My point holds just fine.
Nope. The other poster is completely correct and you have serious misconceptions about the computer marketplace.
Those $600 notebooks of the past were junk. They were big, bulky, cheap build, poor quality displays, lacked storage, power, connectivity and weighed 7 or 8 lbs.
The build quality of most of the netbooks is much poorer than that of recent generation $600 notebooks. That's because they are being built to a much lower price point and trying to find every way to shed weight, including going to flimsier construction.
These new Netbooks like the Dell mini 9" weigh less than 2lbs, are 7" X 9", contain 64GB SSD drives, 802.11b/g wireless, bluetooth, sport card readers for additional flash memory, contain 2GB of memory, have LED backlit displays, and decent quality GPUs.
SSD drives save power, but have much lower write performance and much more limited capacity. 64GB capacity is pretty sad when my iPod has 120GB.
The limited size and resolution of netbook displays means more eyestrain and less productivity (numerous studies bear out the fact that larger, higher resolution displays improve productivity).
All modern notebooks have 802.11b/g. No advantage to netbooks there.
Many modern notebooks have Bluetooth (though only a small percentage of people with it use it).
2GB of RAM is adequate, but hardly anything to write home about -- especially if there is no option to expand it further.
Plus cloud computing options now allow mass storage on the web, personal web finance programs from Quicken, Photo editing web software from Adobe, google docs, and more is coming from Microsoft with Office web apps, and Apple with iwork.com.
Marketers love people like you. They invent terms like "cloud computing" and you're right on board. Ever try "cloud computing" when you're actually in the clouds on a multi-hour plane flight (where there is no Internet connectivity)? Ever try to copy a DVD operating system ISO to "mass storage on the web" using the typical hotel "broadband" connection (which is often one cable modem shared between a hundred or more rooms)? I bet you were one of those guys telling everyone how tablet computers were going to replace notebooks and how the wave of the future was "Internet appliances."
99% of the tasks that consumers use a computer for can be done on a Netbook. Only pro users or computer hobbyists need the CPU & GPU power necessary to run things like CS4, Maya, Final Cut Pro, etc.
I've got a DVD that I would like to watch on my flight to from Virginia to California on Monday. Later on, I'd like to rip it and convert it to h.264 to put on my iPod Classic. I'm probably going to be burning some MP3s to play in my rental car which has an in-dash MP3 player that reads CD-R discs. While I'm on my business trip, I'll probably want to play some first-person shooters (Quake III, Unreal Tournament, etc.) in my hotel room. There's also a multiplayer game I've been hearing about called Armada Online and it requires at least 1024x768 resolution, so I'll need a netbook that can do that. I'm hoping to edit together a video using footage from the HD camcorder I'm taking. I'll have to work on some work-related documents and I will be typing for several hours, so I need a decent keyboard and display.
So, which netbook do you recommend for the above? It will need at least 1024x768 resolution, a combo DVD/CD-R drive, a full-size keyboard, enough processing power to do video conversions to put on an iPod. It will have to have good enough CPU horsepower and 3D video acceleration to play a first-person shooter. It will need to be capable of light video editing.
All of those examples are pretty typical mainstream things done by consumers. I didn't get into esoteric examples like 3D rendering, high-end video editing, film and audio restoration, etc.
As the other poster said, the netbook is intended to supplement a normal desktop or notebook PC, not to replace them. I plan on buying a netbook, but I'm under no illusion that I'm going to use it for hours at a time like I do with my conventional systems. I'm expecting that it will be handy to checking e-mail, storing contact info, moving some files around via FTP, running some simple spreadsheets, etc. It will be great if I want something to carry on my motorcycle or to have with me to take notes at a meeting.
