They're definitely growing in popularity.  I've been approached by a number of people who see me using mine, wanting to know how I like it.  Several parents said they're considering one for their children going to college.

I don't know that I would have a netbook as my only laptop, but its low cost made it a good and practical buy for a portable, always-with-me complement to my much larger, more powerful HP which I rarely carry.

I haven't done a presentation with it yet.  It performs well enough, but machines with the wide aspect screen can sometimes act up when connected to an external video output.

I really like my new netbook, but only as a secondary computer. I spend most of my time with my high-powered laptap, as it is much faster and all of my software and data is available on it. The netbook is great for working in bed, carrying around at conferences to take notes, and to be used as a backup computer should my laptop fail.

Hi Steve,

I have been using the Asus S101 for a couple of months. this model has the 16gb SSD so no hard disk. the RAM is limited at 1gb but upgradeable. I have had no problems using Office etc.. and have a couple of schema design tools installed.

Battery life is great.

I have written a full review on my blog blog.kevswain.com

Kevin

I have both, and I find the netbook awesome for meetings/working in bed/working in coffee shops etc. Of course, having your data on both machines is important - currently using LiveMesh, works OK

I carry my netbook (Dell mini 9) in my purse at all times.  Borsa_Finestre is his name (purse windows).  I woudldn't want to use it for long bouts of real work but it is awesome for showing someone something, tweeting from the bar, writing things I don't want to forget and generally looking like a geek.  I have an 8g SD card running most of my applications and teh 16g SSD.  I would prefer the new Dell mini as the key placement is improved but hey it will have to wait. I leave the big laptop at home unless we travel.  

I would personally prefer to have the screen portrait, if your browsing you get to see more of the page without having to scroll as much. With portrait screens comes smaller keyboards, something clever would need to be done, which would increase the cost.

Right now most netbooks are Windows XP - apparently besides performance and popularity issues with Vista, XP is cheaper.  Windows 7 -may- give you the Tablet PC tools that were rolled into Vista, unless the netbook edition leaves them out.  Touch wood, you'll have handwriting, speech recognition (which you may still have to be a little patient with) - and I just bought a Gigabyte M912 (XP Home) to use Fitaly on-screen keyboard on.  Still a compromise, half of typing speed in my experience (but I have a disability and no choice), but wide screen does give you somewhere to put Fitaly - on a thick taskbar at right edge of screen, is my preference.  Or portrait, with Windows Tablet's own on-screen keyboard docked (which I don't have: it isn't the Accessibility keyboard) and Fitaly over its window.  Or on demand, but I'm coming from an effectively-667MHz, 0.5 gigabytes, overloaded tablet machine on which just summoning Fitaly is an inconvenient delay - better to leave it onscreen.

Oh, this is for computers that have touchscreen.  And a keyboard on M912, but my hands are too big for it!

I just received a new HP Mini with 2 gig memory and the 160 gig hard drive as an award from my company. Since I also have a desktop in my office I much prefer dragging the netbook around in my backpack. I don't do much code development but have Sql Server, Oracle and Cache DBA tools loaded. It runs a little slow but the light weight makes up for it. One downside as mentioned is screen size/resolution. Some software wouldn't install until I attached external monitor as primary and increased resolution. Overall I'm happy with it.

I've had a netbook for about a year and find the size much better for working on the train, and have also used it for support when out of the office, using a secure connection and remote desktop. The screen is very clear and it also plugs into an external screen.

I tried the Dell Mini 9 but found its keyboard poorly laid out--no function keys (you have to hold down "Fn" while typing asdfghjk).  And no way to get an F11 or F12 that I could find.

No worries, sold it and got an Asus 901 and love it.  Much better keyboard layout, 7 hour battery, good performance especially after an upgrade to 2GB, and the fastest start time of any conputer I've ever seen.  It comes out of sleep mode almost before you get your finger off the button, and goes to sleep just as fast.  Literally count one-two and it's ready to go.  I think they have some tiny but blazing fast NVRAM chip in there with all of your registry settings or something.

My only gripe is the C: drive was a tiny 4GB SSD.  Meaning programs that insist on installing there cannot be loaded (.NET for example).  The D: drive is 8GB, and I added a 16GB SD card for documents, pictures and such.

All-in-all a great machine--light, powerful, fast and good battery.

One last thing is a program I found "Sharpkeys" which lets you remap keys to more useful functions.  I map caps lock to home, and the Windows list key on the right to page up.  Found it so useful I do the same thing on all my machines now, even desktops.

--Al--

How about using RDC on it to work remotely on a desktop/server/etc? Anyone run into any issues in doing that?

A netbook seems like a great tool to have if you are on call and aren't near the office or your house. It seems like SSMS, remote desktop and 3G would be all you need to get a system back up and running if you are sitting at a truck stop on the middle of I80.

I bought one for my wife for mother's day. I could've spent under 300 dollars for an HP 10", but it was black. Instead, for an additional $250.00, I bought her a pink one with a flower print on the front (came with a silk case as well).

The geek in me saw the extra money for a different color as a complete waste of money. The hormonally charged red blooded man in me saw the extra charge as money in the old marriage bank (I think I'll make a withdrawal tonight!).

Im using my Lenovo for these:

1. Watching movies in buses/trains

2. Downloading movies/music

3. Browsing Internet in the bed

4. Showing cartoons to my little son

5. Keeping heaps of photos when I go travling

As a dev/preso/similarthing computer, netbooks suck.

I would not even try to develop on it, but yeah.. for the above -- no alternative!!!

I recently bought an HP mini. It was partly on impulse:  I was thinking about getting a laptop, but wanted an SSD: a full size laptop with Solid State Drive was not justifieable. I wanted a SSD computer so when strapped onto my bike the hard drive wouldn't shake to pieces (you know how harleys are...). I wonder how the screen will hold up to 50 hours of vibration on a week long trip?

Best Buy was clearing out their HP Mini for $250.

I loaded it with a minimal amount of software and a VPN client so I can connect to my workstation (to fix a problem while 'on vacation'). Seems to work okay: a little slow, and small, but I can watch Netflix movies on it, and I can connect to work... Does what I needed.