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PHeller - go to Best Buy and try some of the netbooks. The keyboards are tiny and usually have odd key placement for delete, function keys, etc. I like my Mini9 for web browsing and solitaire, but would never use it for schoolwork.
You can get 14" laptops for not much more than some of the netbooks, if you don't like the little keyboards. And they fit in most backpacks just fine.
Win7 isn't "lightyears" ahead of Vista but it's a definite improvement. That said, I picked out a 10v with Ubuntu for my sister and it's pretty nice. The version of Ubuntu it comes preinstalled with is a vendor-customized POS, I reinstalled a regular version of Ubuntu 9.04. The touch pad is a huge PITA to set up at first if you do a reinstall, but everything else went very smoothly (well except that I haven't figured out how to make the mic work). Just remember that the thing only has an 800x600 screen.
I am seeing alot of computer listed as having a free upgrade to 7 once it is fully released. not sure if that helps any
