Considering the competition, it was inevitable that there would be a price war in the netbook market, but it came sooner than we expected, at least in Taiwan where the big players have started to drop the pricing to try to win over as many customers as possible.

The 7-inch Eee PC Surf can now be had for about €159, although for those looking at something a bit more usable, then the Acer Aspire One with an 8.9-inch display and an 8GB SSD with Linux is priced at around €199. €225 will get you an Eee PC 904HD with a Celeron-M processor and €310 will get you an Eee PC 901 with Linux.

Other Asus models are more expensive, but you can get an Eee PC 1000HD for as little as €315 with a Celeron-M, 10.2-inch display, a 160GB hard drive and Windows XP Home. For about €335 you'll get the Eee PC 1000, which swaps the processor for an Atom N270, adds 802.11n WiFi and swaps the hard drive for 40GB' of SSD storage.

Lenovo is offering its ideaPad S9 for as little as €289 with an 8.9-inch display, 80GB hard drive and Windows XP Home. The ideaPad S10 comes in at €359, but that gets you a larger 10.2-inch display and a 160GB hard drive.

The cheapest MSI Wind seems to be going for about  €333 with a 120GB hard drive and HP is offering its Mini 1000 for about €359, although it only has a tiny 60GB hard drive. For those interested in working away from the office, Acer is offering a version of its Aspire one with built-in HSDPA modem for €445 without a contract, which looks like a pretty decent deal.

We have a feeling that this is only the first of many price drops and with many new models expected early next year, it's likely that you can pick up a bargain netbook as soon as the new models hit the market, as long as you don't mind using a slightly older model.