Canadian company Datawind, the guys behind the Pocket Surfer, has entered the netbook market with the UbiSurfer.

Spec wise I’m afraid it gets absolutely blown out of the water compared to other netbooks available. An Arm processor with just 128GB of RAM is pretty poor. As is the SSD of just 1GB. But it does have a few features going for it that make it an attractive proposition.

Firstly, it’s tiny. If you’re looking for a really compact netbook you’ll struggle to get more compact that this. The screen is just 7-inches and it weighs just 700g. Secondly it’s only £159.99. Lastly, and by far the most crucial aspect of the UbiSufer is that it comes with a pre-installed Vodafone SIM that will allow 30 hours of GPRS web surfing a month. It’s not 3G but it’s better than a poke in the eye.

If more than 30 hours are needed a £5.99 a month fee will allow unlimited usage. The 30 hours a month deal lasts for a year, and then it’s just £29.99 a year after that. Roaming charges are pretty cheap too – just 5p a minute in Europe and the States.

30 hours should be more than enough for most surfers – the netbook has Wi-Fi as well so it wouldn’t be totally dependent on the Vodafone connection.

So overall, fairly poor netbook, fairly good data deal. For £159.99 it might be worth a punt. Get it online from Maplin.