Over this past weekend, I finally pulled the trigger and bought myself a brand new netbook.  I have been eyeballing these ultra-portable computers for some time now, mainly for one simple reason: the train.  Most of you know that I ride the train to work every day…a commute which includes a 10-15 minute walk from the train station to my office, and back again at the end of the day.  Needless to say, my seven pound laptop, with assorted accessories was starting to weigh me down in more ways than one.

There were three netbooks I had been considering: The Lenovo IdeaPad S10, MSI Wind, and Asus EeePC 1000H.  Although all three were similar (they all use the same Atom chip, ship with Windows XP Home Edition, and feature a 10 inch screen), there were slight differences, which finally led me to decide once and for all on the Wind.

The Lenovo was, by far, the least expensive of the three.  However, with that price came a 512 MB of memory instead of a full GB.  It also came with the disappointing three cell battery, and an 80 GB hard drive.  The biggest drawback of the Lenovo, however, was my inability to actually find one.  A few days after its release, it was showing a ship date of four weeks.  A few days later, it was no longer available for pre-order.  As attractive as the Lenovo had seemed, I decided that I did not want to wait indefinitely if one of the others was more readily available.

On Saturday night, I stumbled upon the MSI Wind U100-016US at Newegg for $499.  This one had some impressive specs.  In addition to the 10 inch screen and Atom chip, it also featured a full GB of memory and a whopping 120 GB hard drive (I don’t think any of the others offered more than 80 GB.)  The only drawback was the 3-cell battery (oddly the pink version was available with the 6-cell battery, but not the black or white variations.)

At almost the same time, I saw the Asus eeep 1000H on Amazon.  The Asus was also impressive and featured the 6-cell battery that I coveted.  I stared at the two for what must have been hours.  They were almost identical in every way.  The only differences were the battery and the hard drive (the Asus had an 80 GB hard drive.)

Finally, though, I noticed the critical difference.  The Asus EeePC 1000H weighed in at 3.3 pounds.  A full pound heavier than the MSI Wind (even with a 6-cell battery, the Wind is only 2.6 pounds.)  And that was my deciding factor.  I determined that I could always upgrade the battery on my Wind later, but the Asus would never be lighter than 3.3 pounds…and probably heavier when you factored in a power cable, case, and other accessories.

So, my wallet (actually my Paypal account) is now just over $500 lighter (I paid an extra $4.00 for faster shipping), the money having been blown out by a strong gust of Wind.  I expect my new netbook to arrive tomorrow, so keep watching this space for a full unboxing and complete hands on review.

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