Quote -  This is great! I'm planning to buy a netbook for my daughter the coming week and I've been debating whether to bet her a "real" laptop ror a netbook.

It's a question of figuring out how your daughter will use it. If the main purpose is portability, a netbook is definitely the way to go. If she needs to type a lot with it, on the move, the cramped keyboard is hard to get used to for a touch typist (probably less so for a two-fingered typist). The netbooks are very expandable with (at least for my ASUS) 3 USB slots, a VGA port, ethernet port, and SD card slot. If heavy typing will mostly be done in a room, a keyboard, mouse, and monitor can be attached and still have room for a portable hard drive or DVD drive. I've installed Office 2007 on mine without any problem (not counting the inherent interface problem that makes it difficult for earlier Office users to figure out--that's Microsoft's fault, not the netbook).

Netbooks are already hurting laptop sales and will continue doing so. I'm not going to use a netbook to replace my desktop. A $300 netbook is a compromise between computing power and portability. Netbooks are capable enough that I cannot imagine buying another laptop as a portable computer. Netbooks are so much easier to carry around. I'm trying to get my office to buy them so that we can have all the standards, specifications, and regulations with us at all meetings. A pound and a half netbook is easy to carry around and the purported 5 hour battery life (I'm only getting around 3-4 hrs) is long enough to last through a full day meeting going in and out of standby when not needed.

Quote - Mac users can look into the Macbook Air (but you Macheads. like me, already knew about this!)

Sure, if Mac users want to pay six times as much, have no integrated camera, a 120 Gb hard drive instead of 160Gb, no SD slot, only have one USB port, and not be able to drop it in a camera bag or purse. I'm sure that Apple will eventually have a competing netbook. Right now, the Air is a better laptop, but is not a portable netbook. If Apple doesn't have the good sense to put out a better netbook, they'll deserve losing more market share. I'm not sure why Apple hasn't brought one out yet because netbooks have been on the market for close to two years. I guess Apple, with their high hardware profit margins, cannot compete on price.

Netbooks aren't new. There have been ultra portable computers for well over a half dozen years. What's new is ASUS initially producing one at a low enough price point that it created a new market. There wasn't much demand for $2000 small notebooks. When ASUS put out a below $300 netbook, it suddenly enticed users to try something new. I wasn't an early adopter, but once they started adding a spacious hard drive, XP, and new power conserving processors, I decided to get one and do not regret the decision.

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