The Elonex Webbook (£274 inc. VAT if bought separately) is a distinctive-looking Netbook, finished in a combination of white and silver plastics.

It's available for free with a 24-month data contract, although you'll find a USB dongle offered rather than integrated 3G/HSDPA.

The 10.2-inch TFT screen is decent, and we found it bright and easy to use when out and about. There's enough space onscreen for most tasks, and it's more than capable for browsing the web.

Cramped keyboard

The keyboard is responsive and firmly attached, but we found the keys too fiddly for comfortable use. The biggest problem is the half-sized backspace, and it's all too easy to hit the wrong key. We also struggled with the tiny spacebar, hitting the Alt or Windows key by accident.

The chassis itself is fairly sturdy, although it lags behind the best Netbooks, creaking under pressure. The display is held comfortably in place, however, and remains free from movement when typing.

The Webbook uses a VIA processor, like the HP, in this case a 1.6GHz C7-M chip. Along with 512MB of memory, it may not look like the most powerful of specifications, but we found it handled the Windows XP Home OS fairly well.

Well-connected Netbook

We managed to work for a respectable three and a half hours when out and about, despite the three-cell battery. With the battery positioned in the centre of the chassis, there's no scope for fitting a larger six-cell unit, however.

The standard array of ports are arranged around the chassis, including three USB ports, a media card reader and a VGA-out port for hooking up an external display. Networking features come in the form of 10/100 Ethernet and 802.11g Wi-Fi.

As a standalone unit, the Elonex Webbook's compromised interface makes it difficult to recommend. It's a more attractive proposition as part of a contract, but definitely try before you buy.