Netbook

[TooNice]

Can anyone give me a primer on current netbooks and upcoming ones. I am planning to travel next month and am debating whether I should bring my laptop or get a netbook. My laptop is really not that bulky (in fact, it was bought with occasional travel in mind), being a 13.3" and weighing about 2kg.

250GB HD (115GB free - where did the other 135GB go?) ensures that I am not going to run out of space even if I take many pictures at the highest quality and resolution (important). Battery life is not dreadful nor amazing, maybe 3-3.5h of light desktop use (it's one area I'd want a netbook to improve).

Doesn't boot very fast (not sure if it's the hardware or Vista), but I don't expect that I would need to suddenly use it urgently while I am out. Well, overall I'd call it a decent laptop. I am just wondering what I would gain with a good netbook today, and in the upcoming month, and how much they cost.

[NightshadowUK]

You'd gain battery life for sure (I get around 5 hours from my NC10) but it all comes down to what you're going to be using it for?

Netbooks are great for office work and a quick flick around the web but anything heavier and you're going to notice a lack of grunt - the small screen resolution's also worth taking into consideration.

[Pob255]

As Night shadow said, the to key things they offer is portability and battery life.
You already have something almost as portable and more than likely far more powerful.
for web browsing it's great (currently typing this on an eee 901 ) but I'd hate to try to do high res image editing on one.

Still don't know if we are going to see an Ion & dual core atom based netbook, it would be really nice if it ever happens.