When I bought a laptop earlier this year, I was somewhat perplexed to see other people queuing up to buy netbooks.

While I wouldn't try and ignore their size advantage, this seemed far outweighed by the poky little screen, and reduced processing capabilities employed to gain battery life.

If they gave them away in Lucky Bags I might have been impressed, but since they were costing almost as much as my 17" widescreen laptop with dual-core processor and 4 GB of RAM (and such things as a Lightscribe DVD writer, assorted memory card sockets, and all the usual connectors, many of which are stripped out of netbooks), I really couldn't see the attraction.

In all honesty, they are not all that much smaller than a good laptop, and come minus many useful accessories the larger device has onboard - and as I mentioned, the prices of netbooks are atrocious.

It looks as if I might be proved right, and the netbook was little more than a fad or gimmick to sell some old hardware, cobbled together to empty some old parts bins:

BBC News - Technology changes 'outstrip' netbooks

I didn't see the point then, and still don't. They're less use than a proper laptop, and not as portable as an advanced PDA or smartphone, especially with the screens and software these now offer.

Even the cats agree!

No place for netbook:

I don't use mine often but I like the battery life and quick start up time.  My car is in the garage tomorrow, I might put the netbook in my rucksack so I can log on from a cafe and perhaps fire up the AIS receiver and fill in a blank area for a time.

MB