Netbooks are sweeping the world, and already make up most of Amazon.com's list of best-selling portable computers. The market was kick-started a year ago by the tiny Asus Eee PC701, which offered a 7-inch screen and an undersized keyboard for around £200. It was launched in the UK by education supplier RM, and aimed mainly at schoolkids. But soon, lots of us wanted one.
Asus found that businessmen were buying Eee PCs as second systems, and women were buying them to carry in their handbags. So the company decided to make a really smart-looking version just for them. It's called the S101— a propitious number in Taiwan, where Taipei 101 is the world's tallest building. It should appear in the UK any day now for a rather more expensive £449. However, unlike the 701, it actually looks more expensive than it is.
More bang for your buck
And you get more than good looks for the extra money. The S101 has a 10.2-inch screen with enough resolution for web browsing (1024 x 768 pixels), a keyboard that's only a little below full-size, and a new 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor that delivers snappy performance for its intended uses. A solid state drive (SSD) is standard: 16GB for Windows XP; 32GB or 64GB with Linux loaded. And at 1kg, the S101 is light enough to carry around all the time.
The Asus S101 is very slim (18-25mm), and while not as thin as a MacBook Air, it has practical advantages over Apple's device. The S101 is smaller and lighter, as you'd expect from its smaller screen. Both machines have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but the S101 has features the MacBook Air lacks, such as a proper Ethernet port, an SD card slot, three USB ports instead of one, and a removable battery. Since an S101 battery lasts up to five hours, packing a spare should get you through even the longest flight.
The MacBook Air has a 13.3-inch screen, which makes it easier to read, and a much meatier processor: a 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. However, at £1,199, even the cheapest Air (with a slow hard drive instead of SSD) is getting on for three times the price.
At the launch in Taiwan — which I attended with a couple of dozen other journalists, all at Asus' expense — the S101 was unveiled with a fashion show. The Champagne (light gold) model looked particularly feminine, but I don't expect many men will object to carrying the graphite (black) version. Yes, it has a Swarovski crystal at each end of the lid's hinge, but you won't notice.
Horses for courses
Bear in mind that netbooks are designed for mobile internet use such as email, instant messaging, web browsing, and running online applications. They're "cloud computing" machines. An S101 will run Microsoft Office, but if you want to do video and image manipulation, gaming, or anything that needs heavyweight processing power, you'd be better off buying a notebook PC, not a netbook.
