Asus Eee PC S101

The basics

This tiny notebook from Asus measures just 266x29x19mm and weighs 1.1kg. It has a 10.2-inch screen with a resolution of 1024x600pixels and a 32GB hard drive. It runs Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition and has a battery life of four hours.

The good

No doubt about it, the Asus S101 is the best looking Eee PC yet. It's the curviest, thinnest 10 inch model out there, with a smooth metal shell, decent keyboard and massive trackpad. Inside, Asus has gone back to using a solid state drive in the S101, a move we love, as though it means less storage space (16GB), SSDs are far zippier than clunky old hard drives, and can take a knock or two without calling it quits - ideal for a netbook you need to carry around all the time.

The bad

We're not entirely sure what's executive about the Asus S101 other than the casing and the price - inside are all the standard specs you can find in a £250 netbook: ordinary 10 inch screen, ordinary battery life, 1 gig o'RAM and an Atom 1.6GHz processor. Um, Asus, hello? Where's the built in mobile broadband?

The bottom line

If you're a suit who needs a netbook, this ought to prevent the Fisher-Price jokes most Eee PC models are likely to prompt from City boys. But we're a bit gutted the extra £100 quid or so only gives the S101 a facelift compared to most netbooks - let's have a bit more kit in here next time please!