It seems that hardware manufacturers just can't resist the temptation to have a pop at the netbook market, no matter how many models there are out there already.

It's Fujitsu-Siemens' turn now, with the Amilo mini, whose black and white color scheme echoes the manufacturer's other lines.  

Running Windows XP, it comes with an 8.9'' screen and either a 60 GB or an 80 GB hard drive.

Handling & Connectivity
So, in terms of looks, the Amilo Mini looks a lot like Fujitsu-Siemens' full-size notebooks and desktop monitors, and if you've already got one of these products then you'll definitely be able to complete the set with this one.

The black and white case has clean, sharp lines, and you can choose a clip-on cover in a different color for behind the screen.  The default option is a dark red, but Fujitsu-Siemens plan to release more colors and encourage users to change them as often as they like.

To be perfectly honest, we prefer the Amilo Mini without these extra covers for two reasons.  Firstly, there's nothing to fix the colored layer in place and it certainly doesn't look very secure.  Secondly, the plain white looks a lot more professional than any of the colors offered by Fujitsu-Siemens so far.

The keyboard is very small, with each key only 1.5 cm across.  Although it's only a question of a matter of millimeters, the difference between this and a 10'' netbook is really noticeable when you've been typing for a while.

Around both the screen and the keyboard, there's a border of wasted space where the case encroaches, which is a shame as it could have been used to make both bigger and more comfortable to use.

When you close the netbook, there's nothing to keep it shut and the whole thing is not particularly reassuring.

Typical webcam shot

The left and right click buttons are on either side of the touchpad, rather than underneath.  Pressing them gives a nice loud click which makes it difficult to work in a quiet environment.  Unfortunately, the touchpad doesn't make the most of the extra room freed by moving the buttons, which is another waster opportunity.

As long as you stay still, the webcam gives a good quality picture, but as soon as you start to move, things get jerky.  Although the microphone is reasonably good, colors are less well-handled, with greens in particular suffering from too much darkness.

Along the side of the case, all the standard interfaces are there, although we had expected more than two USB ports.  There's also an Ethernet port, a VGA port, two mini-jacks and a card-reader.  Additionally, Fujitsu-Siemens have included an Express Card slot where you can add your choice of peripheral--TV tuner cards are popular, but you could also add 3G or eSATA to your netbook.

When it's at its maximum level, the volume of the speakers is louder than the average netbook, and it's obvious that Fujitsu-Siemens has put some work into the handling of bass notes.  That said, however, we still recommend you use headphones or an external speaker if sound quality is important.

This is even more necessary because the Amilo Mini can get noisy.  As soon as it has to do a bit of work, the fan kicks in, and, although it's not very loud, there's a very noticeable high-pitched sound.

Finally, if you want to make any upgrades to this netbook, all you can do is swap a new hard drive for the old one, and it's easy enough--you only need to remove a single screw.

ExpressCard port ans first USB	Memory card slot
VGA out and second USB	Webcam

Processor Power
With a conventional hard drive inside, there's generally not too much of a discrepancy between reading and writing speeds.  While netbooks with SSD-based flash memory offer incredible read speeds, they're disastrously slow at writing.  

By way of comparison, the Acer 150, with an SSD, has a read speed of 58 MB/s, but is much slower at recording data: the Amilo Mini is closer to 26 MB/s, but in both directions.

These data transfer rates don't exactly put it at the top of the table, but they're no so bad as to hold you back in day-to-day usage either.  

It's the same story when it comes to booting up: at around one minute, it's faster than a lot of desktop computers, but when the best netbooks manage thirty-five seconds it's less glowing.  As usual, video is just about manageable, but you can forget about huge HD files.

Battery Life & Portability
Netbooks that weigh in around a kilo generally tend to be most portable, and the Amilo Mini is very much part of this group.  

Unfortunately, it doesn't really have the battery life to match, managing just 2 hours 16 minutes in our standard test, looping video with sound coming via the headphones.  It's a long way behind the Asus 901 and its five hours.  To be fair to Fujitsu-Siemens, they have announced plans to launch a high capacity battery as an optional extra but details are currently thin on the ground.

Finally, the charger is only 254 grams, which is one of the lightest we've seen.