
Toshiba Libretto U100 (PLU10A-00900W)
Pros
- Tiny and light, powerful for its size
Cons
- Can be difficult to control pointer
Bottom Line
The Libretto's miniature size and light weight will attract veterans of the road who want to travel without being encumbered.
-
Price
$ 2,499.20 (AUD)
"That's just like a computer, only smaller!" a friend exclaimed when he spied the preproduction version of Toshiba's new Libretto U100 mini-notebook I was testing. About the size of a videocassette and weighing just over 900 grams, the Libretto is small in everything except power and performance.
The Libretto U100 features a 7.2" wide-screen LCD and an integrated LED backlight. The crisp, bright 1280 x 768-resolution screen supplies a luscious concentration of colours, but fonts and icons were so tiny I needed to put my glasses on--except they were on already.
The keyboard and touch-stick mouse are too small, as well, making even pointing and clicking hard. Fortunately, two USB ports are located on the side, so you can at least add on an external mouse.
Toshiba considers the unit's optical-drive dock optional, so you'll need to cough up even more if you want a multiformat DVD drive.
The device's battery life was about 2 hours, 20 minutes with a DVD playing and close to 3 hours, 30 minutes when the unit ran without the optical drive. The Libretto's 1.2GHz Intel Pentium M Ultra Low Voltage 753 processor and standard 512MB of DRAM provided enough oomph for looking at photos, cruising the Net and using Office apps. The 1.8" hard drive offers 60GB of storage.
Overall, the Libretto's miniature size and light weight will attract veterans of the road who want to travel without being encumbered. My advice: try out the keyboard and touch stick before you buy. If you can deal with them, you'll have an otherwise worthy and powerful portable PC.
Brand Post

Most Popular Reviews
- 1 Miofive 4K Dash Cam review: This friendly road watcher is ‘here for you!’
- 2 Dell U3223QE review: A winning debut for an IPS Black monitor
- 3 Netgear Nighthawk M5 mobile router review: Probably too expensive, but nice
- 4 Asus TUF Gaming VG28UQL1A review: This 4K monitor plays nice with consoles
- 5 Firewalla Gold review: Powerful home network security in a tiny box
Latest News Articles
- The Razer Blade 15’s 240Hz OLED panel pushes laptop displays to new frontiers
- Intel’s first Arc laptops arrive in the U.S. with shockingly high prices
- Up to 100 Lenovo laptops are a security risk — what now?
- Google accidentally broke some Chromebook cameras. Here’s how to fix it
- HP’s Spectre x360 16 is a unique 2-in-1 laptop with a huge OLED screen
Resources
Business Centre
The latest business news, reviews, features and whitepapers

Videos
Watch our video news and reviews from around the world

Guides
Comprehensive buying guides, features, and step-by-step articles

PCW Evaluation Team
Pedro Peixoto
Aruba Instant On AP11D

Set up is effortless.
Cate Bacon
Aruba Instant On AP11D

The strength of the Aruba Instant On AP11D is that the design and feature set support the modern, flexible, and mobile way of working.
Dr Prabigya Shiwakoti
Aruba Instant On AP11D

Aruba backs the AP11D up with a two-year warranty and 24/7 phone support.
Tom Pope
Dynabook Portégé X30L-G

Ultimately this laptop has achieved everything I would hope for in a laptop for work, while fitting that into a form factor and weight that is remarkable.
Tom Sellers
MSI P65

This smart laptop was enjoyable to use and great to work on – creating content was super simple.
Lolita Wang
MSI GT76

It really doesn’t get more “gaming laptop” than this.
Featured Content
- 100 Great PC Games You Should Play Before You Die
- Best Click Frenzy mobile and Internet plan deals
- Microsoft’s iconic browser Internet Explorer is being killed off in June
- Which flagship TV is best? Sony 4K HDR Bravia 2016 versus LG 4K HDR OLED 2016
- 10 Blu-ray movies / Best looking Blu-ray movies