There are only so many free megabytes of download you can give away to encourage people to take out a wireless broadband contract. The Carphone Warehouse was one of the first to try offering a ‘free' laptop with a two-year broadband contract, so you have something to download your wireless data onto.

The Webbook is a Small Cheap Computer (SCC), sometimes described as a netbook and specifically designed and built by Elonex for CW to be an Internet and writing tool, without needing a wheelie suitcase to transport it in.

The Webbook has about two-thirds the footprint of a 15-inch laptop, partly because it has a 10.2-inch LCD display which governs much of the notebook's dimensions. This widescreen display has a native resolution of 1,024 by 600, so you get most of a decent-sized work space. The keyboard, while smaller than those of standard notebooks, is larger than those in machines like the Asus Eee and is easy enough to get used to, though the spacebar needs to be tapped firmly to register.

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The machine is based around a 1.6GHz VIA C7-M processor, running with 512MB of main memory. This is plenty for Windows XP, unless you're running particularly heavyweight applications, which are likely to drag down the processor anyway. There's an 80GB hard drive rather than a solid-state device, so there's plenty of storage space for applications, music and even some video.

The screen is bright and surprisingly easy to read and displays the Windows XP Home SP3 desktop looking as green and slightly hilly as ever. There's no application software supplied with the machine, but it's easy enough to fill it up with open source applications like OpenOffice to make it useful. Sound is always an afterthought on a laptop and the speakers in the Webbook are no more tinny than in a regular 14-inch or 15-inch portable.

Getting software and data on and off the machine requires either a cabled or wireless network connection, as there's no optical drive included. Both types of network are provided as standard and WiFi is probably the easiest way to go, particularly if you have a wireless router. The machine is surprisingly well-endowed with other sockets, including three USB, an external monitor, SD card and mic and headphone jacks.

In general use we got close to three hours out of the batteries and the Webbook never struggled to handle day-to-day word processing and spreadsheet work, as well as browsing the Web and dealing with e-mail. It played back video at reasonable frame rates, though it can only handle the lowest 720p HD resolution.

The Webbook compares well with machines like the Asus Eee, MSI's Wind and the Acer Aspire One on feature set and price, though its performance in all areas except hard drive is sluggish. Even so, for general-purpose Internet and word processing it'll do everything you want, has a good screen and keyboard and is very convenient to carry around.