Rationalizing a Netbook

I have been considering buying a netbook. They are very reasonable, but they have their limitations. Will it be worth buying?

Here are the pluses and minuses.

• Plus - It's highly mobile. Instead of schlepping my laptop around this will be a lot easier. And it still has a large enough screen size to demo my courses. My courses are never larger than 800 x 600 resolution, which is the common denominator for my e-learning audience's screens.


• Plus - For tasks like checking e-mail, blogging, and accessing the Internet it will work fine as long as I have access to WiFi.


• Minus - A netbook processor is not going to handle the development software I am using (e.g. Flash, Captivate, Dreamweaver, etc.). I will still need the laptop for that. Also, I would not enjoy developing on a small screen.


• Plus (I think) - I am starting to use Google docs. That is probably my limit as far as "working on the cloud" goes, unless you also count the blog as cloud computing. With the slow processor and more than just Google Docs being available on the cloud, the netbook will probably move me well onto (into?) the cloud out of necessity. I guess there are really pluses and minuses to cloud computing, but that is another post which I have not written yet.


• Plus - They are cheap, starting at $300.


• Minus - I don't have $300.

There are a lot more pluses than minuses. Granted, it will not replace my laptop when it comes to developing e-learning, but it will be a nice gadget for all my other typical computer tasks.