The trend in mini-notebooks (much like the trend in maxi-notebooks) lately seems to be toward larger hard drives, faster processors, and bigger sreens. But the eCafe Hercules takes a different approach. This little laptop sports a 500MHz AMD Geode LX 800 CPU, a 20GB HDD, and 512MB of RAM (which can be upgraded to 1.5GB. It also has an 8 inch, 1024 x 600 display which is a bit unusual in this day and age of 7, 9, and 10 inch screents.

The computer runs a custom version of Linux and should be available in Europe in September for around 300 Euros or about $447 US. That certainly won’t make it the cheapest laptop on the market. But it’s also hardly the most expensive. And thanks to it’s low power CPU, it should get excellent battery life.

[via Eee PC.net]