ITWire

Rene Haas, general manager for notebook GPUs at NVIDIA said, "The ASUS Eee PC 1201N delivers exceptional performance for a netbook. This ION-powered Eee PC is ideal for anyone who wants a netbook with the ability to watch HD video, share and edit photos, play casual game and convert video to a portable media player."

Which brings us back to my hobbyhorse: exactly what is it (leaving aside arbitrary definitions imposed by software or hardware vendors for licensing purposes) that makes a netbook a netbook?

I submit that it has become a Humpty Dumpty term only of use to marketers. With Asus referring to "the Eee PC 1201N's ability to work with visual content, accelerating processor-intensive tasks such as video editing and conversion", it's clear that the netbook has gone beyond the original idea of a cheap, mobile device primarily for accessing web-based content and applications.