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Yes another contender has entered the budget Netbook arena, this one coming in smaller and cheaper then most…but even then it seems you may not get what you pay for.

The 600 gram, 7 inch Mini Laptop Neo is now available at UK chain Maplin’s for £170 ($325). The miniBook’s actual measurements are 222 x 165 x 30mm, with a 7 inch, 800×400 display

According to Maplin’s specs and features are as follows:

· 7-inch TFT widescreen screen and stylish piano black finish casing
· Easy to use Linux operating system with UK keyboard
· 3 x USB 2.0 ports
· Stereo speakers and built-in microphone
· Touch mouse pad
· Email and Office (word processor and spreadsheet program)
· PDF viewer
· SD / SDHC Card reader
· 10/100Mbps Ethernet port
· 2GB SSD (soild state disk) shock proof storage
· Expand the storage with USB or SD Flash Memory (not external hard drives)
· Supports up to 4GB SD cards and 4GB USB sticks
· Multi-theme display (Child or Adult mode)
· DDR2 128MB memory
· AC adaptor / charger
· Complete with Xip office applications
· 12 month warranty

OK, no word on WHAT CPU that is, or what version of Linux it runs. Beyond that, the measely 128MB or RAM makes me wonder if the unit would be capable of much more then PIM storage and the occasional text file. 128MB is what you would expect to see on an iPaq or Palm Tungsten PDA a couple years ago, not on a new netbook. Also, it says it handles SDHC, so why is it limited to 4GB SD cards? One element of real interest….When they say it features Xip and Office applications, do they actually mean an Execute in Place bootloader or did they just misspell Zip? Curiouser and curiouser.

All in all however, when a 7 inch, 2GB SSD, 512MB RAM Asus Eee 700 is available at Target for $299, why buy this product for $325.

Caveat Emptor, mate.