Toshiba NB510-11E review

We were a little disappointed to see a 1,024×600 resolution display, because we’ve seen several other netbooks with 1280×800 and even 1,366×768 screens. As it is, the 10.1in display is decent, displaying legible text and fairly bright colours. The glossy screen finish helps, too. Unfortunately, this makes light reflections an issue, and its terrible viewing angles can make it difficult to read the screen from anywhere other than directly in front of it.

As with all netbooks, the preinstalled version of Windows 7 is the 32-bit Starter edition, which means you can’t change wallpapers, use the Aero visual theme or use more than 2GB of RAM. This, combined with the small amount of memory and small hard disk, certainly keeps costs low. In fact, the NB510-11E can be bought online for as little as £240. That’s over £100 less than most budget 15in laptops, but crucially it’s also cheaper than the best Android tablets. Because tablets have rapidly eaten into the netbook market, this is a sensible decision on Toshiba’s part. The NB510 is also better made than most of its similarly priced netbook rivals, and that earns it our Budget Buy award.