NbC: Toshiba Mini NB200 Review

« 1. Introduction2. Build & Design3. Upgradeability, Dimensions & Weight 4. Ports, Features & Connectivity5. Keyboard & Touchpad6. Display, Speakers, Heat & Noise 7. Performance & Benchmarks8. Battery Life9. Conclusion10. View All »

Keyboard

The Toshiba NB200-10Z comes with a chiclet keyboard also known as an isolation or tiled keyboard. Only the higher-end NB200 SKUs come with a chiclet keyboard, the lower-end models come with a flat-key keyboard as seen in the Asus Eee PC 1005HA Seashell. The keyboard itself measures 25.3cm (W) x 9.4cm (H) and stretches to the end of the chassis.

Whilst we liked the inclusion of dedicated buttons for Home/End/PgUp/PgDn, it meant that the actual QWERTY letters shift too far to the left. What this means is that when placing your palms on either side of the chassis, the right hand has to unnaturally reach for the keys that meant lots of letter mis-hits. Whilst over time you get used to where the letters are, we thought it was something worth mentioning.

We like the fact that the keyboard has dedicated PgUp and PgDn buttons as well buttons for Home / End / Ins and Del. Whilst you won’t find the biggest right shift key it shouldn’t pose too many problems for most typists.

The space bar is not the largest, however this is one button that most manufacturers don’t worry about too much. We like the fact that when pressing the Caps Lock button a small light indicator lets you know that it’s on.

According to our measurements the keys were 15mm in width and 13mm in height. Whilst this is smaller than other 10-inch netbooks, the NB200 compensates by offering larger spacing of 20mm between the keys.

As with other chiclet keyboards, key travel isn’t that deep but offers good tactile feedback nonetheless. Pressing each key gives a solid depression and is comfortable to use over long periods.

The keyboard did suffer from some flex, especially in the middle of the keyboard. However, it wasn’t as severe as noticed in the Asus Eee PC 1000HE.

Touchpad

The touchpad in the NB200 is the largest we’ve come across in a 10-inch netbook. It measures 78.5mm (W) x 41mm (H). This compares to the Asus Eee PC 1005HA at 63mm in width by 33m in height, the MSI Wind U115 at 50mm x 38mm and Samsung N120 at 64mm x 35mm. The touchpad doesn’t support multi-touch gestures out of the box, however you do you have vertical scroll on the right side of the pad and horizontal scroll on the bottom.

We liked the surface of the touchpad that allows your finger to easily slide across and the larger size means that scrolling across pages requires less finger movement back and forth. We did find the touchpad had sensitivity issues though and would often get ‘stuck’ which is annoying. The sensitivity for selecting items was also quite high, often it would end up opening folders inadvertently when all we was trying to do is browse. Luckily the settings allow you to fine tune this.

Many netbooks these days are starting to eschew dedicated left/right mouse buttons for a single rocker bar. It was nice to see dedicated mouse buttons on the NB200 and not only that but the NB200 offers large solid buttons with good feedback when pressed.

« 1. Introduction2. Build & Design3. Upgradeability, Dimensions & Weight 4. Ports, Features & Connectivity5. Keyboard & Touchpad6. Display, Speakers, Heat & Noise 7. Performance & Benchmarks8. Battery Life9. Conclusion10. View All »