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The term for this new class of portable computers is Smartbook. Think of them as a cross between a smartphone and a Netbook.

This new form factor is really a very, very small Netbook computer with modest specs running a very, very lightweight operating system.

The first Smartbook to hit the market has recently gone on sale in China with the catchy name Lanyu LY-EB01. This little baby comes with a 266 MHz ARM processor. That is not a typo – it’s 266 megahertz not gigahertz.

It has a 7-inch (800 by 600 pixels) screen and total of 1.5 GB of memory (for running the device AND storage). It weighs about a pound and a quarter and runs about a day on a (non-removable) battery charge.

It runs on Windows CE 5.0 operating system. For you history buffs, Windows CE was a really old, lightweight Microsoft OS for ancient portable devices. I had a wonderful IBM ThinkPad-like notebook some 10-12 years ago, now sitting in a box in a closet somewhere, that ran (very slowly) on Windows CE but was unbelievably lightweight and fun to use. Those were the days before Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the like. An infrared port was a big deal back then! (SO last century.)

Later, Windows CE was relegated to embedded devices (printers, smart watches, etc.)

We know all about this new WinCE device because the guys at Shanzai.com went out and bought one for testing. The price? The equivalent of $98 U.S. That’s not a typo either.

They found a very good build quality but sluggish performance, a cramped keyboard and a problem running some programs like Skype and the Opera browser (once they actually found where the software was buried on the computer).

For the entire review check out the video above.

But it IS selling for less than $100 bucks over there – and that means we could be on the brink of inundation by very small, very affordable tiny portables. Windows 7 might be way too much for a device like this – but maybe a form of Linux would work. Or Android.

This should be interesting.