Perhaps the best thing we can say about the OS is that we didn't really notice it in day-to-day use – it's simply a platform from which you can launch applications. Granted, it lacks the visual clout of Windows Vista, or even XP, but we also found it a lot more responsive, stable  and virtually bug-free.

Our one reservation lies with the size of the hard drive, which is just 4GB at present. A chunk of this taken up by the OS and applications, so you’ll be restricted to using the machine for work only, with no space for your music or videos. However, because it’s a solid state drive (SSD), accessing your files is speedy and there’s more chance of it surviving if you drop the Eee PC. The SD card reader is a useful inclusion if you do need more storage space, with high capacity SD cards (SDHC) offering up to 16GB.

In keeping with the back-to-basics approach, graphics are handled by an integrated Intel GMA 900 chipset. It's hardly cutting-edge, but there's plenty of performance for running regular programs such as word processing applications, and we were able to watch movie files without trouble.

The Eee PC’s build quality belies the budget price, and proved sturdy and more than a match for the daily slog. The screen surround was tough and firmly attached, and the chassis remained rigid even under pressure.

On our first couple of attempts, typing on the tiny keyboard provoked plenty of swearing and a touch of blasphemy, with the smaller peripheral keys compounding matters. However, stick with it and it gets far easier, and we managed to strike up an acceptably fast rhythm. The keys are firmly attached and offer a decent amount of travel. The touchpad is miniscule, but Asus has somehow managed to squeeze in a scroll bar on the right-hand side and the whole interface works well.

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