I've decided that my 7-pound laptop, which is great for AutoCAD, photoshop and TF2, is too much of a hassle to carry around for just typing and internet browsing (I commute about 3 hours a day). Short story even shorter, I need a small laptop. I hate to just be up front about this, but it's so hard to see what's great in the netbook market because there are so many models with all different designs.

So I ask, with ~$500 budget, what's a good small laptop I could get? Or, to be more general, what company (toshiba, lenevo?) makes good stuff? Do you have something you like?

Recently, I've been eyeballing the Thinkpad x100e. While it seems to be great for typing, the heat problem worries me. So I'm not sure.

Anyone else looking for something similar?

When I bought my netbook, just like you, I already owned a desktop and a regular laptop so this is all from experience. I only wanted it for carrying around with me for browsing and just f'ing around.

With what you're going to be doing with it, speed, hard drive, memory, isn't gonna matter much. You don't need to spend nearly $500 unless you really want to. Take it from me, somebody who is very mobile with his netbook, that the most important (only?) thing you should look for is battery life. The Asus Eee PC model that I bought was the longest advertised battery life I could find, I believe the Newegg page said 10.5 hours. In actuality it lasts about 7.5 - 8 hours of use. I charge a couple times a week, much like I charge my cell phone, and that's NEVER turning it off, just closing it. It was $350 like a year ago and it's been very solid.

I'm sure you know this, but netbook screen are SMALL. My normal resolution on mine is 600 pixels tall. This usually isn't even enough to show any content on any site without significant scrolling. Compared to normal sized laptops and desktop, using a netbook is a real pain in the ass because of the small screen. I never use it when I have an alternative available. But, it's still a million times better than trying to use your cell phone to browse the web.

I have a gateway LT21, I hate it for only one reason: the resolution is moronic.
1024x600, 178 pixels from actually being able to a lot of things. Thankfully newer netbooks have 1366x768 so it's a non issue. Try and get an AMD if you are looking for graphics, Intel for battery power. If you can find one with ION2 it's gold.

Netbooks are awesome. I use the **** out of mine at school.

http://www.gearzap.com/ipad-folio-with-integrated-bluetooth-keyboard-black.html (they're temporarily sold out)

It's obviously not a good solution for you if you actually use Flash or a webcam though.

Oh god, what is that.

This is probably not what you're looking for, but I'm putting it out there just in case...

http://exopc.com/en/exopc-slate.php

Seems ideal for a lot of commuting!