[MetalheadGautham]

Netbooks are supposed to fulfill one or more of the following needs:

1. Be small and portable and yet be able to carry out day-to-day computing operations.

2. Consume very little power and act as great download books.

3. Be cheap and hence serve as effective backup computers (sony vaio, macbook air and other luxury items are a big PHAIL on this list).

4. Be upgrade proof: i.e, they are devices which needn't be upgraded like normal computers because their purpose is the same always and they run the same set of apps forever

5. Give room for you to experiment with Live CDs, multiple OSes, experimental OSes, etc.

6. Act as multimedia gadgets and playback movies, songs, videos, etc when travelling or even at home.

7. Provide a CHEAP alternative to normal notebooks and become more VFM than standard notebooks/laptops/UMPCs/SubNotebooks. (note: only Acer Aspire One 160GB Linux @ 15K which was available for the price for a few weeks fulfills this particular clause. Others are damn expensive and better to get mainstream laptop for 19K than these if this is your priority).

8. Regardless of cost, become good small trendy and attractive digital companions.


So if you have any one of these priorities when buying a Portable Computer, consider a netbook (aka SubNoteBook with Intel Atom CPU).