Asus can rightly claim that this machine started the whole netbook craze.

The Eee PC 701 is one of the smallest netbooks on the market. Despite its diminutive stature it punches above its weight.

The 701 is based around Intel’s Celeron mobile 353 running at 900Mhz with 512Mb of RAM and an 8Gb solid state drive.

The Eee 701 has a 7 Inch display with an 800×480 resolution. This can cause some problems web browsing as not all web pages will fit comfortably on the screen.

The Eee PC 701 has a built in 0.3 megapixel webcam and built in 802.11b/g wireless network access.

Battery life is good with around 3 and a half hours from a single charge.

Although with a RAM upgrade the Eee PC 701 is perfectly capable of running Windows XP it comes with Linux as standard.

This is probably a scary thing for all of us Microsoft babies but I know I could get used to 15 second boot times pretty easily!

Given its tiny size the keyboard is too small to be of any real use and unless you have very slim fingers don’t expect to write your first bestseller on it!

Overall the Eee PC 701 has been superceded by more recent netbook offerings but at the price it is tough to beat.

If you just want a second machine for web browsing or a first proper laptop for the kids the £169 price tag makes it a very attractive proposition.

The Eee PC 701 is available in White or Black.