Hi there, I’ve got a Sony UX1XN (I may blog about it) and it is quite small though incredibly nice to use (battery life sucks, though.) Also got a Macbook and of the Eeee or the Macbook, I’d go for the Macbook and use Bootcamp to run Windows. If you’re still not sure, if there’s a Apple store or KRCS anywhere near you, go in and pick one up and wave it about. Not sure whether you’ll find the Eeee anywhere retail-wise, but you never know. A decent sized Sony store would probably have the Sony Micro PC for you to take a look at.

Yeah the UX1XN was the exact Sony I have looked at - I have seen one and sadly the keyboard did disagree with me … When I’m next in London (post iphone launch madness) I’ll pop to the apple store and look at the laptops. I now need to find a London vendor where I can checkout the eee’s form factor - any ideas?

I’ve been on the Asus website having a wander. They have a ‘find nearest stockist’ option, which migh help… Having almost decided to get one, and been annoyed to find no info on it on Asus site until they come out, I was intrigued to find the Asus press release. Where they say there will be a model with a 10″ screen for an extra $60 odd. £250 inc VAT for that? It’s clearly the same form factor without the huge gap round the screen. I also fancy a OLPC, but can’t see them selling to Europe (or even the US with their production delays) for a good while.

The Asus Eee PC has a *very* small keyboard; very small. I happily touch type on an HTC Dash and I find the Eee keyboard to small; it really is child sized. There are small machines that don’t have that disadvantage. For really light and really ultraportable with a DVD drive check the Tosh R500. OTOH none of the Macs are exactly lightweight and slimline… And the Eee is cheap - but if you want to give it usable storage it’s going to be pricey (increase the memory to 2GB, add an 8GB SD card and you’ve added half the price, add a bigger SSD and you’ve doubled the price as well as having had to tear the machine about). -Mary

Thanks Mary - you are right about the R500. Thats defintely one to consider that I hadn’t even seen before. Now I just need to find how good the battery actually is on that unit! The battery life figured with a SSD are truely amazing if the reviews are true. It looks to be be a perfect combination of good engineering and size (so a exactly what I’m after). Now I just need to be paid a nice Christmas bonus to pay for it!

This is a no brainer - just wait till Mac Expo 2008 - the Mac ultra-portable is almost 99% certain to be unveiled and then you have your single laptop solution and a very lightweight package. Rumors are firming up that this will encompass some touch technology and a really nice form factor (13′ screen, Santa Rosa, a 64gig NAND disk, droool….). This is one occasion where a wait until after Christmas really will be worth the angst of seven weeks of suspended techno-lust

13″ isn’t an ultraportable. I have a 12.1″ widescreen - the Tosh 400 - and it’s on the edge of ultraportable. any bigger and it’s just thin and light. The R500 I’ve seen held up by a helium balloon. I’ll have a review unit within days too, so I can check the battery life. Another option is the also thin and light HP 2710p which is a tablet with 4-5 hours battery life, 10 hours if you add a thin battery slab and 10% extra battery life if you drop the $999 extra for the SSD (review unit also arriving soon). Apple has no incentive to innovate this much and for the market size they can’t afford to.

Talking about defining ultraportable, I’m stunned by the number of adverts that list the weight as “featherlight” or “featherweight” and then say “2kg.” Just what bird is shedding these feathers!

That would be a roc, Dave… my definition is what Gartner calls the sub-one kilogram wasteland (because of all the devices in that category that haven’t made it mainstream). -Mary

Mac, hands down.

Dan,
Did you find a London stockist of the Asus Eee?

i’m still looking for the perfect [or even nearly perfect] laptop solution and it doesn’t exist, or if it does, it comes saddled with poxy Vista.
EG the sony SZ series with 13″ screen is the perfect solution at first glance except its way too expensive and will not run XP coz they wont supply the necessary drivers.
the long awaited Airbook will run XP & looks good on paper but is very flimsy and has no optical drive so not much good in practice, you’re better off with the MacBook - except its 2.2kg!