=== The product ===

This is a netbook which is designed to allow you to log on to the internet fast. It's smaller than a standard laptop and has less 'thrills' so can be purchased much cheaper than a standard laptop.

=== The packaging ===

When I purchased mine, brand new from Argos, back in September 2010 it came packaged in a box, within the box was some wrapping around the laptop and some polystyrene to keep it in place. I kept the box for the past year, with the receipt, just incase I needed to claim on the warranty but I've had no need for this, so far, and will be disposing of it next month once it's out of warranty.

=== The specification ===

This comes with a Windows 7 Home Starter which I thought meant that I'd get some basic programs, as I do, but I didn't realise it meant I only had a trial. After using word 20 times it asks for a registration key and when I use the one on the back of the netbook it doesn't register as being for anything more than a trial, however, as this comes with the 'Works' package also I've still got a spreadsheet builder, a 'word' style program and others.

The screen is a 10.1" 1024 x 600 TFT Screen, not that I really understand that..! The screen is a small size, not as small as the previous 8.9" I was using and it displays everything I want well enough. If I want to see things without the toolbar at the bottom I can just press F11 which turns on 'full screen' mode.

This netbook has a 0.3m pixels webcam, this isn't particularly high but then I'm not taking high quality images I'm just sending little snaps, videos or having live video chats with my nieces who live 200 miles away. The quality is good enough for them to see me and identify things that I might be showing them and that's good enough for me. While I am on video chat I can use the stereo speakers to hear them and the internal microphone to have conversations with them. I think the microphone must be built in at the bottom of the netbook as I often have to shuffle it around just so they can hear me well enough. There are also additional headphone and microphone ports so I can just external equipment if I want to to improve the quality of conversation which I do sometimes.

The battery can last for up to 4 hours but I find I get around 2 - 2 1/2 hours before I need to spend a similar amount of time charging it up again. I have found that my charger has broken for this netbook but I just used one from my husbands Toshiba laptop and that was no problem, I think it broke because of my kitten rather than being shoddy!

Some of the other items included on this laptop that I don't have much to say about are:

· Intel Atom n270 1.6Ghz Processor
· 1GB DDR2 533Mhz Memory (Option of 1GB upgrade to 2GB)
· 250GB Hard Drive
· Wireless 802.11b/g/n
· SD Card Reader
· 10/100 Wired LAN
· UK 80 Key Keyboard
· Touch Pad pointing device
· 2 x USB2.0 Ports
· VGA Out Port
· Intel 945 GSE Chipset & ICH-7M
· Microsoft Security Essentials Anti Virus Protection

All I can say on the above is that the laptop works fast enough for me to browse the internet, which was the sole reason for the purchase, it holds everything I want to (just reviews, other word documents and some photographs) without slowing down. I like the SD card reader as I can just plug my SD card in to the back and get my photographs from my camera with ease. The touch pad pointing device took a little getting used to for me and while there is a full 80 key UK keyboard this is obviously more compact because of the overall size of the device. This works fine for me but for the first few weeks I would regularly make the same spelling mistakes over and over because I was hitting the wrong keys. I haven't suffered any viruses on this computer (so far!) but then I only visit a few websites on it anyway and never open e-mails from someone I don't know.

=== Where can I buy this and for how much? ===

When I purchased this last year it was available, brand new, from Argos for £179.99. I can see that this is no longer on sale in Argos so your main option to purchase one would be second hand and/or refurbished from eBay, Amazon and the like. They seem to retail from around £100 upwards on these sites and for this machine I'd say that's a pretty reasonable price!

=== My overall opinion ===

I like this netbook... A lot! It's the perfect size for me, it's light, compact and I can fit it in almost any laptop bag. It has everything I need to surf the internet, play some online games (pogo.co.uk mainly), type documents and send e-mails. When I am using the wireless it's fast and it seldom suffers any sort of problem at all. There is no CD Drive, because this is so small, which is obviously a negative point for most people, however, as we have a larger Toshiba laptop it's not really a problem at all as I just use that for playing games and loading photographs from disc.

This netbook allows me to do everything I want to do and the price tag was within my budget at the time of purchase. I have used this, almost daily, for a year and have seen no change in the time it takes to turn on & load up (30 seconds or less), also, even though I have been running down and charging the battery several times a day it doesn't seem to have decreased in quality and still holds a charge almost as well as the day I first used it.

I like the look of this netbook, it's black with a little silver trim around the edge of the screen and the only downside I can say about the appearance is that my kitten came along and broke off the corner of the silver trim. This didn't affect the screen though and I was very surprised that no damage occurred to the screen.

Overall this netbook has served me well, I like the features of it, I can live without the CD Drive to save space and money on the original purchase. I would happily buy this again, second hand now I guess, if something was to happen to this one. I did own a Zoostorm netbook before that inadvertently got broke and I was happy to replace it with this one almost straight away. I'd definitely recommend it, particularly if you just want to surf the internet and maybe send some e-mails, visit Facebook and just generally plod around online, it's perfect for that!