Eee bah gum - Small is Beautiful

...or rather the new Asus Eee PC 4G laptop is small, light, portable and really everything you need for computing on the go. This is aimed at the kids, but really is the perfect companion for writing a quick email, surfing the net or even some more serious work with the Open Office pre-installed. Great if you need to give a presentation somewhere and do not want to lug 3kg of laptop with you.

The keyboard is small and you would not want to use it for writing reports, but for the odd note or blog it is just about perfect. If you need a portable computer then this is the device.

The solid state disk is only 4Gb and 2.5Gb of that is for the pre-installed linux, office and many other applications. However, an SD slot allows you to add another 8Gb and 3 spare usb ports allow you to plug in a hard drive. I remember not that many years ago ordering a serious desktop computer for home with just a 6.3Gb drive - how did we manage!

The best bit is the price £219 a fraction of the price of the very desirable small Sony laptops and the build quality of the Asus is far from shoddy, it is rather solid and should handle some fairly rough use with that solid state drive.