Elonex Onetwo3

Despite their diminutive size, poor battery life is an issue that's affected more than one of the mini-laptops we've seen, and the Elonex is no exception. Our light use test drained the three-cell battery after two hours and 15 minutes, which is slightly worse than the Wind, but a small improvement on the Aspire One.

It's still not enough to handle a reasonably long train journey, and disappointing given that the initial promise of such devices was to be truly portable on a budget. The prevalence of 2,200mAh batteries wasn't really what we had in mind. If battery life is important, the Eee PC 901's capacious 6,600mAh battery is a much better bet.

In fact, every facet of the Elonex's performance can be bettered by other mini-laptops on the market. Unless you're willing to sign up to a contract and get the Onetwo3 for free - something of a false economy given the length of contract involved - there's little to convince us that the Elonex is worth buying over its numerous rivals.

The Acer Aspire One and Eee PC 901 offer improved performance, better keyboards and sleeker design for a little extra cash, while the MSI Wind offers the same 10in screen in a far superior all-round package. The Elonex Onetwo3 just doesn't offer enough to compete.

Author: Mike Jennings