Ultra Mobile PCs are a strange breed; some would say neither fish nor fowl. They aren't fully fledged laptop computers; no optical drive, not the same array of ports and connectors, small screen. They aren't handhelds; they run a ‘proper' operating system and are intended for ‘real' computing.

So where do they fit in the scheme of things, and can they find a place for themselves? Well, the jury is out, but while it ponders (which means while people decide whether they will buy the things in sufficient numbers to keep them being produced and updated), there does seem to be a steady flow of them, and OQO has done its fair share of producing new devices. We make the OQO model e2 the third we've seen.

It is similar to its predecessors in that it has a slide-out keyboard and a small format: 142mm wide, 84mm tall and 26mm thick, and weighing 450g. It looks stunning thanks to its shiny black casing.

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The screen is a digitizer panel and you need a digital stylus to interact with it by ‘touch'. The screen measures 5 inches corner to corner and delivers natively at 800 x 600 pixels. You can zoom in to a software-enhanced 1,000 x 600 or 1,200 x 720 but things get a bit fuzzy as you do so. It'll send output to an external monitor at 1,920 x 1,200, which might be a better bet, though we wouldn't suggest trying to squeeze one into your pocket.

The tiny keyboard has room for a number pad, a small touch-stick for your right thumb and two mouse buttons for your left thumb. We found the two-handed approach, holding the Model e2 in both hands and prodding with thumbs, was the most effective way of typing, and it was fairly slow, though we found the general design and build quality of the keyboard pleasing.

You can get various versions of the OQO Model e2. Operating systems run to Windows Vista Business, XP Professional and XP Tablet PC Edition. The VIA Ultra Low Voltage C7M CPU can be chosen at either 1.5GHz or 1.6GHz. You can have a 120GB, 80GB or 60GB hard drive, or 32GB of solid state memory. There is always 1GB of RAM, which is minimal for running Vista. And a 3G version of the Model e2 has just been announced.

Optional extras include a docking station with optical drive, the DVD writer version of which costs £215 excluding VAT.

We couldn't help finding the OQO model e2 fun to test. There is something rather neat about squeezing a desktop operating system into a teeny device and then making it do tricks. But we can't help thinking that tricks are all it can do. Much as it tries, the OQO model e2 really does seem to be neither fish nor fowl.

If you have a thousand pounds burning a hole in your pocket, you might be better off putting it in an ISA rather than spending it on the OQO model e2. Unless you have a specific application that demands the power of a laptop in your pocket, the computer will give you pleasure for just a little while, whereas the ISA could be really useful in the long term.