PC World checks out Toshiba Libretto U100

We find it a little hard not to dig Toshiba's U100 Libretto mini-laptop. After all, at two pounds, with a 1.2-GHz Pentium M 4, 512MB RAM, WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, FireWire and a 60GB hard drive, it packs a lot of power into a small package, making it a tempting choice for coffee-shop and airplane-seat work (and play, though it's too bad they couldn't squeeze an internal DVD drive into that tiny package). PC World got their hands on a pre-release version of the $1,999 box, and found it "small in everything except power and performance." One gripe was the keyboard, which — surprise, surprise — was a little cramped. Battery life was under 2-1/2 hours, also something of a disappointment (at least to us), but PC World rates it — keyboard aside — a "worthy and powerful portable PC." Of course, despite all the love, it'll probably tank in the marketplace; the streets are littered with the shells of similar mini-PCs that PDA buyers found too big (and expensive) and notebook customers considered underpowered (and expensive). Gambatte, Toshiba!