25.654 cm (10.1 ") ; AMD C-60; 320 GB HDD; 1024 MB DDR3; AMD Radeon HD 6290 G...

This is a fine product, but when you buy one factor in around £15-£20 for a RAM upgrade card to 4GB, as the 1GB Ram card supplied with the machine is too small and results in it being very slow to process information. Don't be afraid to change the card, it is easy, you just have to unscrew the back and lift out the existing card, substituting it for the new card, that you will need to buy separately, which just snaps into place. Simple!

In researching which Netbook to buy, this one came out as being by far the best for specification, quality and price. The battery life is amazing, you can just about get a full day long, without recharging.

I would have no hesitation is recommending this machine, subject to the necessary RAM upgrade!

We primarily bought this stylish Toshiba NB 550D-111 netbook for my 15 year old son to take to school for note-taking and printed output that teachers can read, as being dyslexic his writing is near impossible to decipher. First impressions are the netbook looks great and the letter/number keys work well, as they are full sized and positive. Keys like the TAB, DEL and Return suffer a little as they are cut down in size to fit it all in, but you get used to them. There's many double function keys, e.g. sound +/-, wireless off, display brightness, 0-9 number pad etc. The 10.1" screen is 1024x600, bright (when not in eco mode) and clear. There's the 320Gb hard drive and the latest AMD dual core 1.0Ghz to 1.3GHz(turbo) C-60 CPU with integrated Radeon HD6290 Graphics. The graphics performance is what sets this netbook apart from the Intel Atom processors that have the faster 1.5GHz processor speed - you can technically play 3D games on this netbook. I say technically, as you simply can't run old games like B&W 2 or Supreme Commander as either the 600 pixel screen height is too small [you normally need 768 pixels] or you must have the GameDVD in the DVD drive [and there isn't one], plus many old games aren't Windows 7 32-bit friendly. So of the hundreds of PC games we have, only Quake III Team/Arena runs on this netbook, although the netbook's fine for browser games (e.g. League of Legends) and our BigFish collection.

The touchpad is responsive, although we've added the bijou Toshiba 2.4GHz Wireless Optical Mouse that works perfectly in combination when on a desk. We also got the Samsonite Aramon-2 netbook sleeve [very snug fit, but good], and the larger Toshiba Cosmic Black slipcase that adds room for the bagged netbook and the mouse and small 13A mains charger. The laptop runs Microsoft Office 2007 perfectly, and Adobe CS4 Design Suite Premium installed OK with a 600 pixel screen warning. As is common with all 600 pixel height screens you can get the YES/NO buttons of the window hidden behind the task-bar, so I've set the task-bar as unlocked [right click over the task bar to set], which means you can slide the taskbar out of the way to the side of the screen if you need to get to buttons hidden underneath it [so far that's always worked]. Although you can set a DVD drive on another PC to share, we bought a Samsung S084F external USB2 DVD drive for loading software and ripping music CDs, which works perfectly for read via one USB2 port, although two are probably needed for powering DVD writes [three USB2 ports are on the laptop, one sleep and charge]. The laptop also has HDMI, Wireless g/n, BlueTooth, and 100mbps wired network ports, all of which work well. The netbook comes with Skype and Nero-10 lite, although we installed Nero-11 to use with our external DVD USB2 drive [run Nero's install as administrator, via right click].

Fully charged the laptop lasts around 9.5h with all the eco settings on full [dimmer screen, speed-step on, etc.], although we set it to switch to maximum performance when it's running on the charger [the netbook switches to eco mode automatically when it goes to battery]. Rather meanly the laptop is supplied with 1Gb system ram and it can take up to 2Gb, so we replaced the module with a 2Gb RAM module from Crucial for around a tenner - easy to do via two screws and a base panel, see the Toshiba manual. Extra memory will run multi-tasking a bit faster.

Although it feels quite weighty at 1.32 kg, the netbooks easily put into the school bag at 26.2 x 19.0 x 1.65 (front) / 3.55 (rear) mm. The battery at the rear makes the netbook a bit chunky for our Samsonite sleeve, but the raised rear helps with cooling and ergonomics when typing. Being a Windows 7 netbook it's ideal for taking to school as most British school PC systems are Microsoft based. In terms of performance the netbook is predictably sluggish compared to even our 5 year old 2.2 GHz, 4Gb RAM, Inspiron 6000 laptop running XP Pro, but once you get used to it, it's fine. The keyboard, Windows OS, graphics performance, and 320Gb storage make this a far better/cheaper buy for my son than the lighter 600g 64Gb Apple iPad [he was using his 64Gb iPod Touch to take notes previously, but there's no iTunes restriction with this netbook, it functions like a Windows laptop]. The installed operating system is a streamlined version of Windows 7 [you can't change the desktop picture for instance], to help the netbook be more responsive, and unlike a tablet you can multi-task a bit with the netbook and have different applications open at once [say Word, a browser and Excel] - 2Gb of memory helps. Performance is nothing like the old power-hungry desktop 1.2GHz Athlons and Pentiums, but they can't run for 9.5h on batteries.

Overall we are very happy with this Toshiba NB 550D, and now this netbook goes to bed with my son along with his iPod Touch. Good for office/internet chores, it plays YouTube and iPlayer video well, and offers basic gaming fun. Plus its twin Harmon Kardon speakers sound good for their size and there's a headphone socket, SD-card slot, VGA camera and a microphone for Skype. This netbook is on PCPro's A-list, and although it's pipped at the post by the cheaper Intel Atom powered Acer Aspire One D255 for value, we found the Toshiba's extra premium for style and graphics grunt useful for our teenage needs. I'd put aside money for a wireless mini-mouse, USB2 DVD drive and a travel case or two though.