Apple was in the news last month when they released the new MacBook Air, which was different than the rather more widely expect sub notebook. While the Air is very thin and beautifully designed, it still is the size of a standard laptop. Small it is not! As such it can’t really be classified as a sub notebook defined by Wikipedia as being a small and lightweight portable computer with most of the features of a standard laptop computer but smaller.

An example of the standard offering in this space is the Sony Vaio TZ which sports an 11” screen. Which isn’t actually all that small either and neither is the price. One company though has come out with an unexpected winner in this category, by going for both small and very good value. The Asus Eee PC has been a bit of a revelation, ending up as a top seller on Amazon and often being hard to find. At a price of £240 you can’t fault it on price either.

So just what is it about the Eee that makes it so popular? Well apart from the price it does just about everything you would want from a sub notebook, a very small form factor (7”), a functional keyboard despite its small size, a good screen, and while it runs a customized version of Linux rather than windows, it is perfectly easy to use. The software includes all you need to browse the web, write emails, play media files, and provides OpenOffice for documents and spreadsheets. It also has WiFi, plenty of USB ports and built in Ethernet port so getting connected is straight forward. All in all a nice small package, at an equally small price!