I would be interested in hearing from people who have a netbook and still love it after, say, 6 months of use. A few friends took tried netbooks, then put them back on the shelf after around 2 months. If you like yours, did it replace another PC? Is it your only home system?

No, I'm not in the business, just guessed wrong on their popularity and am curious what I missed.

Thanks...

I have an Asus EeePC. I've had it for closing on a year now. It's my "kitchen PC"--I use it for reading and responding to e-mail, composing simple documents, and surfing the web. I still love it. For general use I have a Sony VAIO laptop which is verrrryyyy nice (and probably much more than I needed). I use that for working at home.

I'm not sure what Farhad is getting at, since he seems to be describing a UMPC. I wouldn't personally want to use something with a really tiny screen for my general work. The EeePC is perfect for what I need it to do in the kitchen (and the screen is still much larger than any phone's screen) but I wouldn't want to use it for daily work.

I have an Acer Aspire One. I'm using it right now to type this. I currently have three programs and seven internet windows open on it (I'm surfing wirelessly) and it's working just fine. The keyboard took a day's worth of adjustment, but I can touch-type on it with no problem, and I'm 6'1" and have gigantic monster hands.

...All of which is to say, I love my little tiny computer. I don't know about the older Acers, but this one rocks. I use it as my home computer and take it to school. It weighs two pounds and its battery lasts for six hours. The only additions I made were -- I bought a flat screen monitor for home use ($100 -- I don't mind the tiny screen for use at school, but I plug in the big screen at home), and I bought a $20 mouse because the touchpad is too small for me to use comfortablely. So: $390 for the computer + $100 + $20 = $510. And it's worked perfectly for everything that I've used it for, though I don't use Photoshop or other programs like that, but I've never noticed any slowdown when running multiple programs.

...I guess my point is that I was a little freaked out when I bought it (I was too lazy to try one in the store first, and just ordered it direct from Amazon), and I was afraid that maybe I had made a huge mistake. But for whoever was looking for a satisified daily Acer user... that'd be me.

I've been using one of the earliest Eee PC models for the last six months, and quite honestly it's the only thing I really want in a portable. I have a PC at home, but when I'm out of the house (whether at the office or not) I pretty much use the Eee PC for everything I need to get done--which mainly consists of typing documents, making spreadsheets, surfing the net (the WiFi signal is excellent--I get better reception than my boyfriend gets on his mid-range Lenovo). I also listen to music on it. I'm using the Linux OS that it came with my Eee PC. (Oh, and battery life is pretty good, too--I can get 6 hours on it if all I do is word processing. Wireless internet drains the battery a bit faster.)

I think what the writer--and a lot of other people who can't figure netbooks out--doesn't see is that a significant subsection of the world's population (and I speak here of the world outside the US--I'm an Asian, living in Asia, in a "developing" country) simply needs a computer that is cheap, portable, easy to use, and most importantly, gets the work done. I've lusted after MacBooks in the past, but let's be realistic--I'm not a graphic designer, I'm not a video editor, heck, I don't make or use presentations using Keynote or PowerPoint all that often. I don't really NEED the computing power of a MacBook. If I had one, I wouldn't really be able to maximize its features, anyway. It's beautiful, but I don't really need it.

Oh, and the regular 12in MacBook is HEAVY. I'm 5 feet 2 inches tall. I have bad posture already. I commute to work for three hours everyday. In those conditions, the MacBook is back breaking-ly heavy. My cute little Eee PC wins, hands down.

Thank you for your replies. It is great to hear that people are happy with a cost-effective and very portable solution. I will have to check one out soon.