Aimed mostly at students, there are a growing number of options in the realm of mini-laptops, which I prefer to think of as laptots, because that's an adorable word. For example, if you do a search on Amazon for "mini-laptop", you come up with nearly two hundred results.
Prices range from around three hundred dollars to around six hundred, and the brands of the computers themselves range from Dell to HP to folks you may never have never heard of, like Sylvania to Asus to MSI. I read an interesting article at PC World, with lots of tips about what to look for in a netbook. One of Nystedt's tips was to look at the price:
"Companies have started promoting a wide range of netbooks at ever higher prices, but once you pass $500, netbooks start to compete with laptops, and a laptop will almost always give you more value for your money in that case."
Laptots are an excellent option for those of us without the funds to allow purchase of a full-blown laptop or PC. They give you all the wonders of the Internet, as well as some word processing capabilities, without a number of the add-ons you may not necessarily want.
The nifty thing about these little gadgets is their portability. Most come with built-in WiFi capabilities as well, so you’ll have no problem hooking up to hotspots. If you make sure you choose the largest battery available (generally a six-cell), you can get a decent day out of the mini-laptop without needing to charge. A standard three cell battery will give you between two - three hours, whereas a six cell batter will get you much closer to eight hours. If you're out running around, this is an absolute necessity.
If you’re looking for something you can watch DVDs on, or that will allow you to do much beyond surfing the net and checking your email on the go, then you likely want to move up to a regular laptop—there are plenty of tiny ones out there. But if you are looking for something small, light, and basic, check out laptots; you may just find exactly what you need.
Image via Laptop Ticker