The Viewsonic Airpanel is in essence a 800 x 600 colour LCD panel that is designed to allow web browsing via a wireless connection, the 10.4" screen is certainly bright enough and despite its small size you soon get used to navigating around. The clever part of the Viewsonic Airpanel is that is using your main PC to do all the work and the screen is an extension of the user interface, its a bit like a screen with built in PC anywhere software. It relies on windows XP to do this and it needs to be the professional version running on your main PC, an upgrade from XP home to windows XP pro is included in the package.

The Airpanel is based around a 400Mhz Xscale processor (the same as that in the Ipaq PDA's) and also runs Microsoft's windows for smart displays which has the same XP look and feel as your main PC, inside is a 64mb Rom and 128mb of RAM which are sufficient to drive the screen.

Control is via a 4 way control pad and buttons that simulate right or left mouse clicks, but most users will sue the touch screen technology and a either the supplied stylus or more likely the trusty finger, there is also 2 USB ports on the Airpanel for connection of a mouse / keyboard or other peripherals.

The Viewsonic Airpanel also comes with a battery which should be good for 5 hours of use, this can be charged either with the supplied power adaptor or an optional docking station, its quite possible to treat the Airpanel as a mobile device as its weighs less than some laptops, but it seems most likely to find a home in a very techie kitchen or area of the home where you want browsing and email without the whole PC and cables!.

The 802.11b wireless connection was ok but not the best we've ever encountered the chap who showed us his Airpanel moaned that it wasn't as robust as his laptop wifi connections and certainly had a shorter range. The package includes a wifi dongle to connect to your main PC in case you are not already running a wireless network, configuration of the Airpanel is very straightforward anyway.

Its certainly  neat little package, perhaps a tad bulky for the functionality inside and the wifi is not the best but it does offer a solution that does not need extra PC's in your kitchen!  However the downside is a price north of £700 which is steep for a 10.5" screen and a wifi connection no matter how stylish it looks. We were certainly tempted but for that kind of money only the lazy would buy the Viewsonic Airpanel rather than build their own PC.