Netbooks: Do You Really Need a Laptop?

Back in July, Michael Arrington and his friends at TechCrunchIT launched an effort to build a "web tablet". Arrington wants a "dead simple and dirt cheap touch screen web tablet to surf the web" for $200 or less. Here's the announcement. His spec list is:

• as thin as possible
• single button for powering on and off
• headphone jacks, built-in camera, speakers, microphone
• wifi, one USB port, battery
• 512 meg RAM, 4 gig solid state hard drive
• touchscreen for browsing and keyboard
• Linux for OS and Firefox for browsing

Here's Arrington's list of updates on the project's progress, including this working prototype.

But Arrington's web tablet has already got some competition, a new kind of slimmed-down laptop called a "netbook". Many companies are selling these things. From the name, I'm assuming netbooks are primarily intended to be used the way most full-on laptops are used now: for checking email, surfing the web, maybe watching videos and listening to music. 

As one example, the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 runs Ubuntu Linux using a 1.6 Ghz chip, 512m RAM, 4 gig solid state drive, and wifi for $350. Of all these machines, the Asustek EeePC sounds like the best value at $200 (release expected 2009). 

Personally, I'm still pretty happy with the netbook I already own. I use it for email, websurfing, watching online TV and movies, and some light photo-editing. It's got very familiar specs: a 1.7 ghz Intel P4, 1 gig RAM, two USB ports, and Wifi. Oh, and it's got a 20 gig hard drive and a DVD burner. 

That's 'cuz it's a used HP Compaq NC6000 laptop that I got on eBay for $275.