Side note: I think its dumb to compare smart phones vs. netbooks vs. laptops. We should be comparing netbooks vs. laptops and leave smartphones out of it. A smart phone couldn’t possibly let me type at 60+ words per minute or quickly perform complex programming or scripting tasks.

As I said, the netbook fits my criteria for a dream laptop that I’ve had for a long time. Namely:

1) light weight
2) long battery life
3) ubiquitous internet connection – i.e. anywhere where wifi and possibly 3g are available

Light weight and battery life trump all when you’re hauling something around all day, for instance, on a road trip, at a college campus, or on a long flight.

Further, a netbook does not need to be very powerful. It merely needs to be quick at either connecting to the internet or to other servers. If what I need to do can’t be performed with a browser or lightweight text editor, I can vpn to a server or more powerful desktop and remotely perform the work.

I am running an acer aspire one 10″ netbook…

1.6ghz atom processor.
2gb ram
160gb hdd…
win7
this setup was 250 bucks …got laptop for 199 bucks on sale at target, ram upgrade for 50 at crucial.
if i need to dock it i can and it easily pushes 1920×1080p on my 24″ monitor

it provides the perfect zone for me of just enough on the go for what i need to do, would be fine for a weekend trip, throw it in a bag, its 1″ thin and a little over 2 lbs.

it would be a big deal if i lost it for sure but, not near as big of a deal if i lost a 2000 dollar laptop. and this happens pretty frequently as well as they get damaged very frequently.

for a main workstation for me ANY laptop is just too little processing power and not even close to a desktop, (i run dual processers, dual video cards, 16gb ram etc.) so I’m glad companies are going for the “just enough” mobile processing market.

smart phones of course, i can do no developing on whatsoever. i know a LOT of developers who have netbooks… or at least very small laptops (which is what it is)

However, nobody mentioned UMPCs! UMPCs are different than “netbooks”.
The UMPC market is actually quite important. Many UMPCs are actually about the size of a “smart phone”, except they don’t have the monthly fees/contracts/restrictions/etc. yet have the power of an actual desktop (OQO, Panasonic U1, etc.)
Even still, I think that the UMPC market is largely untapped (mainly because they are usually alot more expensive, )

I don’t know about you, but I hate having my devices locked down/neutered like most “smart phones” are!

Not even close. Just look @ the $50-$100 monthly charge, for two years.

Plus, the network appliance IS next. I saw a little atom based machine 2 weeks ago @ best buy ($199). I want one for my wife (unless she decides she wants the netbook).

Where are you finding a modern smartphone with even half the computing power of a netbook, or at a lower price? Or a laptop for remotely close to the price of a cheap netbook?

To be more precise, the iPhone 3GS has a 600MHz CPU and 256MB of RAM and retails for something like $600. A cheap laptop from Dell will run you $500 with a 2GHz CPU and 1GB of RAM. My Asus eee 905 cost $230 brand new, has a 1.6GHz CPU and 1GB of RAM.

Comparison fail.

Sure, the user base for smartphones may be larger, but the netbook will not be a flop.

A netbook (or what people commonly refer to as netbooks) is small and light enough to conveniently carry around (all the time) and still lets you do almost anything you’d do on a notebook.

The only reason they’re called netbooks is because of marketers. There is a virtually continuous spectrum of these machines, ranging from huge 10 lb./19″ machines to 2 lb/9″ ones. If no marketer ever invented the term netbook, would you be writing a blog post called “Computers less than 3 lbs and with screens less than 12 inches suck, computers greater than 3 lbs. with screens greater than 13 inches are great”?

I’ve taken this thing around with me for about two years. Right now I’m at school in the library typing away (a pain with my phones little qwerty). I wouldn’t try bringing my laptop here with me. My backpack is already stuffed full and weighed down with books. I would fear that the screen would break or a bad bump would kill the precious hard drive. With the solid state drive on the netbook, and the small rugged design (EeePC 900) I don’t have these fears.

After commenting here I plan on doing some research and coding, all on the netbook!

Even a small 13″ laptop is difficult to carry — it weighs 2-3kg and generally requires a dedicated medium-sized bag. A netbook can fit into a purse (or pretty much any bag) with space left over. A laptop can be carried, a netbook is convenient to carry.

The fact that a fine netbook costs $300 (vs $800-$1200 for a decent laptop), makes a difference on the road — I won’t sweat if I lose one due to theft or damage.

Battery life of 8h (vs 2h for laptops) makes a huge difference as well. A typical laptop always runs out of power on a medium or long haul flight, and doesn’t fit on the tray table either.

Smartphones are an entirely different category. Even if they could run a desktop OS (read “Windows”), try writing anything more than an SMS, or reading more than several pages of text and the difference becomes painfully obvious. They’re strictly for *communication* and can do little practical work. For most information workers, smartphone can get you the “you need to get back to the home/office now” notification — on a netbook you could actually do the task immediately.

Netbook is the smallest thing you can carry with you and still be able to do all the computing tasks you’re used to. They’re here to stay.

Of course, in a year or two, netbooks will certainly have as much power as today’s laptops — it’s a form factor that defines them, not the Atom processor.

Try writing a whole document, or even a detailed email response, on a smartphone. It isn’t a pleasant experience. Try writing code on a smartphone. Almost impossible.

Now, try to use a notebook on an aeroplane or train. Unless you’re travelling first class, in which case you probably don’t need to work, your notebook just won’t fit. And if you’re in business class with just enough space to open the screen, the battery will run out 1-2 hours into the flight.

Netbooks are a perfect solution. My first netbook was a MSI Wind. It wasn’t a great choice because of a compromised keyboard layout, but I was able to work when/where I needed. I just upgraded to an Acer 1810TZ, and that machine is just about perfect. I get 8+ hours of battery (one day I got over 10 hours of writing), a slightly larger screen and a much better keyboard.

Sorry, but there is a large market of people for whom Netbooks are a perfect mobile computing solution. Smartphones might work as viewers, but they’re a long way from being practical creation tools.

I’m a professional software developer and have an Asus Eee PC 1000 series netbook as my only home computer. I do a lot of home ASP.NET development with Visual Studio 2008/2010 Beta 2, SQL Server 2008 and 3rd party refactoring tools. Yes, it runs a little slow at times if I’m careless with how many tools I’m running at once, but on the whole I have no problems with it at all (and believe me I’m *not* a patient person when it comes to coding).

Which makes me wonder – if a netbook is good enough for me to build a $100K web site, what are others trying to do that makes them so poor?