Wow Mike, you’ve brought the fury of the masses upon yourself, ha ha! Well I’m with you on this one.

The cheapest netbooks I’ve seen are about $300. My Acer laptop with a 14″ display cost $300. So why is everyone here talking about how expensive laptops are? You think $300 is too expensive for a laptop, yet you’ll gladly spend that amount on basically half a laptop? You folks have got me confused.

True netbooks have no DVD drive, so I can’t install any of my games or software (I don’t do illegal torrent downloads). Or watch any of the movies I own.

Netbooks are too small for multimedia anyway; get real, watching movies on my 14″ laptop is slightly preferable to a 5×8″ screen.

Similar to most people, my main computer is a fast, powerful, and useful desktop (quad-core AMD with two 22″ displays). I use a portable only when forced to be out of the office. Thus, I might want to watch a movie while waiting somewhere. Or check stock trading charts. Or do some multimedia editing. There’s no chance you’ll find me doing any of those on a netbook. Even going from 22″ monitors to the 14″ laptop is irritating enough!

I sometimes multitask with 3 or 4 windows open, how does that work on a netbook? How can you have a movie, Gmail chat window, and several stock charts open on a netbook display at the same time? My laptop does it fine.

Those of you talking about upgrading from “monster” laptops: it sounds like you had some old devices, wow! If by laptop you mean a 17″ Power Mac from 2002, then I’d say you are just a wee bit behind the curve to start with in terms of modern portable technology. No doubt netbooks seem like a miracle of science compared to those heavy expensive beasts, lol. Congrats on the upgrade.

Anyway, I can see teenagers adopting netbooks for a number of reasons, mostly because all they do is chat on the internet and listen to music. A full-size laptop might be overkill for that sort of market, and takes up more space in a knapsack; and a phone might get a little too annoying for regular use. But I don’t understand why business people, or the average adult for that matter, would buy a device only capable of surfing the net and emailing, when you can spend the same amount for a full functioning laptop with a way bigger screen.

I own an ASUS N10 Netbook, and it truly is a replacement for a laptop. The big thing is the space, this one allows me to continue working in just about any environment, including the car. My particular model has two video ports, I use it at home with two monitors to continue working. If I were going to just use Twitter or Text message, I would use my cellphone. Try writing a proposal on a two inch screen, even if you enlarge the text, it gets a bit cumbersome. I use the full Adobe Suite on my Netbook for developing Websites while on the go. There are folks out there that use their Netbooks for gaming, so a Netbook is closer to a laptop than you might think and it is certainly not a fair comparison to a cellphone.

I plan to buy a netbook, because it is so handly for surging the internet, i need it everywhere when I want to find something through the net….

I used to lug a 15 laptop. It took a toil on my backbone …..constant pain lugging it from home to airport to the plane etc . My Lenovo S10 was a God sent miracle which made my life more sane and less painfull

The author of this article just doesn’t understand the whole philosophy behind netbook computing.

What do most people spend most of their time doing on a laptop? I’d say browsing the internet with word processing and media viewing coming next. Netbooks are able to do these things quit adequately. With my mobile internet stick I can browse the internet in a car or the bus much more comfortably than with my my full size laptop and I can browse and work in the dusty office of the gravel pit that I work at where I wouldn’t want my other $1500+ laptops anywhere near. I certainly wouldn’t want to try any of these things on a phone.

Netbooks are not inferior computers they are small computers with a much narrower focus. How much use is your $2000 super fast computer if you don’t have it with you?

Mike,

How much e-crap do you already carry?

I have to wonder at your experience with computers. You seem to think that a computer running Windows XP or Linux is similar to a cell phone.

If i understand correctly, you enjoy doing spreadsheets, internet, word documents, email, and other long-winded projects on a 2-inch cell phone screen that uses some random menu interface?

Or perhaps you’re telling me you just wouldn’t be happy with anything less than blue-ray, 4 gigs of ram, a 20 inch screen, an entire briefcase to carry it in, and a great big price tag?

“Myopic”, i think was the best way to put it, but a little too nice.

I’m in IT. I *really* use computers, all day long. I just bought a $300 netbook that lets me do everything that my desktop and giant, heavy laptop would have let me do, and it fits in the bottom of my backpack, taking up less space than any of my Microsoft training manuals.

So now my desktop just sits there taking up space until i get home at night, and my old laptop is left in its case under the bed, unless the kids want to watch a DVD. So, in fact, there’s actually a lot *less* e-crap for me to carry around. It’s quite refreshing.

We all have our opinions. But as an IT professional, I find that a computer that costs less than the *warranty* on my last computer, which is smaller than any book I may carry, is an excellent fit.

I challenge you to try one. The only thing a netbook cannot do is play a cd or dvd. Otherwise, it’s a full computer, with a full sized hard drive and processor running a *real* operating system, not a limited PalmOS or WindowsCE environment.

And on a final note, for those who like to spend big money on e-crap, I wonder how it must feel now to spend $300 or more on some tiny little multi-use cell phone when you could buy and actual computer for the same price. Seems kind of dumb to me.

In short, my cheap phone is for calls. My cheap MP3 player is for music. My cheap netbook is for *everything* else.

Happy computing!