Netbooks & tablets are different things for different purposes. There is overlap but tablets are essentially media consumption devices and netbooks are for light computing tasks, like wordpressing, email, etc. There is a place for both.

Netbooks for what they are is a cheap, low cost alternative (read that as sub $300) to higher powered 12.1 notebooks with decent processors have their place.  Atom powered netbooks/notebooks (even the one I’m typing on, a 1201N) comared to my TF101 are about the same, difference being one has a touch screen. 

I think what people need to realize is that tablet, netbook, notebook or laptop, the choice is ultimately personal and while one is generally prefered over another, this does finally show that Intel is trying to (finally) catch up with AMD in the mobile segment.

These mobile OS based tablets really aren’t worth the money.

I’m wondering whether this will be available in the US and western Europe.  Both Toshiba and Lenovo made Atom N550 Netbooks, but only made them available outside of the US.

Decent bits of kit, these IdeaPads. I’ve got an old IdeaPadS10-2. Upgraded memory to 2GB, replaced the included HDD with a 40GB Intel SSD and put a lightweight Linux distro plus tiling window manager on it.  The thing flies. Boots in around 10sec and does all the things I need it to, which is mostly browsing while listening to music and a lot of editing with Vim. Decent stock battery life (for it’s time) and improved further with some undervolting (via Linux-PHC). I used to get about 8 hours of use (6cell), though it’s a bit down now after 2.5 years of constant use.

Admittedly not a handy as a tablet if all one needs is browsing and media consumption, but it does the job well enough. The smartphone takes care of my on-the-go browsing, email and IM needs.