Netbooks

For months, I've been fiddling with a variety of netbooks, trying to understand their burgeoning popularity. But I'm still mystified.

Netbooks are small, stripped-down laptops that are inexpensive ($400-ish) and lightweight (3 lb.--ish). But their screens and keyboards are too petite for my taste, and they tend to lack the all-important DVD drive. That said, the idea behind netbooks isn't a bad one: since just about every type of program we need is freely available online (from e-mail to PowerPoint knockoffs), why pay for expensive computers that run expensive software programs? Better yet, when you create a document using one of these free services, you can't lose it; the document lives up in the "cloud," on a server, there whenever you want it.

If, that is, you're connected to the Net. AT&T recently announced a pilot project in Atlanta and Philadelphia that lets netbook users log on anywhere they can get a 3G cellular signal, which will greatly expand coverage beyond the usual islands of wi-fi. In exchange for commitment to a two-year data-service plan, AT&T is subsidizing a range of mini-laptops, which start as low as $49.99. The data plan costs from $40 per month (for 200 MB, which is good for business users), to $60 per month (for 5 GB, enough to move around music and video).

AT&T let me test the service at my home in Northern California, and it worked well. In terms of speed, side-by-side tests actually gave AT&T's 3G cellular network the edge over my cable-powered wi-fi network. And no matter where I roamed outside, so long as 3G or wi-fi was available, I was able to get online. No word when this service plan will be commercially available nationwide. Maybe by the time it is, I'll understand the netbook phenomenon too.