Netbooks growing twice as fast as notebooks

So much for those who like to claim that the netbook market is dead, the netbook craze is over and that people want bigger, more powerful machines. Is that still the Microsoft corporate song and dance? I wonder.

So much for those who dismiss netbooks as underpowered or as "toys" as well. They wouldn't sell so well if you couldn't do real work on them.

And so what if people buy them purely as toys anyway... it still means they are selling.

EDIT: My girlfriend's mother has been using an Acer Aspire one for about two months now. We talked her into getting one. This is a very computer-illiterate person. She once sent us a message, "I pressed something, a green light came on, and now I can't log on to my email anymore!" - turned out to have been Caps Lock.

Besides that though we haven't had to help her figure out anything.

I'm just a small step away from getting something like a Nokia N810 to use all the time, I think something along those lines with a bit more power, etc, will be along soon. Smaller is not always better, but for email, web browsing and document creation it usually is. I'm using a BlackBerry Tour through my work now, it's absolutely awesome. If it had wifi and a better browser I could use it as my PC with no problems at all.

> I'm just a small step away from getting something like a Nokia N810 to use all the time,

Unless you need the additions like the keyboard and GPS you can probably pick up a Nokia 770 on ebay fairly cheaply.

True, but the N810 isn't that much anymore. Really want a little more power on the unit, a little more oomph than the N810 or my BlackBerry...but they're close.

Personally, I'd rather have a unit with great battery life. I find that assuming I'm not using Windows, I rarely am concerned about the speed of my machine.

I have an old laptop that finally died after a number of years of great service. It was a PIII 1Ghz with 512Mb ram and a 40Gb hdd. It would run circles around the Windows laptop my employer provided with a Core 2 duo, 2Gb of ram and 100Gb hdd.

It's too bad Microsoft has poisoned the well. I keep watching the hardware specifications spiral upwards in response to the demand for decent Windows performance, coupled with the fact that most reviewers reward power over portability, and I can't help but be discouraged.

I'd take a slow laptop with 8-10 hours of battery life in a minute, thank you very much.

@mrider: I agree which is why I was initially excited by the MIPS netbooks and the promise of ARM netbooks. Unfortunately most of the MIPS models capitalize on the lower power consumption of the processor by reducing the size of the battery, going with a one or two cell arrangement to get the typical 2-3.5 hours of battery life. It does reduce the size and weight of the machine which is a good thing. I'd like to see a MIPS box with the 4 or 6 cells which are typically used in netbook batteries and really long battery life.