I have completed testing on the first of what stands to be several reviews of sub-$1,000 notebooks for the enterprise. It was the A210 from Toshiba's newly relaunched Satellite Pro series.

The starting configuration is priced at $699, though the unit I tested began at $899.

I have an official review pending in the not-to-distant future to be posted on the eWEEK Web site. But I wanted to share with you a few initial thoughts I have about this product.

First, this is not an ultraportable.

It's been awhile since I've handled a notebook that doesn't fall into the ultraportable category, and what surprised me most is how much I actually liked the product's bulkier size.

Now, whether I'd want to be lugging the A210 around airports and subways, I can't conclusively answer, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed working on a larger-sized notebook.

Here at eWEEK I work on a 3.6-pound IBM ThinkPad X31 with a 12.1-inch display. For me, size sometimes can be everything when it comes to notebooks, and these are the parameters to which I typically stick.

However, there was definitely something to be said for being able to "spread out," so to speak, on the A210.

Sure, it's nearly double the weight of my ThinkPad at 6.7 pounds, but it was refreshing to work on a full-size keyboard with plenty of wrist space and to be able to gaze at a 15.4-inch display.

It can be really easy to forget, when it comes to devices, that smaller may be more convenient, but it doesn't necessarily mean it is superior. I know for a lot of you out there I am preaching to the choir, but it can be all too easy to get caught up in the knee-jerk response we seem to have to microscopic devices.

I look at the iPod "classic" as compared with the sleeker Nanos and think, my gosh, those are giant. Who the heck would want to lug that thing around?

After working with the A210 however, it's weird to say, but I was reminded of the fact that I am not in fact a Barbie doll, and it can be a good feeling to work with people-size devices; to not feel, to use a well-worn phrase, like a fat man in a little coat.

Somewhat tangential, I recently purchased a cell phone accessory for a friend's birthday that was created to mimic an old-school phone handset.

It looks like this:

For me, that is definitely more appealing than, say, the cell phones of the future as suggested by the movie Zoolander:

She loved it.

Not only for the kitsch factor, but it was actually comfortable to use, since it was designed to fit the dimensions of an actual person's face.

Anyway, I expect that most, if not all, of the sub-$1,000 notebooks will not be ultraportables, and despite being less flashy and sleek, I think I'm going to find that just fine.

I also suspect such a notebook can be a great desktop PC replacement and might just lead to less spending on all those ergonomic accessories usually needed to remedy the kinks we get from craning into tiny cell phones and hunching over minuscule keyboards.