So my laptop clapped-out a while ago, and I'm fed up with this one. So rather than getting it fixed under warranty yet again, I'm going to buy a new one. My budget is extremely limited, so I'm restricted to some heavy, low-end Lenovos with decent specs or a netbook of some sort. Portability is a major requirement for me, as I'm always on the go, so the smaller the better. Other than that I really only use my laptop for word processing, powerpoints, and Skyping with the girlfriend and family. My dead laptop was a 12-inch, and I was ok with that, but from friends I've heard using a 10-inch all the time can be an eyesore.

So any thoughts, is it practical to own a netbook as your only computer?

Practical as a main computer? I'd say definitely not.

Makes a great "companion" piece to your computer though.

Biggest thing to make sure with Netbooks is the keyboard. Make sure it's comfortable for you to type on. I haven't been following netbooks that much lately but I was working retail when they just started to flood the stores. Nicest ones I've used were the HP netbooks. I loved the keyboards on them.

I'm taking a look at this one.

It claims it has a "normal notebook style keyboard" so I'll give it a go, but it seems ok. I've used the HP as well, it's nice, but I'd honestly prefer to buy any other brand. Not a big HP fan. My family has always had less than satisfactory experiences with their computers...including my current dead laptop.

I've never used one for more than a few minutes, but I have read some articles saying that long-term customer satisfaction with netbooks is pretty low.

I have an Asus EEE. It's very handy for traveling and if you are forced you, you can actually do some work on it.

^^ive been using an asus eee 1000he as my main computer for almost a year. It can easily, easily be your main computer if you don't play games. They arent lying about the 10 hr battery life, i just charge it with my cell phone overnight at home and im good to go all day. Honestly best computer ive ever owned at under 400$. I did all the research when I bought it, and if things havent changed, its defenetally the one to get if you wanna go netbook. 160gb hd, 2gb ram, and a great mac style keyboard. Theres a newer model on amazon and I dont know much about it but this is the one I have. 5 star recomendation.
http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-1000HE-10-1-Inc...4835&sr=8-4

My brother has an Asus, but I forget which model it is. The keyboard is very small and takes some getting used to. The original OS on it sucked so we put Ubuntu on it which was much better but ate up a lot of his storage. I couldn't bring myself to use one as my primary computer but it's a nice companion.

theyve changed a lot since your brothers. They come running windowsxP, and have full size "chicklet" keyboards. No different than a new laptop other than size and battery life.

But then he only paid around $170 for his.

Whatever you buy, I recommend you stay away from HP. I have half a dozen friends who have all had motherboard failure, wireless card problems and hard drive issues. All of them have been covered underwarranty though, and buying from best buy means you just take it there to fix it. Stay way from them, though.

I'm part of that club man. I once said I'd only take an HP if it was free...which is what ended up happening. Even free it wasn't worth it...it's been six months, and I've already had two hard drive failures. To top it off, mine has a Saudi-only warranty, which means I have to wait till I go visit my parents for it to get fixed. So I'm giving it back to my dad next month, and buying something new this weekend.

Saturday is the start of GITEX, it's the big yearly computer expo for the region, and there are usually plenty of deals to be had. I'll see if I can score a deal on an ultraportable (a 12-inch perhaps), but if not I'll definitely be taking the netbook route. I'm pretty sold on the Samsung I was looking at, but thanks for the recommendation on the Asus guys. If I end up getting a netbook, it'll be one of the two.

My wife has an Acer Aspire one. It was good for about 6 months, but now we frequently get BSOD errors from some kind of hardware error that ive yet to figure out. Also, weve had to replace the power cord already, but I would say thats from the amount of use its had. Overall, id give it a rating of about6.5 or 7 out of 10.

I ended up not buying a netbook. I got a pretty good deal on a Lenovo G550.