Also, I run Linux on it most of the time (Ubuntu 10.04), and it runs very smoothly (almost never slow). So in my opinion, netbooks are perfectly good if you don’t use any “bloated” software.

Never again a netbook!

Exchanged it for a low end but still powerful desktop and just using my old powerful laptop on power saver mode. I won’t ever need 6+ hours of battery life.

It may not be what you need, but I’ve been waiting 20 years for a light, cheap laptop that will run Windows and all windows type software. 4 years ago, to get a computer this small, you had to by a high end Sony or Toshiba for $1700. Now its $275. How can anybody b*tch about that?

For me it’s perfect, I mostly use it at home… but bring it to work occasionally, and basically – as I said it does *everything* that I want it to do, and I can go a whole day without having to lug the recharger around with me. For me I really wanted something smaller than a normal laptop, but with the functionality that I need. Price was also a huge consideration – and this fit the bill perfectly! I think there is a large segment out there who are like me, and that the Netbooks do fit a nice little niche.

Poor consumer decisions don’t make something completely useless. I mean, Microsoft product IS everywhere, no?

Having convinced my employer to buy 4 of these things for our staff to take with them to meetings, etc., I’d say that they’ve been an overwhelming success and are constantly “checked out”. But, we use them appropriately, as I think they were/are meant to use – they’re great ways to take notes at meetings and then send them around instead of transcribing from hand written notes (bit time savings!), surf the web/check stuff quickly at meetings/on the road where wifi is available and generally act as a very portable and adequate out-of-office office tool.

This is simply about appropriate technology use, nothing more. I love my iTouch, but hate typing anything more than a few lines on it and that screen is just a bit too small for reading big docs, etc. – but, yes, it’s awesome! The average laptop is too heavy to casually carry around and the battery life typically sucks (there’s your zone of suck!!!) – most just are like that.

Your zone of suck is easily replaced with netbook tablets (go Apple!) and people who understand what they’re buying when they buy them. It’s that simple.

Oh, and the LGs are the way to go, the Acer keyboards are just a bit too small (we have 2 of each – consensus is with the LG). The LG is more comfortable for longer typing and, with a slightly larger screen, not to hard on the eyes. If LG comes out with a tablet version… Rejoice!

And, you know what, our office netbooks have the same specs as my slightly older latop at home (although the netbooks have WAY more hard drive space!), which runs photo AND video editing software – albeit SLOWLY. But, patience people, yeesh!

The specs of this machine are somewhat akin to the net books: 1.2 GHz CPU, 512MB RAM, shared with video, 40GB [spinning] disk.

“Window key + E” 1, 2, 3, 4, … 8 seconds before Explorer opened. That’s not the kind of responsiveness I would expect from a modern computer, but is something I expect from a netbook.

I just thought I’d share my experience with a netbook prototype…

Not really that much more portable than a laptop. It still won’t fit in my pocket & I am not carrying a man-purse to carry a mini-me laptop.

Not much more powerful than a smart phone or ipod touch.

Netbooks are a solution in search of a problem.