Netbooks: Windows 7 for Netbook?

Windows 7 for Netbook?

There won't be any Win7 netbooks until 22 October 2009. I've been running Win7 Ultimate RC1 build 7100 on my ASUS Eee PC 1000H for the past four or five months, however. No serious problems. OTOH, it's too slow because of the Intel Atom N270 processor. I've decided to upgrade to an ASUS UL80Vt (14" screen) with an Intel SU7300 CULV (consumer ultra low voltage) processor. Before that, however, I thought I was going to get the ASUS UL30 (13.3" screen). It's got almost the same internals as the UL80, but it doesn't have the DVD drive. As much as I love my Eee PC, I think that it's worth getting a slightly larger screen with a higher resolution (1366 x 768) and faster system RAM (DDR3 with a front side bus of 1066 MHz). I plan on removing the DVD to bring the weight down to under 2 Kg.

Other manufacturers will also have new small-footprint netbooks/notebooks. I was also thinking of an HP dv2 (12.1" with an AMD Athlon Neo processor) or dv3/dv3t (13.3" with an Intel Core2 Duo Processor P8700 (2.53 GHz, 3 MB L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB)). These three are not as cheap as a netbook, but they provide more performance, and I find that I need that. Portability is fine, but even if you're using it only for the Net and email, portability is only one factor to consider. Performance is also important. I've been using an Eee PC since ASUS first came out with them. I'm on my third one. Netbooks are not fast enough or powerful enough for my needs. I am willing to compromise a little weight and size for more performance. I'd love to be able to use a Macbook Pro 13.3", but it's just too expensive to justify, even though money is not my primary consideration: I make my living using my computer, so the cost of the PC is secondary to me, but I really don't like Apple's business practices -- they're no more virtuous than Microsoft's, it seems to me -- and I must have Windows 7 to be able to service my particular set of customers (almost nobody in Taiwan uses Mac for serious work here).

You will have to decide for yourself what you are willing to give up to get better performance, and which of the new netbooks or small notebooks is best for your needs, but even with 2 GB of RAM, my Atom 270 processor is far too slow for me.