I thought originally netbooks were supposed to have Flash/SSD drives, then all of a sudden they had shitty big spinning HDD's
Yeah, that's my main gripe with today's netbooks. My 701 has a very small and fairly slow (for a SSD) 4GB SSD, but I know that I can toss it around (relatively speaking) with impunity. The 1005HA has a hard disk, and I'm always worrying when I bump it against something or whatever. It's survived so far, but the feeling of not being able to trust it as much as I trust the 701 isn't nice. I tried running Linux off a 16GB SD card, and the trust was back, but the whole thing was way too slow, so I sighed and put the HD back in. But I'm about to get a Kingston SSDNow 30GB drive to solve this problem once and for all.
You're looking in the wrong places.
Very likely, but you have to remember I'm not in the US, we don't get the sweet deals you do.
First thing is that I would not want a 10" CULV. Those screens are too small. Just the small step to 11.6" makes for a huge difference in usable screen space, plus full sized keyboard.
This is a question of taste. I want my netbook to be 10" - I can take a ten-inch screen for several days before I start longing for something larger, and anywhere I'm likely to stay for more than that I have external screens I can hook it up to. I guess I could take a 11.6" though...
As for cost, I got a Hannspree CULV SU4100 (dual core CPU) with 12.1" screen for $400,
Nice! One question - does it have a matte screen?
"Average" cost of netbooks is probably just over $300. There are the cut down $250 netbooks, then plenty of $300-400 models.
I only consider €200 and lower in the netbook department - any higher and the drawbacks of the Atom start looking a lot less bearable. It does have to have a six-cell battery though.
I think the best deals right now are for N270 netbooks. That Atom model is old generation compared to the newer N540, but the only real difference is about 20% less battery life (not critical) and no support for 64-bit OS, which you don't really need on a netbook anyway. Performance-wise they're about the same, and the older N270s sell a lot cheaper - I've seen new ones on sale for €160 (though they invariably have 3-cell batteries).
Other netbooks have stuff like Ion graphics, but if you're going to spend more than €300 you might as well just get a CULV instead.
Heck, the new AMD Zacate platform looks really promising. HP is already selling one for $450 (on sale for $425) with a 1.6GHz AMD dual core, 3GB RAM, 250GB 7200RPM HDD (netbooks are typically 5400RPM), integrated Radeon graphics, 3.5 pounds, 11.6" screen, claimed 9.5 hour battery life (reviewers got "real world" 6-8 hours).
Performance-wise, is the Zacate more comparable to an Atom or to Intel CULV CPUs?
Depends. I have one that I've invested about $200 into (not counting OS or peripherals, just the box and what is in it). It is the size of a router and is attached to the back of my monitor. It has a 40GB SSD (Kingston/Intel), 2GB RAM, dual core D510 and a CrystalHD chip for HD video. Actually I may have paid more, maybe $220 for it, brand new. It works very well and I'm pleased with it.
Well, it certainly looks like a decent amount of goodies for just $220.
They were also really slow, more like the performance of USB flash drives than current SATA SSDs.
No, not quite. My EeePC 701's SSD is comparable in speed to a modern hard disk; the 701 and 1005HA take about the same time to boot Ubuntu. So a lot slower than a modern SSD, but a good deal faster than most thumbdrives.
Few "average consumers" were interested in small disk capacity or Linux (return rates will back that up).
Then again, people had the choice of Xandros with Asus netbooks and Linpus for Acers. Xandros was obsolete even when Asus started putting it on the 701, and Linpus had many usability issues.
Had they done the sensible thing and put Ubuntu on them, people would have probably liked them a lot more.
