My first thought about the mini-v was; the battery looks a bit big. My second was, ooh look a button marked Launcher and a button marked Shutter. When I started using it I thought, the calibration's off and I can't hit the Start button. Then I ran through the utilities, fixed the calibration* and noticed the battery life was well over five hours with Wi-Fi on. I tried typing and discovered that the bezelled keys let me touch type, unlike the Asus Eee PC. Then I stuck it in my bag and noticed it was light, pulled it out at the airport and enjoyed playing Spider Solitaire with a finger rather than a pen and decide that for £600-odd it's far more my kind of machine than the Eee. Check out the details of why I say it's more than just a sub-notebook on Tom's Hardware.

BT has the XP version with a Geode preocessor for £590, or bundled with a mouse and USB TV stick for £630,, though it's £800 for the 800MHz Vista version I tested . US pricing is better at $1199 with Vista/XP or $1099 for bring your own OS.

*I know the original Japanese model had a calibration issue and that the Linux drivers may not help you enough here. If I'm using a touchscreen I want Vista for the touch support.