Caveat emptor: Netbooks aren’t for everybody and definitely not for every computing purpose. Here’s a good Wired article on netbooks:
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/17-03/mf_netbooks
My wife got a netbook for use while RV’ing. The thing is as slow as molasses. That is probably more the fault of the Windows OS. I should have steered her to Linux, but didn’t want the headaches of trying to learn (much less teach her) something all new to us.