The “Save the Netbooks” campaign is fighting the impending trademark threat from Psion Teklogix, who have given until the end of March 2009 to cease using the term citing trademarks relating to a line of products discontinued over 5 years ago.

For more information visit http://www.savethenetbooks.com/.

PS “Netbook” is a portmanteau of Internet and notebook – size is irrelevant (why would it be?). If you want to talk about sizes then follow Psion's advice and adopt subnotebook or ultraportable.

The “Save the Netbooks” campaign is fighting the impending trademark threat from Psion Teklogix, who have given until the end of March 2009 to cease using the term citing trademarks relating to a line of products discontinued over 5 years ago.

For more information visit http://www.savethenetbooks.com/.

PS “Netbook” is a portmanteau of Internet and notebook – size is irrelevant (why would it be?). If you want to talk about sizes then follow Psion’s advice and adopt subnotebook or ultraportable.

Also, I've seen on other blog what could have been Apple's 'response' to netbooks, and it seems to be a giant-sized iPod touch with a 7″-9″ screen. That means no much different than a tablet pc, while they not make it too much 'innovative'.

I'll start to call 7″-10″ mini laptops that aren't being sold as inferior devices.

If a Taiwanese motherboard company can get the whole world talking about EEE PCs, pronounced “EPC,” then anything is possible Hey, maybe we should call them PPPPs, pronounced “P”

I couldn't agree with your point about “netbooks” more. So my question is why don't we start calling these little notebooks “notebooks” instead of “netbooks”?

The small notebooks labeled “netbooks” are simply notebooks. At this point, all the defining characteristics of netbooks are fairly amorphous. Is it the price that defines the “netbook” line? Should the S101 be included? Is it the screen size? Should the Sony TT series be included? Is a truncated keyboard part of the deal? Should the HP Mini 1000 be included? With so much uncertainty surrounding the term “netbook”, it's probably best to leave it by the wayside.

It seems like the word “netbook” has become associated with the idea of a small computer that is really portable and cheap, but can't handle the daily grind of what a real laptop could do. That's patently false and it truly disturbs me that B&M stores are advertising these “netbooks” to be inferior and other websites claim that “netbooks” are security risks. So regardless of whether how one feels about whether Psion should be able to enforce its property rights or not, it seems like the term “netbook” should be phased out in favor an old term: notebook.

The term “notebook” conjures a far more accurate image of what these computer can do. As is well-documented on this site (and others), little notebooks work just as hard – if not harder – than normal-sized notebooks, they work longer than normal notebooks, and they cost less while having a smaller environmental footprint. Conversely, some folks (e.g., salespeople and uninformed commentators) employ the term “netbook” to conjure images of crippled midget computers that don't work well because of their shortcomings and, as such, need to lean on bigger, “real” notebooks.

Please. Let's just toss the category and call them what they are – notebooks.

With a notebook you can do more than just take notes, same as you can do more with a netbook than connect to the internet.

And just look at all the monstrosities which are sold as “laptops” nowadays – ever tried to work with one of those 18″, 8 pound, gorillas on your *lap*? Not to mention that I also don't carry such huge and heavy paper-*notebooks* with me – if you can even carry these “luggables” more than a few meters.

The word netbook is as good a compromise as any other, and it is already well established, so let's get over this naming discussion.

What really bugs me is when self-appointed pundits explain in magazines how netbooks are just for cloud computing. Doh, then why do some of them have 160GB hard drives? Never mind that far punier computers put man on the moon and operate many of our military's present day aircraft.

I agree that the presentation is a bit limiting in its representation of what a netbook can do, but then again, many of the netbooks depicted in that presentation were early models with 7″ screens. Those devices were under-powered, and the screen resolution alone makes them much more limited than a model with a 9″ or 10″ 1024 x 600 screen.

As this market evolves, I think it will become much more difficult to keep these products separate items from full-sized laptops. If nVidia is successful with its ION platform, and Intel moves forward with dual-core Atoms, the capabilities of future netbooks and nettops will surely increase significantly!