreciate on the NB305 is that the touchpad is larger than most netbooks, and features dedicated right and left mouse buttons instead of a cramped rocker, but the multi-touch pad that is too sensitive like in most Asus’ netbook models.
The NB305 has a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450, 1GB of RAM, and an accelerometer-protected 250GB hard drive that boots Windows 7 Starter, all of which makes the performance quite standard for a netbook. Given the processor on this model like other netbooks, the NB305 is not ideal if you like multitasking.