I’ve noticed that too. I'm not a gadget geek, but I've a fascination with netbooks from the day the original 7"Asus Eee PC 701 started making headlines. I happened to fly to New York on the day the 8.9" Asus Eee PC 901 was supposed to hit the stores and I went to J&R as quickly as possible. Unfortunately deliveries where severally delayed. I live in Europe and it took another 3 months before the Eee PC 901 XP-version hit the stores here. That was a long wait, but we've been using our Eee every day since.

I think it's just the fact that netbooks are a new phenomenon and not everyone is an early adopter. Some people do not understand that netbooks are usually bought as secondary or tertiary PCs. And perhaps the fact that netbooks are quite often bought for spouses and children might play a role here as well as the fact that they are expected to become popular in poorer regions of the world like parts of Asia and South America. Perhaps they're seen as the poor man's laptop.

I travel by public transport regularly (which is quite normal here). I think it's much easier, but also a lot saver, to travel with a cheap, light and firm netbook than with a heavy, expensive and fragile laptop.

Some trend watchers think netbooks might become the most popular PC in the near future and I think there is good reason for it.

Netbooks are cool

I guess we'll have to wait until Apple launches a MacNetbook or something. Once that happens the 'tech elites' will stand in long lines, created by Apple marketers in front of New York's Apple stores. That will boost ordinary netbook sales as well.

Perhaps we will be seen as trendsetters, techno geeks and early adopters

netbooks are looked at as the short term solution mostly for traveling needs, I think desktops server more of the long term purpose.

The good thing now is there are more options for netbooks and are becoming more widely used than desktop in terms of personal choice. Just hook it up to a large monitor at home and its a desktop.

obviously they dont ahve one yet ! i dont think a pda can do everything that you can do on a net book, i have a pda and have pulled out my hair multiple times while browsing on such a tiny little screen !!