I’m very happy I have my netbook. It has a recovery partition, and you can always load an OS from a thumb drive,

Nope. I’m pretty happy with my iPod Touch.

And I don’t find normal laptops to big to carry.

I’ve got an eeepc. I already had a usb dvd drive handy, so installing another OS was all good. It’s quite nifty, despite only a 4gb hard drive. Running Fedora at the moment.

I’d love one as it would force me to stay on task with my writing. And depending on where and when you buy they can be sub-$200.

It’s beyond perfect for school.

I considered it while looking for a Christmas gift for a relative. But the limitations of a net book made the investment of a little more cash to buy a laptop a better choice for me.

My thinking is it’s better to have a machine that will do more than you absolutely have to have to function. People were buying net books for just slightly less than a basic laptop and the thing I heard them saying most was “oh look at all the pretty colors!”

@Merriment You’re right on that. If you’re not buying for the form factor and liberating weight, they’re not worth it. Optimally, own a netbook for the road and a powerful tower for the home office (and build the tower yourself).

They’re totally worth it, if you’re clear on why you’re buying it.

My netbook does more than I absolutely have to have to function – it’s a proper laptop computer – I can type notes and full reports on it, use it to access my desktop remotely, play games that aren’t resource-intensive.

If I want to watch HD video, I’ll use my desktop.

I am perfectly happy with my factory-refurbished laptops. Most of them cost less than $200, too.

I got an MSI Wind to take to Iraq as it’s cheap and almost disposable in case it got filled with dust or damaged in some other way. I definitely missed my main machine after a while (plus I normally use a Mac so it was tough going to a bottom of the line Windows PC). I would definitely not recommend one as a main machine. As a cheap, tiny option to throw in a bag and take with you without really worrying about something happening to it, it’s ok.

I love my Aspire One. While some of the other netbooks I’ve tried were a little slow, the AA1 is fairly zippy and does most real-world stuff far quicker than you’d expect from it’s specs. (I can’t figure out why since most of them use the same CPU and all that the AA1 does.)

I even run some fairly hefty games on it like Fable:The Lost Chapter, and I am not above watching videos on it either. (I have the first two seasons of Robot Chicken on the hard drive.) Okay, it’s not as cool as my desktop’s 20” LCD, but it gets the job done, plays smoothly, so it’s good enough for me. Hell, it’s still got a bigger screen than most portable DVD players, so why not?

The lack of an optical drive doesn’t faze me since my tower has one and both are on the same network. Okay, so I have to run a “No CD” patch on certain games. Big whoop! And if I really need it, I have an external optical drive. Sure, it;s actually an enclosure for a desktop drive which means that it’s as big as my netbook, but it does give me optical drive capabilities… thought I’ve only ever used it once since I usually transfer data via wifi or USB Flash.

All in all, I love my netbook and I heartilly recommend them as a second system to anybody who doesn’t feel that they need more than they actually do. I don’t need a Ferrari to get to work, and I don’t need an F-350 to pick up my groceries, so why would I need much more than a netbook for a second system?

Oh, and as for reinstalling the OS, mine has a recovery partition as well.

@Darwin Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places, but the only refurb laptops I’ve seen have either been more expensive than my AA1 or have lower specs. Where have you been seeing them?

@RedMosquitoMM – thanks, I figured future flexibility would be paramount to a starving college student. He is thrilled with my choice. :)

My husband won an HP one at his company Christmas party a couple of weeks ago. It is still in the box – we can’t figure out what to do with it.

@Supacase Send it to me. :)

@Supacase My neighbor has an HP netbook that he’s pretty happy with. His computing needs are modest—(mostly e-mail) that he can get by with using it as his primary/only system. As for me, part of the reason I got mine was so that my wife and I could be online at the same time; hard to do when you only have one computer that you have to share.—
Or you could just put a bow on it and tell @RedMosquitoMM “Merry Christmas” :)

I believe that netbooks are only useful for travelling businessmen who never do anything on the computer other than type up spreadsheets or check their email.

I use mine daily for lecture notes, writing papers, research, transferring PDFs to my Kindle, also routine things like email and web-browsing, my to-do list and calendar, etc.

One of the many uses I have for mine is as an e-book. Considering that some of my books have color and most are 8–½“x11”, it’s a hell of a lot better for that sort of file than, say, a Kindle.

A netbook is useful if you actually do something other than dick around with your computer.

Actually, it’s even useful for doing that.

Like I said earlier – if you really know why you’re buying a netbook, it’s great. It’s more than great, actually – it’s beyond perfect, as @pdworkin said.

I love my netbook. I am on it right now. I consider it a need for school. That way I am not chained to my desk. The keyboard is almost full size so it is not difficult to type on. I love it.

I’m on mine right now. It’s handy.

I would use a netbook, because I find a laptop too bulky to carry around on a daily basis and a web-enabled mobile phone is too difficult to type on. And I’d only need it for accessing email and for writing ideas anyway. Low storage wouldn’t bother me as I would synch it with the desktop when I get home – I’d only need to carry with me whichever project I was working on at the time. I certainly wouldn’t have one as my only PC though. They’re not designed to be that.