M
iniature notebooks can be like small
dogs. They’re cute and cause people
to say “ awww ” but they don’t have much
of a bite.
But don’t assume that about Toshiba’s
Libretto U105, which shoehorns a 1.2GHz
Pentium M, a 60GB hard drive, 802.11g,
Bluetooth 2.0, a FireWire port, an SD card
reader, and a biometric fingerprint reader
into a computer the size of a VHS cassette.
Taking a cue from BMW’s Mini Cooper,
Toshiba reintroduced the Libretto to cel-
ebrate the company’s 25th anniversary.
Unlike the new Mini Cooper, however, which
is more of an homage to the original than a
reproduction, the new Libretto is a near rep-
lica of its forebear.
You get all the power of a larger note-
book, but you also get the throw-back
squashed keyboard that made typing an
awful experience with the Libretto CT50
back in 1997. The keyboard is so small,
hobbits would have a difficult time with it.
We applaud high-resolution screens, but
Toshiba over-reached with the 1280x768
glossy panel gracing this notebook. At 7.2-
inches viewable, you need bionic eyes to
actually read text when the notebook sits on
your lap, even with the font size set to large.
Negatives aside, you have to hand it to
Toshiba for jamming so much technology into
a package this small. Most notebooks of this
stature use Transmeta’s 1GHz Crusoe pro-
cessor, which performs more like a 400MHz
Pentium II. The 1.2GHz Pentium M in the
Libretto performs more like a 2GHz P4.
Battery life is good. The unit doesn’t include
a DVD drive, so we played a movie off the localdrive to test the notebook’s juice. The Libretto
gave us stutter-free playback for more than
three hours before the battery tapped out.
Although this class of machine isn’t
capable of playing modern games, it’s fine
for apps such as Adobe Photoshop. The
tiny Libretto completed our Photoshop CS
test in about 730 seconds. That’s 46 percent
slower than the Dell XPS Gen 2 notebook,
but considering that the Dell has twice the
RAM and weighs about four times as much,
the Libretto’s showing is still respectable.
With its built-in SD card reader and PC
Card slot, the Libretto is a perfect notebook
for the digital photographer on the go. At two
pounds, its weight is comparable to some
portable photo viewers, but with the Libretto
you get a fully functional notebook to boot.
Still, the cramped keyboard and super-small screen make it difficult for us to rec-
ommend the Libretto as a primary notebook
computer. A USB keyboard, mouse, and
external monitor would make the Libretto
handy, but who’s going to haul all that stuff
to Starbucks?
—GORDON MAH UNGToshiba
Libretto U 105
The original miniature notebook returns
NOTEBOOKGEAR
VANTEC LAPCOOL2
Your laptop is making you sterile! If you use your laptop while
it’s on your lap, the heat it creates could be overheating your
“boys.” Scrotal hyperthermia is not a laughing matter, people.
The LapCool2 sports a pair of USB-powered fans that circulate hot air over your
laptop’s underside. Unfortunately, these fans just circulate the air around the smol-
dering confines of your crotch, they
don’t actually bring cool air back into
the mix.—WSAPC UNIVERSAL
NOTEBOOK BATTERY
The problem with today’s high-performance
gaming notebooks isn’t performance, it’s
battery life. With average battery life well
under two hours, you just can’t play GTA: San Andreas cross-country. Unless you use the
APC Universal Notebook Battery, that is. With this external battery, we more than doubled
the playtime of the Dell XPS notebook. Our one gripe is that the UNB’s voltage selector
doesn’t lock—we’re nervous we’ll acci-
dentally change the setting, and fry
3 our machine.—WS 8reviews TESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED
74 MA XIMUMPC OCTOBER 2005
Toshiba’s Libretto is a fully featured notebook that’s just slightly larger than a VHS tape.$2,100, http://www.toshiba.comTOSHIBA LIBRETTO U105VW BEATLE
Smallest full-featured
notebook we’ve seen.YUGO FV^7
Keyboard is practically useless
and there were 16 apps in the system
tray—16!6.5"8.2”VANTEC LAPCOOL2 APC BATTERY
$30, http://www.vantecusa.com $250, http://www.apc.com