Cheap Laptops

I took a visit to PC World today as I was in Liffey Valley and it looks like there’s going to be some fun and games with cheap ultra mini laptops.  Pictured here is a mini laptop from a company called Asus.  The screen is only 10 inches and it runs its own Linux operating system.  It also has a 2 or 4GB hard drive, which isn’t very much.  The cool thing about these laptops though is their size and cheapness.  You can’t run any Windows software on them (well, technically you can but they would work way too slowly) but nowadays you can get good stuff for free on the web.  This model (2GB) costs €269 whereas the 4GB model would set you back €299.
Advent have released a similar laptop but it runs Windows XP.  This costs €349 in PC World.  I’m not really sure if these mini laptops are worth their money just yet.  I think it would be easy enough for them to come all the way down to less than €100 each if they run a Linux operating system and maybe a bit more with Windows.  Apparently Dell are releasing an ultra mini laptop soon and so are HP.  There’ll be a price war, I’d imagine.
Anyway, from what I could see..this is what you get for your money in PC World.
Asus Ultra Mini Laptop:

• Linux operating system
• 2GB / 4GB Optical Hard Drive
• 3 USB ports
• 1 Port to link up to a projector
• Wireless LAN
• Wired LAN
• Various bits of software including Firefox Internet Browser and Open Office 2.0
• Price €269 / €299

Advent Ultra Mini Laptop:

• Windows XP operating system
• 80GB Hard Drive
• 1 USB port
• 1 Port to link up to a projector
• Wireless LAN
• Wired LAN
• Various bits of Windows software
• Price €349

Please feel free to correct me on this or if you know where to get these cheaper or better!