After months of research, I finally bought a netbook--the Asus eee 901 (XP) because it has everything I need: Very small, very light, very cheap ($279), with extended battery (5 hour), nylon carrying case, bluetooth, 3 usb slots, ethernet, sd card slot, great sounding speakers--all standard. (Plus asus users have a great forum like TC to share ideas).
Everything else had some minor problems: I really like the HP Mini 1000, but bluetooth, carrying case, extended battery--are all extra, bring the final price to $545. It has a 60 GB SSD version available, but people claim it's very slow. they all recommend the 12 GB SSD instead. Great screen, large keys--maybe too large for what I'm used to.
The Sony P crawled (with Vista) and has that pin-like mouse I hate--great form factor though. With Windows 7 on the horizon--the Sony P would work faster but the Sony price is still is out of control
The Samsung NC10 is very nice but too big for me. So, I didn't really even consider it. The same with the Asus 1000.
The Acer Aspire seems great (and cheap), but its hard drive is loud. You also have to buy a bt dongle and use up a USB port for it. There's no SSD version. It comes with only a 3-cell battery.
Dell Mini is another good choice, but I could never find one to test out. Dell also comes with so much bloatware. .
So far, the eee901 has been great. Any problems I've experienced were solved with a visit to the asus forum. I have been watching hulu, netflix, youtube without problems (once you fix some minor issues).
Truthfully, internet and word processing are 95% of what I do. The eee901 seems perfect, particularly for travel. The small keys take some getting used to--but I did after about a day. And the new price is amazingly cheap. I wanted a netbook that I could pick up and take with me anywhere without pausing to think if it was too big and heavy. This fits the bill!
Here's am interesting comparison of the 901, Aspire one, and dell mini:
Asus Eee PC 901 vs Acer Aspire One vs Dell Mini 9 - Portable Monkey
Bit the Bullet: Bought ASUS EEE 901
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