The new Acer Aspire One 532h is a step forward at least. It weighs 1KG, a huge big difference and yet it has a 6 cell battery.

What a huge difference in weight in comparison to the Dell and others around.

Manufacturers are plain lazy. They don't lift a finger. They all use the same OEM parts to assembly a given netbook. At least do some R&D to make your body lighter.

But what if I want to watch a lot of flash videos (yes standard quality) on a given day, something that consumes twice the amount of battery. Netbooks aren't the device for this, no device is really. Kind of why I had high hopes for Smartbooks but they seem too expensive and media prowess comes at the cost of utility.

And the decay in battery life from usage is also a concern. If the battery barely covers what I need today, it's going to come up short eventually.

However, how many netbooks are going to last long enough for the decay in their battery life to really matter. With the minutes per milli-amp hour ratio increasing, doesn't dicay rate also increase?

But really it's just us talking about technology, where 'future proof' and 'perfect' are just pipe dreams that consumers (like me) chase.

This is also the direction you see smartbooks moving – weighing less than 1 kg.

Regarding battery life: I'm not so much interested in heavily using a netbook the whole day, but in what I call “peace of mind”.

I want to leave the power brick at home and having a good feeling that I can use the netbook whatever tasks might come up during the day, not having to worry about battery life.

And with smartbooks you will see the netbook-market move more into smartphone-like usage scenarios (always on, always connected), not classical laptop use. I can take my phone with me away on weekend trips, without packing the charger, because it easily lasts for 2 or 3 days. I want to do the same with a netbook/smartbook, not having to pack power adapter and cable stuff.

Basically we are looking a two different markets here: when you are talking about more speed etc., then this is the classical territory of subnotebooks. And there will be products for this classical laptop use.

But it is different from smartbook usage, where you have typical smartphone features: always connected, immediately showing new messages, etc. You don't shut down your smartphone during the day, or reboot it – you just leave it running all day long.

Again, these are different markets, and there will also be products for your needs – more speed, etc. But don't discount battery life as unimportant just because it doesn't fit into the picture of how you are currently using a netbook.

Netbooks I think have already become like mobile phones. In the beginning they were chasing longer standby times. Now, who really cares if your mobile phone last 7 days or just 2 days?

Once the Asus 1005 came out, people have decided no point chasing battery life as 9.5 hours is good enough.

People want speed now.

I used to use my Asus 1000HE netbook the whole day. From 9am to 6pm. By that time, you are exhausted. Nobody, unless a computer geek, goes on his PC for more than 10 hours a day. If one does so, one has serious psychological and social problems.

Health problems will also creep in if someone just uses his PC non stop the whole day. He or she won't have a normal life as he will be an addict.

So now , manufacturers are soon going to hit a wall. People are going to look for speed and weight as the factor to perfect mobility.

So 12 hours usage would be a reasonable scenario.

And then you also have to consider that battery capacity degrades with time and use – which is why it's a good idea to have a little extra battery capacity.

The N310 Go has a chiclet keyboard and is one of the best netbook keyboards I ever used. It's also totally different from the traditional style N130 keyboard, so I don't see the connection you are drawing here.

Why chase 12 hours or 15 hours anymore?

9am to 5pm is 8 hours. Just go home and charge your netbook again for the next day!

Sometimes, we consumers, chase things for the sake of chasing. Like for most people, a dual core pentium notebook itself is good enough but people chase high end pricey core2duo notebooks. Now it is getting worse, amateur consumers just wanting to surf the net are chasing core i7 notebooks.

For what?

Its like digital cameras. A 5megapixel camera shoots as great as a 15 megapixel camera. But IGNORANT consumers just chase things for the sake of chasing and become victims of mere marketing