Brand new Toshiba NB510 packs Cedar Trail hardware (video)

Toshiba’s new netbook line up has the NB510 as a front man, as the netbook comes with spanking new Cedar Trail hardware, replacing the budget NB505, which was one of the more decent netbooks we had to deal with in 2011. Sure, most new netbooks will pack the same stuff as well, but it’s always nice to see one of our favorites get blessed with a hot chip (yes, that’s a reference to something else than computers).

The NB510 we cornered runs on an N2600 dual core chip, doing the rumba at 1.66 GHZ, and also packs integrated graphics twice as fast as that on Atom processors. This means you can run 720p videos smooth (or smoother than on Atom netbooks), but you shouldn’t have any hopes when it comes to gaming.

The unit also had 2 GB of RAM and a 32 bit version of Windows, with a Windows Experience Index of 3.2, determined by the (even newer) rudimentary integrated graphics. But netbooks are not meant to run COD MW3, but rather be a solution for basic computing on the go, so we were keener to try out the edge to edge keyboard, which seems to be quite good.

Keys are full size, so you won’t have to doodle when searching for the right key- well, except when you’re using the arrow keys and some of the keys near the palm rest, which look unnaturally shrinked. The touch pad looks quite decent as well, although rather small, while the lid and the area above the keyboard have a slightly textured finish, which won’t make regular plastic look like carbon fiber, but you can’t blame Toshiba for trying.

The keyboard takes advantage of every half of inch it has

On the sides, you get the normal array of ports, including USB 3.0, HDMI, audio jack, VGA and there’s even a Kensington lock. The NB510 will come with either a 3 or a 6 cell battery, but hopefully even the 3 cell version will offer decent autonomy, thanks to Cedar Trail’s improved power management scheme.

We don’t have any pricing or availability info about the NB510, but my guess is that we’ll see this 10 inch netbook (maybe alternatively equipped with an N2800) in stores before the summer kick off, for a price of around 300-350 bucks. Stay tuned for our hands on video from CES.

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Tags: Intel Cedar Trail, Toshiba netbooks

Last updated: January 13, 2012 | Published: January 13th, 2012 | Add the first comment!