In the world of subnotebooks the mini Vye S41 sits near the top of the heap. In terms of performance there are very few subnotebooks that match the specs the new Vye mini-v S41 has to offer.

For starters the S41 has much the same form factor of other Vye models, being no larger than a paperback novel and not a whole lot heavier, at 1.12kg. The Vye has one of the better screens we’ve seen on one of these tiny notebooks. The 7" touch screen TFT display is a real step up from ­displays you’ll find on notebooks of a similar size and competes favourably with ­notebooks of similar specs.

A feature that the Vye has that very few others have is that you can flip the screen around and it becomes a tablet PC. This is an extremely handy feature for professionals working on sight or doing business ­presentations. The S41 is also the first 7" fully operational tablet PC / ­netbook with an integrated Super Multi DVD Drive that can read and write to DVD. The version we tested had a 1.33GHz Intel processor and 2GB of RAM. This is not exactly blistering performance, but then again this is really not the type of computer you’ll be using to play the latest games.

For a machine this small we are very impressed by how much they’ve crammed into the thing. You get a 1.3 megapixel webcam, decent graphics acceleration and an 80GB hard disk. The S41 has a built-in GPS receiver, Bluetooth and wireless, so whatever your connection desire, you’ll find one here.

On the downside though, we do have to say the touch pad is probably too small for anyone who doesn’t have tiny, tiny fingers and the keyboard is also a bit on the “pressed for space” side, but we’d have one tomorrow.

For more info, contact Vye Computers on 0861-111-358 or visit www.vyepc.co.za.