Toshiba NB550D review

It’s a shame the screen isn’t suited to video playback, because the NB550D has some of the best sounding netbook speakers we’ve ever heard. Toshiba has partnered with audio specialists Harman/Kardon and the resulting audio quality is impressive. It was loud enough at maximum volume to be heard clearly across a room, without distorting. We could even make out bass notes, although they weren’t as powerful as a set with a dedicated subwoofer.

Beyond its refreshingly different internal components, the NB550D is a fairly generic netbook. The bright blue lid makes it easy to spot from across a room, but the textured design is rather bland.
The keyboard was rather disappointing; all the alphabetical keys are full size to make typing easier, but the half-size punctuation keys feel very cramped.

The typing position is fairly comfortable thanks to a slight bevel in the main netbook body, but the response from the keys themselves felt spongy and lacked tactile feedback. Applying minimal pressure is enough to make the entire keyboard tray flex. Thankfully the touchpad fared slightly better; it had an ideal amount of friction, letting us navigate the Windows desktop precisely. The touchpad buttons are colour-coded to match the lid and have very short travel times. We didn’t like how close they were to the lip of the netbook, but appreciated that they were two separate physical buttons.

Based on what we’ve seen, AMD Fusion processors are almost certain to find their way into more netbooks in the coming months. Performance matches that of a dual-core Atom in many areas but graphics power greatly exceeds what we’ve come to expect from Intel. Toshiba’s first Fusion netbook has wet our appetites, but its design leaves a lot to be desired. In spite of the excellent speakers, the average display and keyboard means that the Acer Aspire One D255.