I thought I'd take the opportunity to explain my take on the EEE PC now that the world and Stephen Fry have done so.

Rather than think of the EEE PC like the Tandy 100 as Anthony has done, I see it as the successor to the Psion Series 7.

I've still got a Series 7 at home and it's come with me on press trips. Why? It's small enough to fit into an ordinary back. Being flash based it is ready to go as soon as you press the power button is pressed. So I was ready to start taking notes long before all the Windows and Mac users. There might not be many games but there are ebook readers so I can take my collection from Manybooks with me.

It has it's faults, mainly in trying to copy files from it to, well, anything else. The Compact Flash slot sounds like a good idea but a couple of cards have refused to work in anything other than the Psion. Beaming the document to a phone and copying it to a computer from there get a little wearing.

One solution is to install Linux on the Psion as it can then be used with some wireless cards. There is a project for this at http://www.openpsion.org/ but to be honest I don't want to take the risk.

This brings me to why I don't really see the benefit of trying to install Windows XP or (shudder) Vista on an EEE PC or even the various ultra mobile PCs that pass by our desks. It's not designed for these really small devices and just can't shine.

What puzzles me is why no one has installed Windows Mobile onto any of these devices instead. Mobile is fast, comes with Word and Excel, and there is a huge selection of extra software to choose from. You can even connect to GPS devices with cheap utilities like GPS Speed Sentry. The reduced system requirements should make a huge improvement in battery life.

On a side note, one of the most interesting comparisons is that of price. The Series 7 was an eye watering £700 pounds back in 2002, whereas the EEE PC is cheap enough that I'm seriously tempted.