If you've been wanting to get your hands on a Classmate 2 PC, but you're not a student in a developing nation, there's hope for you yet. Amazon has posted preorder pages for the CTL 2Go PC. This laptop is built using Intel's Classmate 2 reference design, but unlike the original Classmate, you don't need to order in bulk.

The 2Go comes in Linux and Windows XP flavors. The XP version will set you back $469, while you can pick up a version with Linux for $399.

Both machines ship with a 900MHz Celeron processor, 512MB of RAM, and a 40GB hard drive. They also sport a 9 inch 800 x 480 pixel display, a memory card reader, a 0.3 megapixel webcam, USB, Ethernet, and 802.11b/g connectivity.

In other words, the 2Go PC is a lot like the Asus Eee PC 701, but instead of a 7 inch screen you get a 9 inch screen, and instead of 4GB of solid state memory you get a 40GB hard drive. But the price (for the Linux version anyway) is about the same.

While plenty of web sites have put the HP Mini-Note, Asus Eee PC, and other low-cost ultraportables through the paces with benchmarks, comparisons of video performance, and startup times, the folks at Laptop Magazine have been asking another crucial question: Which ultraportable has the best keyboard? Laptop happens to have access to an Eee PC, Mini-Note, and a CTL 2Go PC, which is the first Intel Classmate 2 PC expected to hit the market.

Over the past few days, we've seen Laptop writers take a typing test on each machine. Tomorrow the magazine will crown the champion, but I think it's pretty clear that the Mini-Note will be the winner. The computer has a nearly full sized keyboard, and the writers seemed to indicate they had positive typing experiences (for the most part).

I decided to run my own little test, so I visited the Ten Thumbs web page to use the same typing test used in the Laptop Magazine test. Oddly, I did better on my Eee PC than I did on my full sized laptop. In both cases, I had a 1% error rate, but on my larger laptop I scored 77 words per minute, while I got 83 words per minute on the Eee PC. I'm not going to pretend that this means I can consistently type faster on the Eee PC. After a while, I tend to find its little keyboard cramped and cumbersome. But I do think that for people who don't have excessively large hands, the Eee PC keyboard is quite useable, and perhaps even preferable in some circumstances, since you don't need to move your fingers as far to reach keys as you do on a full sized laptop.

Oh, and oddly enough, I clocked 72 words per minute and a 2% error rate on the Mini-Note. The keyboard feels much more comfortable to use than the Eee PC keyboard, but I think the fact that it's hard to find a good place to rest your palms makes it a bit more awkward. Plus I had just performed two other typing tests by the time I got to the Mini-Note. My fingers might have been a bit tired. I'd be curious to see the results of a test that takes longer than a minute, but I don't think I have the energy to conduct 3 typing tests that run 5 minutes or longer each.

Darren Waters at the BBC is spending the next week tinkering with one of Intel's Classmate 2 laptop computers. In the video above you can see he's also spent some time with the OLPC XO Laptop, and he clearly highlights some of the differences between the devices. While both are aimed at developing nations, the XO represents a whole new way to think about computers, while the Classmate is designed for Windows XP and lets users experience computers much the same way that users in developed nations would. But smaller.

Waters reports that the Classmate 2 is capable of performing most individual tasks without a problem, but thanks to its poky processor it doesn't hold up to multitasking very well. Like the XO Laptop, the Classmate 2 uses mesh networking to share internet connections with other nearby computers.

We should be getting a full review in about a week, as well as a complete review from someone closer to the target audience, 9 year old Rufus Cellan-Jones who reviewed the XO for the BBC last year.