Ultra-portable PCs are hardly big news these days and if you're happy to make a few sacrifices for the sake of portability, they're a great way to lighten your load if you need a laptop with you at all times. Unfortunately, they're also a great way to lighten your wallet and the smallest, lightest models cost £1,200 and up.

So, you can imagine the hullabaloo that greeted the unveiling of the Asus Eee PC at the Computex trade show earlier this year. Not only is this one of the smallest and lightest ultra-portables ever made, but it's also one of the cheapest. Actually, that doesn't really do it justice - at a mere £219, the Eee PC is practically a freebie in laptop terms.

The Eee PC is ostensibly a competitor to the OLPC XO-1 (the '$100 laptop' that now costs $200) and Intel Classmate PC - both low-cost, lightweight laptops intended for use in education. With a desktop footprint barely bigger than A5 and tipping the scales at just under a kilo, the Eee PC is certainly an ideal candidate for computer-hungry kids who are already weighed down by text books, but these are features that obviously make it strongly suited to other users too. 

Despite the unbelievable price, the Eee PC certainly doesn't feel like it's been cobbled together to meet a tight budget. The case is entirely plastic, but it feels extremely solid and there are no fragile parts to snap off or lose. The lid is thick and reassuringly rigid too, although we'd be happier if there was a latch to keep it closed when it's being jiggled around in a school bag.

We've only seen 'pearlescent white' models so far, but the Eee PC will also be available in 'galaxy black'. The white finish certainly looks clean and classy, but black will be a better choice for resisting dirty fingers and the inevitable Biro marks.

The keyboard is normally the first thing to suffer when a laptop shrinks below a certain size and the one on the Eee PC is certainly small. The 'full size' keys are 15mm wide and 13mm tall; the Enter key is about half as wide again, and the Function and a few punctuation keys are a bit smaller. The layout is surprisingly standard, with only the vertical bar ("¦") key being relegated to an unexpected place next to the Escape key.

The keys' small size may deter touch typists hoping to keep their fingers on the home row, but they have plenty of travel and a pleasant, positive action. The reduced dimensions takes a little getting used to, but the keyboard is certainly adequate for typing long documents (this review was originally typed on it) and it's certainly light years ahead of any UMPC keyboard we've seen.